"The annual operating costs of the F-35 fleet are expected to significantly exceed the combined annual operating costs of the fleets of several previous generation combat aircraft types." This is perhaps the quintessence of a 60-page report prepared by the Government Accountability Office and released in September 2014. Indeed, if the total operating costs of the F-15C / D, F-16C / D, AV- 8B and F / A-18A / B / C / D for the year in 2010 prices for today reach $ 11.1 billion, then similar costs for the F-35A / B / C fleet, according to the calculations of American experts, will reach 19, 9 billion dollars. Thus, the program for the creation of the 5th generation fighter F-35 once again confirms the status of the most expensive in the history of the US Armed Forces. However, not everything is so bad - there are also pleasant moments.
Actual data
In September 2014, at the traditional Aerospace Conference and Exhibition held annually by the Air Force Association Air and Space Conference 2014, the Vice President of Lockheed Martin Corporation and Head (Director) the F-35 Lightning II program by Lorraine Martin. In the report, as of September 10, 2014, the most relevant - from the point of view of the developer company - information on the course of the implementation of the program for the creation of the 5th generation F-35 fighter was presented.
The first Australian F-35A is in the air. Fort Worth, Texas, September 29, 2014
According to this report, the transition to the stage of large-scale production of aircraft intended for all three types of the US Armed Forces, as well as for delivery to the partners of the United States in the program and the closest allies of Washington, is planned to be carried out in the second half of 2016. modifications of the F-35 - "normal" (F-35A), with a short takeoff and landing (F-35B) and shipborne (aircraft carrier) (F-35C) - will be carried out as part of the program of small-scale production: from batch number 1 (Lot I), within which for the US Air Force in the period 2006-2011. two aircraft of the F-35A modification were built, and before batch number 11, about which it is only known that the production of aircraft within its framework is planned for 2016-2019.
However, so far the US Department of Defense has firmly contracted - back in September 2013 - only 35 aircraft (F-35A - 24, F-35B - 7, F-35C - 4) within the seventh batch with a total value of $ 11.45 billion. and a deadline for 2012-16, and also tentatively announced its intention to conclude this year a contract for 43 aircraft, including 19 F-35A, six F-35B and four F-35C, within the eighth small-scale batch - with a deadline for the implementation of the assignment during 2013-17.
Moreover, the start of deliveries of aircraft to combat squadrons of the branches of the US Armed Forces is planned as follows:
• Marine Corps (modification F-35B): in July 2015, the first squadron, which will number 10-16 fighters, should reach initial operational readiness. The aircraft will have to have fully functional software of the Block 2B type and be able to solve the tasks of providing close air support, conducting offensive and defensive actions, intercepting, escorting strike groups, as well as conducting "armed reconnaissance together with the forces and means of air-ground operational formations. Marine Corps (original Marine Air-Ground Task Forces-MAGTF) ";
• Air Force (modification F-35A): in August - December 2016, the first squadron of 12-24 fighters should reach the state of initial operational readiness. By that time, the squadron's personnel should be ready to tackle the tasks of providing close air support, interception, "limited suppression of the enemy", as well as the fight against enemy aircraft and air defense systems. According to experts, by this date, all aircraft will not be able to receive software (software) such as Block 3F;
• Naval Forces (F-35C modification): the first squadron of 10 aircraft should reach initial operational readiness between August 2018 and February 2019. The fighters should have received Block 3F-type software by then and should be able to solve all tasks assigned traditionally to the US Navy aviation.
The report also indicates that as of September 10, 2014, foreign partners have contracted a total of 42 aircraft of the F-35 family of various modifications, including:
• Royal Australian Air Force - 14 F-35B fighters;
• Royal Air Force of Great Britain - two F-35B;
• Royal Netherlands Air Force - two F-35A fighters;
• Israeli Air Force - 20 modified to meet the specific requirements of the Israeli military aircraft F-35I;
• Italian Air Force - three "conventional" F-35A fighters.
As you can see, the F-35C modification designed to be based on aircraft carriers remains unclaimed among foreign - non-American - customers of the F-35 Lightning II fighters. The list of promising operators of this modification, specially designed for basing on aircraft carriers with catapult take-off, so far includes only the US Navy aviation, which was contracted within the framework of small-scale batches No. 1-6, with a period of implementation in 2008-2016, 18 aircraft, four more aircraft - under the contract for batch number 7 with a deadline for implementation until 2016, and the American Navy intends to contract four more vehicles within the framework of the eighth small-scale batch with a planned implementation period until 2017.
Success of foreign customers
A pair of F-35Cs refuel for the first time from the KS-130 Hercules air tanker near Patuxent River, January 2013.
As of September 10, 2014, Lockheed Martin has delivered a total of 125 F-35s in three modifications from the assembly line, all of which are currently in the United States. Including those aircraft that were built under contracts with foreign customers, even though officially these aircraft were handed over to these very customers. They are being tested and used to train the personnel of the air forces of the customer countries.
Highlights in the F-35 program this summer were the rollout of the first two aircraft, AU-1 and AU-2, to the Royal Australian Air Force on 24 July at a facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The latter, we recall, within the framework of the Project Air 6000 program intend to purchase 72 F-35A aircraft for a total amount of 12.4 billion Australian dollars (about 11.6 billion dollars), in addition, today they are engaged in the production program 30 Australian companies receiving orders for $ 412 million
The first Australian aircraft, the AU-1, was successfully flown from the Lockheed Martin airfield in Fort Worth on September 29, 2014. The fighter was piloted by Lockheed Martin Senior Test Pilot Alan Normann, the flight lasted about two hours and brought, the statement of representatives of the developer company, "positive results."
The official transfer of both aircraft to the customer is scheduled for the end of 2014, after which they will be redeployed to the US Air Force Luke, Arizona, where the training of foreign air force pilots participating in the F-35 program is mainly carried out. Next year, it is planned to begin training the first Australian pilots, and in 2018 the first F-35s are to fly to Australia - the third air squadron of the Australian Air Force is to reach the first combat readiness with 5th generation fighters. Delivery and commissioning of all 72 machines should be completed by 2023.
On the territory of the "Kangaroo Continent" the planes are to be based at two air bases of the National Air Force: at Williamtown Air Force Base, New South Wales, and at Tyndall Air Base, Northern Territories. According to Australian sources, at these two airbases to support the basing (operation) of F-35A aircraft, corresponding infrastructure facilities with a total cost of about $ 1.5 billion will be built. In the future, it is possible to create another, fourth, F-35 squadron, as a result whereby the total order can be brought up to 100 cars.
Mention should also be made of another important foreign participant in the F-35 Lightning II 5th generation fighter program, namely Japan. On July 8, Japan's Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera visited Lockheed Martin's F-35 assembly plant in Fort Worth. Recall that the Land of the Rising Sun has not only placed an order for 42 F-35A aircraft, but also intends to take an active part in the production part of the program. So far Japan has signed a contract for the supply of six aircraft, and this year the budget has already allocated $ 627 million to pay for the first four aircraft. It should also be noted that during a visit to the Fort Worth plant, the Japanese Minister of Defense emphasized that if the purchase price for the F-35 is reduced, his country may consider increasing the number of purchased fighters. The high importance that participation in the F-35 program has for the military development of Japan and its national security was also emphasized in the next "White Paper on Defense" published in early August, prepared by the Japanese Ministry of Defense.
Finally, on September 24 this year. It became known that South Korea has completed the official registration of its earlier announced, in March 2014, the choice of the F-35A aircraft as the winner of the tender for the promising F-X fighter. In total, the South Korean military intends to purchase 40 vehicles of this type, which will begin to enter the troops starting in 2018. In the tender, we recall that the rivals of the F-35A were the American F-15 Silent Eagle fighter and the European Eurofighter Typhoon.
Risks and consequences
The F-35C performed a landing with an air arrestor cable hook. Patuxent River Air Force Base, Maryland, May 27, 2014.
However, the vice-president of Lockheed Martin and the head of the F-35 program in this company Lorraine Martin noted in her report not only positive moments. Separately, she was forced to dwell on the analysis of problematic issues, of which there are quite a few, as well as on the assessment of those risks that may, to one degree or another, affect the future of the entire program as a whole.
Long-term risks, according to the specialists of the developer company, are mainly associated with the sequestration of the Pentagon budget or the revision towards the reduction of the budgets of the military departments of other countries participating in the program. On the other hand, taking into account the radical changes on the geopolitical map of the world in recent years, which have by no means a positive and peaceful connotation, only outspoken optimists can expect a reduction in defense spending in countries participating in one way or another in the F-35 program. Yes, and representatives of the main customer of these fighters - the command of the US Armed Forces - have repeatedly emphasized: no budget sequestrations have affected, do not affect and, as expected, will not affect the most expensive Pentagon weapons program in the future.
But the short-term risks for the program are more real and, as you know, have already had a negative impact on the course of its implementation.
There are several risks of this kind, but recently they have been hearing mainly about the need to eliminate problems with the power plant of the aircraft and the restrictions on flight modes, which have not yet been completely removed in connection with this,inevitably having a negative impact on the course of the new generation Lightning flight test program and on the achievement of the state of initial operational readiness by all aircraft modifications.
Flight restrictions were imposed on the entire fleet of F-35s, as you know, as a result of the accident that occurred on June 23, 2014 with an F-35A (AF-27) fighter during takeoff from the runway of the US Air Force Eglin, Florida.
The pilot was preparing for the next training flight when a fire broke out in the area of the engine compartment. The rapid response team quickly put out the fire with a foam solution, while the pilot, according to Captain Paul Haas, deputy commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing (trains pilots and technicians to operate the F-35 in the interests of the Air Force, Navy and USMC), "Performed the necessary procedures, which allowed him to safely interrupt the mission, turn off the engine and leave the plane" without being injured or injured.
The next day, by decision of the commander of the 33rd Air Wing and the leadership of the United States Department of Defense Joint Programs, the training of pilots on all F-35 modifications at Eglin airbase was temporarily suspended, and on July 3, by a joint directive of the command of the Air Force, Navy and ILC, as well as the management of the program with both the contractor and the customer stopped flights of all aircraft of this type - until the causes of the accident were clarified. “It was decided to conduct an additional survey of the F-35 engines, and the resumption of flights can take place only depending on the results of the survey and data analysis,” the US Department of Defense said in a statement.
It is noteworthy that shortly before this accident - on June 13 - the F-35 flights had already been temporarily suspended due to the fact that the F-35B fighter belonging to the USMC, during the flight in the Arizona sky, had problems with the power plant - a fuel leak was detected. True, that time there was no fire.
As a result of the PR component of the F-35 program, a serious blow was dealt: the leadership of the US Department of Defense and the developer company decided to abandon the demonstration of the F-35 at the famous British air show RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo), held on July 11-13, 2014. and in the demo and static portion of the 2014 Farnborough Aerospace Show program, held just behind the RIAT.
According to previously approved plans, three F-35B fighters, including one British, were to take part in the exhibition, which were to literally become the highlight of the demonstration program at the Farnborough Air Show this year. Moreover, it was planned to arrange this event as pompously as possible - in fact, this would be the first time when the latest American combat aircraft, which took off for the first time into the sky in December 2006, would overcome the ocean and be located on the territory of another state. The importance of the moment was to be highlighted by the participation in the air show of a veteran of the Falklands War - a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft "Sea Harrier". Before arriving at Farnborough, one of the F-35Bs had to perform a short demonstration program at the RIAT airshow: take-off with a short take-off run, flight and landing in a vertical manner.
F-35B receives fuel from a tanker aircraft
However, as they say, it did not grow together - the newest 5th generation fighter at the international aerospace exhibition was replaced by a plastic copy. The second generation "lightning" has not yet crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
However, at Farnborough, the preliminary and, as it later turned out, the actual causes of the accident were made public. In particular, at a specially convened press conference, the head of the F-35 program on the part of the customer, Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan, said that the established cause of the fire in the engine of the F-35A was the destruction of the blade of a three-stage low-pressure compressor (LPC). The latter is made using the so-called "blisk" technology, which implies the use of a rotor with integrally bladed rotor (IBR) blades in the turbine, which form a single whole and can significantly reduce the weight of the turbine. Each of the three stages of the LPC is separated from each other by a stator and rotates inside a special casing, and the layout here is so dense that friction of the blades against the casing is allowed - on an acceptable scale, of course. In the case of the June 23 accident, friction "significantly exceeded expectations", resulting in mechanical damage that eventually led to a fire. According to General Bogdan, the members of the commission investigating the circumstances of the accident on June 23, after two weeks of studying the circumstances, were able to establish the most probable place, that is, the three-stage CPV, where the emergency situation arose. The rest was, as they say, a matter of technology.
At the same time, this defect was not detected on the rest of the surveyed engines of the F-35 aircraft, so the Americans at the moment cannot say with certainty - either only a single defect appeared on June 23, or it was one of the "pain points" of the F135. “On all 98 other engines surveyed, this problem was not identified,” said Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan.
“The data that we have at the moment suggests that there is no so-called systemic problem,” Frank Kendall, US Deputy Secretary of Defense for Procurement, Technology and Logistics, told reporters. "We understand what really happened, and the question is why it happened." Moreover, he emphasized that such friction of the blades was expected and did not cause any concern, but the load that arose in this case turned out to be higher than predicted.
It is noteworthy that a serious problem in the three-stage LPC has already arisen - in December 2013, during bench tests, the first stage of the LPC was destroyed, which had worked for 2200 hours at that time, which, according to the developer company, is equivalent to 9 years of operation. As a result, it was decided to modify the design of the engine, which, in particular, provided for the abandonment of the use of hollow blades in the first stage of the LPC, since the destruction occurred precisely in the region of such a hollow blade (the blades at the 2nd and 3rd stages are made in one piece). As a result, it is true, the mass of the engine is said to have increased by 6 pounds (approx. 2, 72 kg).
The fog clears or what about titanium
On July 15, 2014, the operation of the F-35 was again allowed, but with certain restrictions: maximum flight speed - no more than 0.9M; angle of attack - no more than 18 degrees; overload - from -1g to + 3g; after every three hours of flying, use a borescope to examine the problematic part of the engine.
By the end of July, the maximum permitted flight speed for those twenty F-35s involved in the test program was increased to 1.6M, and the permissible overload to 3.2g, but for 79 other machines involved, including in the process training of flight and technical personnel, restrictions are left unchanged.
At the very end of July, the development company also successfully tested the F-35B with a crosswind and wet landing. In total, at this stage of testing, which took place at Patuxent River Air Base and lasted 41 days, the BF-4 made 37 flights. According to the test results, the developer announced that the aircraft are allowed to perform conventional and shortened takeoffs and landings with a crosswind of up to 20 knots (about 37 km / h or 10.3 m / s).
Meanwhile, at the beginning of September this year. The personnel of the 121st Fighter Assault Squadron of the USMC, stationed at the Yuma Air Force Base, has begun the training cycle required to obtain initial operational readiness (IUS) status for the F-35B in July 2015.
However, this task has to be performed within the framework of operational restrictions imposed after the accident that took place on 23 June this year.on an F-35A at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. In particular, every three hours of an aircraft's flight, its engine must undergo a thorough inspection. And although the latter lasts only 30-45 minutes, taking into account the need for additional support measures, the total time during which the aircraft falls out of work becomes very large.
“These restrictions significantly reduce the amount of flying that we can achieve on a given day,” says Squadron Commander Lt. Col. Steve Gillette. On the other hand, the squadron's technicians have already managed to reduce the flight interval - the minimum time required to prepare an aircraft for a new departure - from 4.5 hours to about 2 hours. “Our goal is to reduce this interval to one hour,” says Lt. Col. Gillette, “and I think we can do it.”
As if in response to the aspirations of the pilots, Lieutenant General Bogdan, speaking on September 15 at the conference mentioned at the beginning of the material, organized by the American Air Force Association, emphasized: the identified technical problems with the F135 engine, which caused the June accident, will be eliminated by the developer before the end of this year. Moreover, the management of Pratt & Whitney promised to cover all expenses. It is promised to complete the investigation of the accident and announce its causes by the end of September this year. According to the estimates of Lieutenant General Bogdan, this accident led to a delay in the test program by 30-45 days.
It is noteworthy that this year the engine and its manufacturer suffered another scandal: at the end of August, information appeared in the press that in May, by the decision of the customer and the contractor, the supply of engines had been temporarily stopped - as a result of checking 10 engines, it turned out that during their production the "suspicious" titanium was used. Then another 4 engines, not yet contracted by the US Department of Defense, fell under suspicion. Moreover, in the June report of the US Department of Defense specialists, it was indicated that one of the reasons for the problems arising with the engine is "continuous poor work with suppliers."
The development company carried out appropriate work to replace "suspicious components" on such engines, but on the other hand stressed that the 147 engines delivered earlier "do not pose any risk from the point of view of flight safety." However, taking into account the June accident, it was decided to suspend the supply of engines for the F-35 for the time being - until the investigation is completed and the developer eliminates the identified deficiencies. In addition, a "suspicious supplier" warning was issued, which is the American company A&P Alloys Inc., based in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Moreover, this company has been a traditional supplier of metal for Pratt & Whitney for almost 50 years. Representatives of A&P Alloys Inc., however, did not agree with this formulation of the question, pointing out in passing that Pratt & Whitney did not present the research results to them, and intend to prove that everything is in order with their titanium.
Increased commitments
On September 18, Reuters reported that Lockheed Martin and the US Department of Defense "are close to signing an agreement worth nearly $ 4 billion," which plans to purchase 43 F-35s in an eighth limited production batch (LRIP). Among other things, this contract, according to the calculations of specialists, will lead to a decrease in the purchase price of one machine by 2-4%.
The latter is an important achievement, since the development and construction costs of 2,457 F-35 fighters for the US Armed Forces are estimated at $ 398.6 billion (including $ 68.4 billion for engines), and the cost of operating all of this park over the next 50 years will cost another $ 1 trillion. With these weight costs, every percent reduction in the purchase price of Generation 5 fighters and every cent saved in operating them.
If the calculations of specialists turn out to be correct, then the purchase cost of one F-35A will eventually decrease from 98 million.dollars, spelled out in the contract for the seventh small-scale batch of F-35, up to about 94-96 million dollars. By the way, this is not counting the engines, which are purchased by the Pentagon under separate contracts from Pratt & Whitney. Representatives of the latter in the second half of September this year. reported that negotiations on contracts for the seventh and eighth lots of engines have entered the final stage, which will allow the company to reduce the delivery price for one engine by 7.5-8%.
In July 2014, we recall that the management of Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman already announced plans to invest $ 170 million in a program to reduce the costs and cost of the F-35, which ultimately should have allowed the supplier and the customer to reduce the total costs of the program by a total of $ 1.8 billion. Moreover, the representatives of the JSF (F-35) single fighter program by 2019 to "bring down" the purchase price of one fighter, including the cost of the power plant, to less than $ 80 million. Air Force, F-35 program manager at Lockheed Martin, Lorraine Martin. Similar cost-cutting measures are being taken by Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce Holdings Pic, which supply engines and lifting fans for the new generation of Lightning, respectively.
Another way to reduce the purchase price of one machine, proposed by specialists "Lockheed Martin", is to "group into blocks" orders from different buyers (countries). According to the head of the F-35 program from the US Department of Defense, Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan, "over the next three years, production will be doubled, and over the next five years - tripled."
However, in order for all the intentions of the military to come true, and the risks for the F-35 program to be minimized, the leadership of the Pentagon, according to experts from the United States Accounts Chamber, needs to implement a number of recommendations. What will come of it - time will tell.
