The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Feb 15, 2014 10:23 PM

T

he new F-35 Lightning II was designed to be the military’s do-everything stealth fighter, a mainstay of U.S. defense strategy for the next 40 to 50 years.

Variants of the supersonic killer are being produced for the Air Force, Marines and Navy, and 10 allied countries stretching from Canada to Turkey.

It’s the U.S. Department of Defense’s most costly and ambitious aircraft acquisition program and it’s been under way since 2001, yet the F-35 isn’t ready for prime time.

The $392 billion program is seven years behind schedule. The military has not allowed the fleet to fly at full throttle. Or within 25 miles of lightning. Or with weapons.

Simply put, the plane that the military calls its Joint Strike Fighter isn’t cleared to fight — and it’s hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.

Arizona will be home to two F-35 installations — Luke Air Force Base in Glendale and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in the southwest corner of the state. The first of 144 F-35s is expected to touch down this month or early next month at Luke.

The F-35 can reach Mach 1.6, which is roughly 1,200 mph, and fly more than 1,400 miles without refueling. More importantly, it can take flight from land or sea and fly virtually undetected into enemy air space.

At least it will after it passes final review.

Military and aerospace officials acknowledge that the jet has been plagued with setbacks. They also note that initial performance limitations always were anticipated because of a contracting agreement that called for the plane’s concurrent development and production. Its kinks literally are being worked out on the fly.

Some of the first F-35s manufactured by Lockheed Martin are undergoing extensive testing at Edwards Air Force Base in California, Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland and elsewhere.

But testing and modifications on the computerized jets have taken years longer than anticipated. The plane initially was projected to be given full combat clearance by 2012. Now, the Marines are expected to give the plane initial combat clearance in mid-2015. The Air Force is to follow in mid- to late 2016, and the Navy in 2019.

Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin is ramping up production of the sleek plane at its milelong assembly plant in Fort Worth, Texas. The particular F-35 that is expected to touch down at Luke this month — its tail number is LF5030 — was the 100th manufactured.

Refinements derived from ongoing flight tests will be incorporated into the design of future F-35s. Later, the modifications will be retrofitted into existing F-35s. Likewise, flying protocols charted by test pilots and engineers will be included in future flight-training curriculum for all F-35 pilots.

Despite the current flight limitations, Lt. Col. Michael “Jeb” Ebner, commander of Luke’s first F-35 unit, the 61st Fighter Squadron, gives the F-35 an enthusiastic thumbs-up. The jet glides through the air and handles cleanly, he said.

“It’s smooth and stable like a Cadillac, but it maneuvers like a sports car,” said Ebner, who has flown about 80 missions in F-35s, and about 1,100 missions in F-15E Strike Eagles, an earlier-generation fighter.

The F-35 has “significant” thrust and is especially agile at low altitudes, he said, and lands easier than any other plane he’s flown.













The single-seat, single-engine plane was designed to kill, combining radar-evading stealth technology, advanced maneuverability and cutting-edge information collection and communications systems.

Lockheed Martin is making three variants simultaneously:

The Air Force F-35A, built for conventional takeoffs and landings on standard runways. Pilots will fly the A model at Luke, which is scheduled to become the Air Force’s primary F-35 training base and the largest F-35 base in the world. Top pilots from across the U.S. and its partner countries are expected to train side by side at the Glendale base before deploying to combat units around the globe.

The Marine F-35B, featuring a large fan in the center of the fuselage and a nozzle on the engine that can be tilted downward and even a bit forward. The modifications give the plane vertical thrust, which allows for short takeoffs and vertical landings on amphibious assault ships. Yuma already has taken delivery of 16 F-35Bs, completing the Marines’ first operational squadron of the bat-winged planes. Plans call for Yuma to get 88 total.

The Navy F-35C, with extra-sturdy landing gear and wider wings that can be folded for operations and storage on aircraft carriers.

“In effect, we’ve been developing three brand new airplanes for about the cost of two new developments,” said Kevin Smith, Lockheed Martin’s director for the Air Force version of the plane. “So we get significant long-term savings by having a lot of commonalities and jointness in the program.”

The U.S. military alone plans to acquire 2,443 jets over 27 years.

The F-35 is projected to replace the Air Force’s A-10 Thunderbolt II and F-16 Fighting Falcon, the Marines’ F/A-18A/C/D Super Hornet and AV-8B Harrier II, plus a variety of planes used by Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Turkey.













The fighter is a remarkable feat of American technology, but costs have to be kept under control or the planes will become unaffordable, said Sen. John McCain of Arizona.





When development started in 2001, the military initially planned to acquire 2,852 of the planes for $233 billion. Delays and redesigns pushed costs higher, so the military slashed its orders by 409 planes. Still, the total bill is at least $159 billion more than originally expected.

“Let me say right now, the whole program has been fraught with problems and dramatic cost overruns, which I have been involved in as a member of the Armed Services Committee for years,” McCain told The Arizona Republic.

The plane’s budget issues stem largely from the contracting agreement that permitted concurrent development and production, he said. Military decision makers initially thought the strategy would speed up production of the jets.

“That was a tremendous mistake,” McCain said. “It has cost 70percent more than the initial estimates and it’s years behind schedule. The total life cycle cost estimate is about $1 trillion. It’s the first $1 trillion weapons system in history.”

The Pentagon’s $1.1 trillion estimate is based on operation and maintenance costs for the fleet for 30 years, factoring in inflation. Using 2012 dollars, the cost would be $617 billion.

Those costs are in addition to the projected $392 billion to purchase the planes.

Lockheed Martin executives point out that the plane’s costs have been following a downward trend as the company has achieved economies of scale. The initial production model F-35, which was delivered in 2010, cost approximately $220 million. By 2020, the cost is projected to drop to $75 million to $85 million each.

The plane’s cost has always been a moving target.

The Pentagon purchases the planes from Lockheed Martin in lots, which in recent years has ranged from 32 to 36 planes. Prices are negotiated separately for each lot.

The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin announced contracts in September for 36 planes in the sixth lot and 35 planes in the seventh lot for a combined $8.3 billion.

The prices for the sixth lot: $103 million for an F-35A, $109 million for a F-35B and $120 million for an F-23C.

The prices for the seventh lot: $98 million for an A, $104 million for a B and $116 million for a C.

Those prices exclude the cost of the planes’ engines, which are built by Pratt & Whitney and contracted separately at additional costs.

The Pentagon and Pratt & Whitney announced an agreement in October for 38 engines for the sixth lot for a combined $1.1 billion. That comes to an average of $28.9 million per engine, including two spares. The specific costs vary by model, said company spokesman Matthew Bates, but the company declined to provide details.

Using the combined figures, the costs for engine-equipped F-35s in the sixth lot are approximately $131.9 million for the Air Force version, $137.9 million for the Marine version and $148.9 for the Navy version.

In 2001, the cost was pegged at $81 million per plane.













The military’s latest advanced-weapons testing report catalogs a litany of deficiencies with the plane’s development, which creates “significant pressure” for it to achieve its next set of testing goals within an acceptable timeline.

The next set of goals is to meet advanced training needs and achieve initial combat readiness.

The Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation cited several problem areas in the report issued Jan. 23. Among the highlights: lagging software updates and weapons testing, and heavy dependance on contractor assistance to keep the planes fit to fly.

All of the issues in the report are well known and efforts are under way to address the challenges, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, who directs the military’s F-35 program office.

“Software continues to remain our number one technical risk, and we have instituted disciplined systems-engineering processes to address the complexity of writing, testing and integrating software. We are confident about delivering the F-35’s initial war-fighting capability to the U.S. Marine Corps in July 2015,” he said in a written statement.

“The basic design of the F-35 is sound and test results underscore our confidence in the ultimate performance that the United States and its international partners and allies value so highly,” Bogdan said.

He noted that test pilots have successfully completed tests involving a 500-pound guided bomb, a 1,000-pound guided bomb and a medium-range air-to-air missile since late October. The plane’s testing program is about half complete.

“In addition, we have conducted extensive studies on the survivability and vulnerability of the F-35 and concluded that its combination of stealth, advanced sensors, data fusion, sophisticated countermeasures, and electronic attack greatly reduce the chances of the aircraft being hit by enemy fire,” Bogdan said in the statement.

Until recently, the plane wasn’t cleared to fly at night, so it’s been making progress, said Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s F-35 program.

“There’s been a lot of mistakes and a lot of lessons learned, but the program’s turning a corner and a lot of people are working their ass off to try to bring this plane home and do the right thing for the warfighter,” DellaVedova said.

McCain, a Navy fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, said he’s guardedly optimistic about the jet.

“There is no doubt that if they have the problems worked out and the costs under control, this will be the premier fighter aircraft in the world — or weapons system in the world. It’s more than a fighter,” he said.













The most important feature of all three versions of the F-35 is their stealth design, which allows the jets to fly into hostile areas without being detected by radar that older fighters cannot evade, said Smith, the Lockheed Martin executive.

Fuel and weapons are carried internally, hidden beneath a smooth matte-gray radar-absorbing material that Lockheed Martin executives decline to discuss in detail. Additionally, the plane’s wings and tails extend at nearly identical angles, which reduces the jet’s radar signature, making it more difficult for enemy forces to detect.

The jet’s engine inlets are curved to hide the front of its engine from enemy radar, and even its antennas are embedded into its skin to reduce radar reflectivity.

“Most important is large-capacity internal fuel, so that you don’t have to carry the external fuel tanks which will impact your overall signature, your radar cross-section,” Smith told The Republic.

F-35As carry approximately 3,200 gallons of jet fuel, which is about a third of the capacity of a full-sized gasoline tanker truck that delivers gas to filling stations. That’s also more than twice the amount of fuel carried by older F-16s without external fuel tanks.

Courtesy Lockheed Martin