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Just
Because It's High Tech and Costs $257 Billion Doesn't Mean It
Works
The Saga of the
Joint Strike Fighter
By WINSLOW T. WHEELER
Remember America's P-39 "Aircobra"
or the all-purpose Messerschmitt 210 Hornisse (Me-210 Hornet)
of World War II? Or perhaps the U.S. Air Force's expensive all-weather
F-89 Scorpion of 1950?
Everyone should. They carry
important lessons. Each was an advanced technology combat aircraft,
and the Bell P-39 was even low cost, relatively speaking. But
each was also a dismal failure.
The P-39 was almost helpless
against the Japanese Zero; the Me-210 - produced in considerable
numbers was such a disaster that German pilots refused
to fly it, and it was fobbed off onto Germany's "allies."
The F-89 didn't even make it into the air combat of the Korean
war. That a combat aircraft is "high tech" or even
that it is expensive is no guaranty it will be a success in combat.
In the 1970s, the Air Force
started to buy large numbers of the low cost F-16 to compliment
the high cost F-15. Both designs were highly successful, but
neither were what the Air Force initially wanted. The subject
of internal bureaucratic wars, both designs, especially the F-16,
were forced on the Air Force by a small group that became known
as the "fighter mafia." The aircrafts' extraordinary
performance paid off, both in combat and in the Pentagon bureaucracy.
Today the Defense Department (DOD) seeks to replicate the F-15/F-16
experience with small numbers of the high cost F-22 and large
numbers of the low cost Joint Strike Fighter (also designated
F-35).
It is unclear, however, whether
the F-22/F-35 duo comes from the tradition of the F-15/F-16 or
the P-39 and the F-89. The F-22 is already the subject of considerable
controversy, and it appears the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may
be in for the same.
A recent
report on the F-35 from the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) tells a foreboding story. Begun in 1996, the program is
already showing cost increases, production reductions, and schedule
delays. Worse, the ongoing acquisition plan is to ignore the
highly successful "fly before you buy" experience with
the F-16 and to test the F-35 only well after full production
has begun.
According to the GAO report,
the current DOD plan is to spend $257 billion to buy 2,443 aircraft
with the first aircraft becoming operational in 2013. This plan
is already costing 84 percent more in the development phase than
originally planned; program acquisition costs per aircraft are
up 28 percent, and it is all taking five years longer than first
thought. Moreover, the DOD plan has already reduced the number
of aircraft to be produced by 535 aircraft. The report also
notes that there appears to be little promise that the current
acquisition plan will not experience even more cost overruns,
schedule delays, and production reductions.
Nor is there any promise that
F-35 performance will be what was originally promised. In fact,
no one will know until well after production has begun. Flight
testing will not begin until four years after production starts.
By 2013 when initial operational testing is finally complete,
424 aircraft will have been produced. As so often happens with
such "concurrent" acquisition programs, when the inevitable
technical problems are discovered, there will be additional delays
and costs to address them.
The GAO recommends that DOD
delay most production until after sufficient testing has shown
the design can perform at just a basic level, but the Pentagon
has rejected that modest, even tentative, recommendation. The
unfortunate result would seem almost inevitable.
Winslow T. Wheeler is the Director of the Straus Military
Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information. He spent
31 years working for US Senators from both parties and the Government
Accountability Office.He contributed an essay on the
defense budget to CounterPunch's new book: Dime's
Worth of Difference. Wheeler's
new book, "The
Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security,"
is published by the Naval Institute Press.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
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