https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorent...-had-its-best-year-ever-in-2017/#7f7e76f26fc5
F-35 Ascending: The Pentagon's Biggest Program Had Its Best Year Ever In 2017
Loren Thompson , CONTRIBUTOR
DEC 20, 2017 @ 10:58 AM
In April of this year, the Defense Contract Management Agency predicted that Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the Pentagon's tri-service F-35 joint strike fighter, would not be able to meet a goal of delivering 66 of the aircraft in 2017. Delivering 66 would represent a 43% increase over the program's performance in 2016, and based on past performance the agency figured Lockheed would fall short by nine planes.
Eight months later, on December 15, Lockheed Martin delivered the 66th plane -- for the umpteenth time confounding critics of the Pentagon's biggest weapons program. Although the contracting agency managed to find an arcane reason why this wasn't really good news, the fact of the matter is that the F-35 program is going gangbusters. Developmental testing is approaching completion after 8,000 flights without a single major mishap, and all three variants of the plane are meeting their performance specifications.
With no show-stoppers left to find, production of the fighter is ramping up fast. The production goal for next year is over 90 fighters, and that number will grow to 160 five years later. In addition to the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, 11 other countries have signed up to buy the F-35, and half a dozen more are signaling interest. One reason is that the price of the most common variant, the Air Force's F-35A, is projected to fall to $80 million per plane by 2020, making it no more expensive than legacy fighters that lack the F-35's advanced technology (the latest Boeing 787 Dreamliner lists for $300 million).
U.S. Air Force
Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter program is taking off, in more ways than one.
It seems Lockheed Martin has a winner on its hands -- a really big one. Lockheed is a longtime contributor to my think tank and a consulting client, so I have been following the progress of its biggest weapons program since the award was first made on October 26, 2001. It was never hard to understand why such a plane was needed if the U.S. was to sustain global air dominance, but there were times during the intervening years when it wasn't so clear that Congress or the White House grasped the urgency of seeing the program through.
Today, though, the F-35 has broken through the clouds and is ascending fast. Over 500 pilots and 5,000 maintainers have been trained. Aircraft reliability is averaging 93%, which is extraordinary for a new, cutting-edge tactical aircraft. The fighter is operating from 14 different bases, and several allies are already flying it. Israel declared that its fleet of F-35s had achieved initial operational capability earlier this month. All signs point to F-35 being the dominant fighter around the world through mid-century.
If you haven't followed this saga closely, I can explain in simple terms why F-35 is a game-changer. First, the "low observable" (stealth) features built into the airframe from its inception make it nearly invisible to enemy radar. Second, its ability to fuse inputs from on-board and off-board sensors gives pilots comprehensive situational awareness. Third, its secure networking technology allows all the pilots in a strike group to share the same operational picture. Fourth, its Pratt & Whitney engine delivers unprecedented performance.
Put those features together, and you have an agile, supersonic fighter that can see the enemy first and shoot the enemy first -- often before that adversary even knows it is in danger. The performance advantage the F-35 enjoys is so great that it typically defeats adversaries in warfighting exercises by a 20-to-1 ratio. Compared with the best legacy fighters in the joint fleet today, the F-35 is over ten times better at electronic attack, over eight times better at surveillance, over six times better at defeating hostile fighters, over five times better at striking surface targets, and over four times better at surviving when confronted with advanced air defenses.
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These performance features have been fully demonstrated in flight testing. Each of the three F-35 variants meets all of its specifications for stealth, meaning few defenders will have any way of opposing it. If Russia is foolish enough to begin a war in Eastern Europe, the F-35 will quickly suppress its air defenses so that other allied planes have unfettered use of local air space. If North Korea is foolish enough to attack the South, F-35 can reach Pyongyang from Seoul in less than ten minutes without being tracked, precisely targeting whatever coordinates have been selected.
As if all of this was not enough good news for the Pentagon's biggest weapons program, in a peculiar twist of fate the F-35 has turned out to be a perfect match for the Trump Administration's economic and security goals. On the one hand, the fighter will assure U.S. global air dominance for decades to come. On the other hand, over a third of the 4,000 F-35s likely to be built will be purchased by overseas allies, creating tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
So the first year of the Trump Administration has turned out to be the best year ever for the F-35 program. The stealthy fighter has debuted in Europe, in the Middle East, and in the Western Pacific to nearly universal praise. The price of the fighter is falling with each successive production lot, and that decline continues to outpace Pentagon projections. The F-35 seems to win every foreign competition in which it goes head-to-head with alternatives, underscoring its unique combination of price and performance.
An interesting question for Lockheed Martin as it wraps up a very successful year is whether it can convince the government that the talent it has for reducing production costs can also be applied to keeping the fighters in a high state of readiness at an affordable price once they are fielded. That activity, known within the military as sustainment, typically absorbs more money over the lifetime of a program than development and production. As the original equipment manufacturer, Lockheed undoubtedly has unique insight into relevant technologies, supply chains and the like. So what will that mean for sustainment of the aircraft in the future?
For now, though, the key take away is that the F-35 program is a smashing success. Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney, and the Joint Program Office have delivered on their promise to produce a game-changing tactical aircraft that will deliver "command of the air" for the foreseeable future. Usually when programs turn out this way, promotions follow and sales end up exceeding original expectations. So forget all those doom-and-gloom stories you heard about the "troubled F-35 fighter." This program is a winner.
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