The House Defense appropriations bill is out and includes 90 F-35’s for the US services up 12 from the 78 requested in PB20. The Senate may end up with more but it’s pretty certain that the FY20 F-35 orders will be in the 90-95 range for the USAF, USN and USMC.

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Yes, but how did they lower procurement cost? Not to mention incoming TR3 (necessary to get a really operational aircraft)

What? Maybe in an alternate universe but not in the real one that the rest of us live in. The Tech refresh 3 is not Necessary to be “really operational aircraft” even though I don’t understand what this really means. Count the number of nations, and number of aircraft they are buying in the SDD configuration. Most aircraft programs won’t deliver as many in their entire life-cycle as the JSF progam would in a 5 year window. Operators all around the world are flying the SDD configuration with block-4 coming down the pike.

Perhaps it is in the Brigganti’s clown brigade world but not in the F-35 world or at least not according to pilots who are actually flying the aircraft in its SDD form.

Delaying capabilities so that they will be financed buy CAPE..On well about 1000 F-35?

This is an English language forum and to be respectful of everyone’s time could you please spend enough time drafting a post so that it is easy to read and comprehend? What does the above part mean? CAPE is an accounting and cost estimation authority. How will it be financing capabilities? Completely bonkers…

I won’t pretend to understand what “On well about 1000 F-35” means either but here’s what I will say –

The FY20 negotiated price for 2022 deliveries of around $80 Million will be for aircraft that are kitted with exactly what they were supposed to be kitted with for 2022 deliveries at the time the program’s current price target (80 Million) goals were set. They didn’t lower procurement cost by cutting things as you have erroneously, or possibly deliberately, tried to imply. It will be the same SDD aircraft @ $80 Million that is currently rolling off the line at $89 Million or that was rolling off the line at $94 Million a few years ago. Isn’t it amazing what economies of scale of moving production into the 150’s does?

Finally, as Block 4 hardware changes are added the aircraft’s procurement cost is expected to largely keep pace with inflation. The first block-4 hardware kitted aircraft, for example, is not expected to cost much different from the final block 3F aircraft delivered from the line. The broader trend in economies of scale and production learning curve efficiencies will continue and the relatively low procurement cost will continue as long as the program keeps to its pace of production.

The negotiated URF for FY20 lot buys may even be below $80 Million (possibly down to $78 Million even)..and don’t expect the first Block 4 production lot contract to be in the $90+ Million range..The aim is to keep the cost largely the same per unit ballpark with high production rates for the new components offsetting some of their higher costs..

Or, in other terms, that for the Nth time they (‘muricans, F-16net teenage trolls but also propaganda outlets of MIC) keep on selling us (or better to their own internal audience) future projections as actual things?

You have pointed how it seems that are the TR1 planes to keep such cost high, so can we conclude that the whole concurrency thing keep on proving itself as a very, very costly error without being labelled as trolls, haters or accused to be on Putin’s Payroll?

No one has ever claimed that the F-35 cost estimate of $25K CPFH was the current state. For god’s sake, multiple SAR”s have been presented here over the years and all have included the CAPE estimates. As long as one can read English it should not be very hard to comprehend even if English is your second or third language.

The $25K estimate is over the entire fleet and is in comparison to the F-16, also over this entire time-frame. A 100-page document has also been provided, several times, most recently as this week, for you to look at to determine what is included in the comprehensive CPFH. The fleet has yet to be bed-down in its entirety and they are still going through block transitions so it will be quite a while before the CPFH comes down and is stabilized. This is the case with every program. Currently, both CAPE and the JPO estimate this at around 2024-2025 time-frame when the fleet would be substantially larger, more modern, and some of the supply chain and infrastructure related investments would have panned out.

You also need to check what constitutes concurrency. Upgrading aircraft is not concurrency. It is a decision to keep the aircraft modernized and upgraded through its life. This will always be the case. TR1–TR2—TR3—TR4 etc. In 2025 early plans for TR4 will be in motoin and by 2030 TR4 systems will probably begin fielding and you will again have a fragmented fleet.

Concurrency has to do with changes required post production that are a result of things found during developmental testing.These are two completely different and unrelated things as most would know had they spent the amount of time you have on this thread over the years.

Having a diverse fleet is not a concurrency problem, but a ground reality of an operator’s decision to transition components to the most modern standard at a pace that its budgets can afford. So you will always have a fragmented fleet at a range of technology levels as they gradually upgrade all of it. This is by design and a good thing as you don’t want to wait 20 years to introduce a major upgrade like the classic MLU upgrade model. Most modern programs are moving away from that.

A serious question would however be if at a certain point the modernization process of such planes (and the ones in production just now) would be freezed or if they would still get “heavy” upgradings i.e. those that would require intervention on the frames and not just software upgrades and if yes, what it would be?

Passing from 3I to 3F and in the near future to 4 would have a cost but I guess that the one intervention you said and the one that would eventually would be required to pass to 4.25 would be way higher (and would require to keep the planes aground for a way longer time).

This was hard to read but from what I can make out, it seems you are asking whether block 3F aircraft will be upgraded to block-4 and beyond? The answer is YES. The exact size of these (as a percentage of the fleet) would vary by operator. A substantial portion of the 3F fleet is moving to block-4 and getting the new mission computers, upgrades to its EW suite (hardware) and all the other dozens of changes associated with the program. I don’t understand what else you mean by “intervention on the frames” but these are some of the things that have been shared on block-4. What comes in block-5 remains to be seen but it is easy to guess that just like the block-3F to block 4 upgrade transition most serious operators would like to bring at least a portion of their fleet up to the block 5 standard. This is an 8000 hr airframe which will likely be used for 12K hours by most operators..so plenty of time to stagger future upgrades..

Seems that DARPA’s TBG and HAWC programs are running neck and neck in terms of their respective first flights –

Walker: Hypersonic HAWC and TBG Neck-And-Neck to Fly by End of Year

Two hypersonic missile development projects jointly underway between the Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are in a “race” to see which will fly first, but DARPA’s director said he expects it will happen by the end of this year, or early next.

Steven Walker, at a press roundtable in Washington, said he’s “hopeful” the Tactical Boost Glide or Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept projects will fly by December, though he said making that timetable will be “sporty.”

“As you get into the building of these things [and] qualify flight hardware, things tend to slip,” Walker allowed. “So, I’m hopeful that we can fly both of those by the end of ’19 [but] it may slip into the early ’20 timeframe.”

He said, “It’s really a race between HAWC and TBG to see which one goes first. They’re actually both scheduled around the same time … I can’t really see right now which one’s going to win out.”

Both approaches are accelerated to hypersonic speed atop a booster stage, but the TBG is a maneuvering coast vehicle that gradually bleeds off its velocity, while the HAWC takes in air to mix with fuel for a powered trajectory. They are both “focused on tactical and theater-level operations,” Walker noted.

Taking two different approaches to a hypersonic weapon is sensible, Walker asserted. “It’s good to have what I consider intended redundancy, because it’s a harder technology. Materials and propulsion systems that last in 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures is not easy.” He added, “These are going to be important tests for DARPA and the Air Force.”

The Advanced Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW, will be an outgrowth of the TBG, Walker noted, suggesting it’s considered the most likely to be in service first. Prototyping activities on the concept with the Air Force are designed “so that the service could accept these concepts if they were successful in flight.” Under ARRW, USAF would be “taking that TBG concept and flying it several more times through the prototyping level, building some number for the Air Force.” This was “a very important thing we were able to do last year in the budget.”

Walker noted that Pentagon research and engineering czar Mike Griffin “has been able to get a lot more money into the service budgets for hypersonics for ’20,” and “you will see in the next several years the US aggressively pursuing these technologies; and not just pursuing, … but really thinking about how to turn it into a capability.”

Both projects are entering the “assembly, integration, and test phase,” Walker noted, a period when it’s not uncommon to have to “requalify things … [You] put all that together and you test the whole system, you hope it all works and has been done correctly. We’re still very much in the early stages of AIT for both programs.” He also cautioned that scheduling range tests and ensuring they’re done “by the book” can complicate or cause delays to testing. “Once you get into test hardware, there are all sorts of things you have to face down every day and beat back,” he added.

Technologically, tough challenges include managing temperatures and materials to withstand them, Walker said.

DARPA is also working with the Army on a variant of TBG that would be lofted to altitude and speed by an all-new booster. The project, called “Op Fires,” is a 50-50 cost sharing program with the Army. The booster is being eyed “to give some controllability to where that front end can be put. Re-entry conditions for a glider are very important for how far it can go, and what the environment it sees is.” Three “small companies” are working on the booster, he said.

For the Air Force versions, Walker said the B-52 will be the test launch vehicle.The Navy, meanwhile, is considering whether the HAWC approach could be a solution to its needs, though it hasn’t finished studying the issue and has made no decision, Walker reported.

“I do know the Navy is working on the larger OSD program, but that’s not really a DARPA thing,” he added.

Hypersonics is an urgent technology push, Walker insisted, because although the US has “led the way” in research previously, “some of our peer competitors have taken that technology and turned it into a capability faster than we have.” It’s “an area that I believe the US really needs to make progress in and be a leader in.”

You meant F-15, right ?
Anyway being below current costs of an ageing airframe whose costs are skyrocketing is not an achievement.

No, the F-16C. The CAPE looked at total CPFH comparison over the lifetime to include all mission critical elements and costs that are depicted in the graphic shared by Spudman earlier. Once you factor all that manpower cost and the cost of the supporting elements that are traditionally not factored into the F-16 CPFH calculation, but are in the F-35, then that CPFH on the F-16 climbs to well above $25K.

Again, these are not your simple operating costs that look at fuel and spares etc. The CAPE definitions are some of the most comprehensive set of metrics that get rolled into CPFH and they have published plenty of documents that define exactly what each element of that is.

For example, from Spud’s post above, the CAPE considered the following cost elements while considering the F-35/F-16 CPFH –

– Unit-Level Manpower
– Unit Operations
– Maintenance
– Sustaining Support
– Continuing System Improvements
– Indirect Support and
– Other

This is a comprehensive list and includes a lot more than just the cost incurred if one were to deploy the aircraft. It includes long term sustainment, support and even system improvements. A lot of these are fleet wide spends that are then allocated with FH as the allocation base. As with basic accounting, which cost elements you consider and how you allocate that cost needs to be well understood for one to make sense of any CPFH $$ amount that is being discussed.

A detail description for each of those elements is provided by CAPE below. I am yet to come across an equally exhaustive official document that describes each and every element included in a CPFH estimate from other OEM’s or supporting government services. I’ve asked in the past from some of the forum members but they haven’t provided anything yet. What we get is usually a number. $5000, $10000 or $15000 but unless you have the underlying analysis that shows what elements are included one has no basis to do an apples to apples comparison. A good example of that is the earlier chart cited by Spud. One could easily claim, based on that, that the F-16C costs under $10K per hour to operate. In reality however, once the CAPE looked at all of the data and attempted to estimate the overall operational cost as measured per flying hour with a more comprehensive set of cost elements the cost jumped to above $25K.

https://www.cape.osd.mil/files/os_gu…march_2014.pdf

Yup, and the OSD mandate is 80% for the combat coded fleet with the USAF, USMC and USN by October 1. The data doesn’t break the MC rates down by combat coded and non combat coded types.

The strategy of having highly capable LPI MADL, AN/AAQ-37 and its Next Gen. variant and the ESM coverage is better than the ATF approach, for the JSF application, though the latter would work well for the ATF’s CMD mission as there organic capability may come in handy. Once you have a number of UAV’s and Loyal wingmen sharing the same airspace and mission then how you evolve MADL will probably become more relevant to how well you integrate these platforms when it comes to developing a fully integrated and stitched air picture for SA and fire control.

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