WASHINGTON --- The Pentagon’s F-35 fiasco continues. At $412 billion for 2,470 jets for the Air Force, Marines, and Navy (over 75% more [PDF] than originally estimated), you’d think they’d be spending enough money to get it right. But you’d be…wrong. The most expensive weapon system in world history ran into some unexpected turbulence March 29 when the three-star Air Force general piloting the program revealed that the engine in the single-engine plane isn’t up to snuff. Even worse: it never has been. “We have been eating into the life of this engine since the beginning of the program, because we did under-spec the engine and its requirements,” Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt told a congressional panel. “We are building costs into this program by eating into the life of this engine with additional overhauls that are expected over the life of the program.” (To “under-spec” means drafting specifications for a weapon in development that are not robust enough for it in the real world.) Mind you, the F-35 engine isn’t your typical motor. It’s such a huge program that since 2010 (PDF) it has warranted its own entry (PDF) in the Pentagon’s irregularly-issued Selected Acquisition Reports. That separates it from the “F-35 aircraft” line item (one way to make the plane, um, glider, appear less expensive). And from the day the program began, the Pentagon and engine-builder Pratt & Whitney agreed the engine could be out of order five times as often as those used on other U.S. fighter jets.
Turns out the F-35’s increasingly complicated on-board computers need more electric and cooling capabilities than originally thought. That requires its $27 million (PDF) F135 engine to run harder, which wears it out more quickly.
In 2008, F-35 builder Lockheed discovered the engine was too wimpy. Five years later (and you wonder why defense procurement is like molasses in February?) it asked the Pentagon to beef up the engine. “But program officials determined that it was too late to redesign the engine given the cost and schedule impacts of such a change at that stage of the overall program,” Jon Ludwigson of the Government Accountability Office told (PDF) that same House hearing. Striking to say that it was “too late” to fix the engine given that, a decade later, the F-35 has yet to enter full-rate production because of continuing problems.
Pentagon bottom line: the engine has to run twice as hot as designed. That wears it out more quicky, which requires more maintenance. That’s a big reason why only 29.3% of the Pentagon’s 564 already-delivered F-35s were able to fly all their missions in February. For the math-challenged among us, that means barely one in four F-35s is fully ready to fly and fight. To combat this, the F-35 program has launched what it is calling its “War on Readiness” (PDF). Technically speaking, of course, it’s already winning that war. What it should be launching is a War on Unreadiness.
Taxpayer bottom line: Anyone who has brought their car into the shop for repairs knows it isn’t cheap. “When you send an engine back more times than it was supposed to over [its] life … it is a huge amount of money that is going to cost us to refurbish these engines many extra times,” Schmidt told Defense One.
How big is “huge”? The GAO pegs the extra cost (PDF) of tending to the anemic engine at (hold your breath)…
$38 billion.
That works out to more than $100 for every American. Not for the plane. Or its engine. Or to keep that engine running. It’s just for the extra repairs the engine requires because its blueprints were so lousy.
Content from @RaytheonTech: Jennifer Latka, VP of F135 Program, @prattandwhitney outlines why upgrading the existing engine is the best option in modernizing the F-35. pic.twitter.com/2IAjieGGwM
— Washington Post Live (@PostLive) April 7, 2023
But don’t fear. To grapple with this challenge, the F-35 program has launched a second campaign that it calls its “War on Cost” (PDF). Turns out China and Russia aren’t the only foes that can blow the F-35 out of the sky. “Cost,” Schmidt says, “is a significant threat to the F-35 program.”
Actually, cost is the significant threat to the F-35 program.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Mercifully for the program, the author didn't mention the fact that to power the F-35's Block 4 upgrade - the one that will bring it up to contractual requirements - the aircraft needs a much more powerful engine, and one that runs even hotter.
This, in turn, will require additional cooling, which the F-35 cannot provide because its thermal management performance is already at maximum capability. Having refused to buy the Adaptive Engine that General Electric developed to replace the current F-35 engine, the Pentagon will soon find itself with an even worse-performing aircraft for which there will be no fix.)
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