The epic with the "cheap" version of the fifth generation fighter is dragging on
Undoubtedly, these aircraft will be built. But not all, not immediately and for much more money than promised. The next problems with the sale only increase doubts about the export potential of the new car.
Information from the US Department of Defense was leaked to the overseas press about the next difficulties in promoting the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, the project of the second American fifth-generation fighter. With each new news of delays and rising costs, the expert community is becoming more skeptical about the future of the aircraft.
PURE-HEARTED RECOGNITION
The F-35 Lightning II ("Lightning") fighter, created as part of the JSF program, will rise in price again. American journalists and experts failed to get specific figures from Pentagon chief Robert Gates or another representative of the United States military department. The sparse reports include a 10 percent increase in development costs (to $ 55 billion) and, more importantly, a lag behind the planned operational readiness of the aircraft. The commissioning of versions A and C is postponed for 12 months, while for more complex modification B the pause will be delayed “from two to three years”.
The Lightning situation is slowly spiraling out of control. The cost of a flight hour of a fighter, presented at the start of development as a "cheaper" aircraft to operate than the F-16 and F / A-18 replaced by it, is already now, according to the most conservative estimates coming from the walls of the US Department of Defense, almost one and a half times higher these machines. The F-35 itself has risen in price from $ 50 to $ 138 million in ten years, and this, judging by the way events are developing, is clearly not the limit.
IS THE AUDITOR GOING TO HIM?
Civilians are interfering more and more persistently in the affairs of the military. On November 10, the White House Commission on Reducing the Budget Deficit published its recommendations regarding the financing of defense programs, in particular the JSF. These proposals are full of specifics, which are quite pulling for a loud sensation.
First, the members of the commission simply and artlessly advised to close all work on the most "publicized" version of the "Lightning" - the F-35B with a shortened takeoff and landing. This not only recognizes the actual failure of the most ambitious direction in the design of aircraft (this is a painful, but rather an academic issue), but also leaves the US Marine Corps without modern air support.
The Marines in the current conditions can no longer, according to their command, effectively use the vertical takeoff aircraft AV-8B Harrier II, which were supposed to replace the F-35B. Tellingly, the situation with the ILC aviation is aggravated by another recommendation that has nothing to do with the JSF program: to stop the production of the MV-22 Osprey amphibious transport tiltrotor (another "promising long-term construction" of the American "defense") and instead adopt "conventional" helicopters - improved CH-53K Super Stallion and further modifications of the UH-60 Black Hawk family.
Secondly, the commission's conclusions contain a proposal “to halve purchases of the F-35 version A and C by 2015”, and close the resulting “holes” in the balance by purchasing F-16 aircraft (for the Air Force) and F / A- 18 (for naval aviation). At the same time, a humble remark is made in the justification that the cancellation of work on version B will speed up the creation of the remaining two modifications of the "Lightning".
This logic in project management has been known for a long time and is just as well studied. Its peculiarity is that in the overwhelming majority of cases it leads to exactly the opposite results: the rebalancing of project teams at the later stages of development contributes to the delay in overall terms, despite the formal increase in the number of qualified specialists employed on the project. And the general contractor, Lockheed Martin, will actually be forced to engage in personnel changes in order to retain employees and an instinctive desire to "strengthen" the working groups in the failing program.
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS?
But all these subtleties will fade before another problem - we started our conversation with it. Such cuts will dangerously increase the unit cost of new aircraft, which, together with the increase in the time it takes to commission the aircraft, will significantly affect the pliability of the US international partners, who were prepared to purchase an "inexpensive" fifth-generation fighter, which "is about to" will be ready. In doing so, the Pentagon has driven itself into a vicious circle, any sensible steps out of which will increase costs and reduce the viability of the JSF program.
From the point of view of arms exports, the situation is developing in the best possible way for Russia. The PAK FA program, which lags behind American developments in the field of creating fifth generation fighters in all time indicators, is progressing measuredly and calmly. The export potential of the aircraft has already been announced: India has announced that it is ready to purchase up to 250 units of the export version of aircraft on the T-50 platform. These figures look pretty fantastic, but it is not quantitative indicators that are important here, but a qualitative "message": Russia is sending a signal to the rest of the world that its new aircraft will be supplied abroad.
The JSF program, in fact, was supposed to fill the demand for the latest aviation in third countries with an eye on the massive ousting from there of all other potential developers (Russia, the EU and China). The current state of affairs puts the F-35 in an unfavorable runner position with a fixed false start. This does not in any way threaten the US armed forces, which have already received the most modern technology - F-22 Raptor fighters and are ready to "digest" the unpleasant experience of the strike introduction of critical technologies. However, in the context of the legislative ban on the export of Raptors, everything that happens to Lightning begins to look like the beginning of a potential failure in the representation of the American defense industry in the still emerging export market of fifth-generation aircraft systems.
