Sky Talk

F-35 flight testing update

Lockheed says the first F-35A test aircraft has now completed 45 flights and the F-35B has flown eight more times since its first sortie in mid-June.

The test plan for the first airplane has fallen about a month behind schedule. It was supposed to be ferried to Edwards Air Force Base in California last month, but cooling fans that operate on the ground have been unable to cope with the Texas heat and forced some flight postponements.

Seventeen other F-35 test aircraft are in various stages of assembly, including two F-35B models that are nearly completed. One is due to be rolled out this month and the second this fall.

Work is under way on the first two production-model jets, which are scheduled for delivery to the U.S. Air Force in 2010.

-- Bob Cox

Padding the bill?

That's what Lockheed Martin apparently hopes to do as it negotiates future contracts with the Department of Defense for the next round of work on the F-35 joint strike fighter program, according to this post on the Dew Line by very alert aviation scribe Stephen Trimble.

Trimble, citing Morgan Stanley aerospace analyst Heidi Wood, says Lockheed has proposed a plan for billing the government that would allow the company to charge a percentage as overhead costs on top of the overhead costs charged by the other major contractors, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems.

It's a bit of accounting wizardry, but it would work something like this: Contractor A sends a bill to Contractor B for $100 including, say, a 10 percent markup on top of actual costs to pay for overhead like management salaries, office space and public relations. Contractor B then sends the government a bill for $500, including Contractor A's bill. Contractor B adds its own 10 percent fee to its actual costs, which includes a 10 percent fee on top of the 10 percent levied by Contractor A.

-- Bob Cox

House panel would divert F-35 funds for engine

In its first crack at writing a 2009 defense budget, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense ignored the Bush administration and Pentagon desires and opted to take funds from building more F-35s to pay for additional test aircraft and development of second engine.

The Pentagon budget request called for spending $3.7 billion to purchase 16 low-rate initial production aircraft, eight each for the Air Force and Marines, that would be delivered in the 2010-2011 time frame for initial pilot training and operational testing.

An additional $3 billion was budgeted by the administration for continued research, development and testing of the F-35.

The House panel decided instead to strip $786 million from the aircraft production plan, about four planes. Instead the panel wants to add $320 million to the test program and buy two additional flight test aircraft that the Pentagon cut from the program to save money, and also spend $430 million to pay for continued development of a second engine by General Electric and Rolls Royce.

The Pentagon is seeking to accelerate production of the F-35 even as it continues development and test work, despite criticism from the Government Accountability Office and others that the overall schedule may be too ambitious.

In addition to the 16 planes for the Air Force and Marines, Great Britain wants to buy two aircraft and the Netherlands one in the 2009 production lot that they will use for training and testing.

Lockheed Martin spokesman John Kent downplayed the differences between the Pentagon budget request and the House panel's initial bill, saying the subcommittee markup "is but one point in the budget process which is farm from being finalized."

-- Bob Cox

Pentagon ok's more F-35 funding

Lockheed Martin has received Pentagon approval to proceed with production work on six F-35B Lightning II aircraft for the Marine Corps.

John Young, under secretary of defense and weapons buying czar, has released $1 billion of 2008 funding to build the six aircraft. Young had withheld the money pending completion of the first flight of the F-35B test aircraft in June and a further review of the propulsion system following discovery last year of engine compressor blade flaws.

Congress appropriated $2.2 billion in the 2008 defense budget for 12 aircraft, six F-35As for the Air Force and six F-35Bs, the short-takeoff-and-landing (STOVL) version. Earlier this year Young gave the ok to begin for work on the F-35As, but had held up the F-35B funding.

“Getting these STOVL aircraft into production quickly is critical to supporting the USMC’s aviation recapitalization objectives,” said Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin executive vice president and F-35 program general manager.

In addition to the two aircraft now being used for flight tests, Lockheed and the subcontractors are building the other 17 test aircraft previously funded by the government, two initial production aircraft funded in 2006 and 2007, plus the 12 funded in the 2007-2008 budgets.

The Pentagon in May also released $197 million for purchasing materials and other long lead-time components for the third low rate production lot of F-35s, which are expected to be funded in the 2009 defense budget.

The first F-35A test aircraft has completed 45 flights and the first F-35B has flown nine times, according to Lockheed officials.

-- Bob Cox

Analysts: Navy lagging on unmanned aircraft

Navy officials are not in any big hurry to put serious money and effort behind developing an unmanned combat aircraft, which is shortsighted according to a report by two respected defense analysts.

Bob Work and Tom Ehrhard of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments say the Navy is not putting enough emphasis on its UCAS-D program, a contract with Northrop Grumman to build two unmanned combat-type aircraft and show they can operate on aircraft carrier decks.

Unmanned attack aircraft could fly much farther without refueling than manned aircraft and, with aerial refueling, stay on station for hours and even days, greatly extending the combat strikign capability of the Navy's carrier fleet.

Work and Ehrhard say this capability is vitally important to the Navy's future and could be the key to keeping carriers relevant in combat by keeping them in the fight and out of range of land-based anti-ship missiles.

Graham Warwick of Aviation Week has posted on this subject also saying the Navy is heading to kill off its fledgling unmanned program before it can ever fly.

- Bob Cox

Dutch to rethink F-35 commitment, Israel ready to buy

Aviation Week's scribe Bill Sweetman, who digs deeply into the minutest details of fighter jet minutia, reports on the Ares blog that Dutch lawmakers have succeeded in pushing that country's Ministry of Defence to hold a full evaluation and competition for new jet fighters.

The Dutch are charter members of the JSF fan club, having contributed big chunks of cash to the development effort but proponents of European fighter jets have been arguing the country needed to look closer at other, possibly less expensive alternatives.

Parliament, according to the reports, did approve some funding for the purchase of test F-35 aircraft.

Israel, on the other hand, isn't waiting for much of anything, even a successful test flight. Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Bob Stevens confirmed today that the Israeli government has formally asked the U.S. government for permission to purchase F-35s.

Details would still have to be worked out between Israel and the U.S., but a formal order from Israel would likely come in 2011 with the first planes being available for beginning pilot training in 2011.

Lockheed expects to conduct the first test flight of the second F-35 within the next week or two.

- Bob Cox

F-35B closing in on first flight

Lockheed Martin officials say they're making good progress preparing the F-35B for its first flight, probably in the next couple of weeks. Various pre-flight reviews have been completed and ground testing of the engine and flight controls continues.

Thanks to Steve Trimble at Flight International for spotting and passing along this video link of a very recent engine test of the F-35B.

- Bob Cox

Reports say Pentagon has approved F-35 buy, plan

We still haven't see or heard anything official ourselves out of Washington and Lockheed sources are staying mum, but financial analysts are telling their clients that the Pentagon has given the go ahead to plans to buy the next 12 F-35 joint strike fighters.

Citigroup, in a message to investors says: "As we expected, the DoD approved the second low-rate initial production contract for 12 F-35 Lightning II fighter jets at the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) meeting on April 8th. The contract will be for 6 conventional Air Force jets and six short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) jets for the Marines. The STOVL contract will be dependent on first flight of that variant, which should occur in late May or early June. The procurement costs for the Air Force and Marines will be $1.3 and $1.1 billion, respectively."

No one at Lockheed or the Joint Strike Fighter program office expected anything very different, but as of Monday our sources said that John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, had not issued a formal acquisition decision memorandum.

- Bob Cox

Keeping F-22 stealthy is hard to do

The high cost of buying military aircraft often gathers a lot of political and media attention, but the hard work and high cost to keep planes flying and operating properly is usually overlooked.

Now, as Bill Sweetman writes at Aviation Week's Ares blog, the GAO has some disquieting observations about the Air Force's F-22 Raptor. The F-22, it seems, needs almost constant TLC to maintain its alleged cloak of invisibility to radar.

Basically, the F-22 is taking between two and three times as much maintenance as it should, despite $132 million in upgrades. The recent incident in which an F-22 ingested a piece of radar absorbent material is an example of a problem that should be on the way to being solved, but the trend to date is not encouraging.

It was supposed to be better, much easier to maintain the F-117 and the B-2. And of course the F-35 is supposed to be even better. Time will tell.

- Bob Cox

No verdict on F-35 production

Chief Pentagon weapons buyer John Young is apparently still deliberating on how to proceed with development and acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, is still evaluating proposals to authorize production of 12 F-35s in the wake of last week's Defense Acquisition Board meeting, according to a statement issued by his office Monday.

Congress appropriated funding for the 6 F-35A (conventional take off) and 6 F-35B (short takeoff, vertical landing) low-rate production airplanes in the fiscal year 2008 defense budget and additional funds to buy long lead time parts for 19 aircraft expected to be authorized in fiscal year 2009.

_ Bob Cox