F-35 fighter has become a clumsy white elephant
- Source: Global Times
- [21:57 March 24 2010]
- Comments
Chen Hu
Editor's Note:
The F-35 Lightning-II fighter, planned to be the new workhorse of the US armed forces, has run into a financial crisis. The price of a single aircraft has jumped from $50 million to $90 million, and possibly even up to $120 million. The US is revising its previous plans to purchase 2,400 of the fighters. What does this tell us about the process of military research and development? Global Times (GT) reporter Peng Kuang interviewed Chen Hu(Chen), editor-in-chief of World Military Affairs magazine, on balancing financial costs and defence needs.
GT: What is the F-35 Lightning-II? It's a product of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, but what does this mean?
Chen: In 1996, it was a big surprise when the US Air Force introduced the concept of a joint strike fighter.
The aim of the JSF program was to try to combine three types of fighter aircraft: conventional aircraft for the Air Force, the catapulted ship-borne aircraft for the Navy, and vertical take-off-and-landing aircraft for the Navy Marine Corps.
At the same time, the JSF program planned to produce different models from the same assembly line, and to standardize most parts across all models. The JSF was intended to be a stealth fighter with the ability to cruise at supersonic speeds. It was intended to be reliable enough for different missions in land, sea and air conflict.
GT: What will the impact be after the sudden hike in the price tag from $50 million to as much as $120 million?
Chen: After the increase, it will be difficult to buy the aircraft in the quantities expected, so the US Air Force is likely to start evaluating alternative projects soon. The British armed forces are also likely to purchase fewer F-35s than they originally planned.
The crisis in the design of the F-35, the most advanced fourth-generation fighter in the world, throws a shadow on the future of aircraft development and deployment in the US and elsewhere. The chief lesson this teaches us is that making new equipment affordable has become a major problem in the research and development (R&D) process of any major new piece of military hardware. All R&D institutions should be concerned about this.
GT: What can we do to ensure the new equipment is affordable?
Chen: First, a prior feasibility study is necessary. This process should be a standard form of R&D for any large piece of military hardware. In other words, how the new equipment will be used and what criteria are suitable to evaluate them needs to be carefully considered to reach a balance of costs and effectiveness.
During the R&D process for the US fourth-generation fighters, this process was carried out intensely. But, the biggest problem for these new fighters is that the initial hypothetical battlefield environment into which they may be deployed has tremendously changed.
They were originally developed for the battlefield environment during the Cold War, where they would encounter strong opponents in air combat.
Due to such high-risk combat environment, the new generation of combat aircraft had to be excellent.
This has substantially increased the difficulty of R&D, led to soaring R&D costs, and finally threatened the progress of the whole project.
There have been many cases of military hardware failing because of problems in feasibility studies, such as the case of the F-104 second-generation fighter in the US.
At the time, there was a push for high speed and the ability to climb to high altitudes, but these were not needed in the real battlefield environment. Soon afterward, the F-104 was withdrawn from service and became a typical case of an advanced aircraft failing due to R&D problems.
Now the F-35 is suffering from the same problems, but this time the difficulty is not in technical performance, but in R&D costs.
Therefore, accurately understand the changing of battlefield environment and reflecting that in early studies of new equipment is a key issue for effective R&D.
