The F-35 Lightning II, a radar-evading fighter projected to be a mainstay for the Air Force, Navy and Marines for decades to come, will cost up to $95 million each, 90 percent more than estimated in 2002, defense officials told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
The real cost, a congressional watchdog agency reported, could be as much as $131 million per plane because Pentagon estimates do not account for inflation since 2002.
LM Otero, AP
The military plans to buy more than F-35 Lightning II fighter jets at a total cost of $322 billion, the Government Accountability Office said. Each plane costs tens of millions of dollars more than original projections.
The military services expect to buy more than 2,400 F-35s at a total cost of $322 billion, the Government Accountability Office said. The planes will replace the Air Force's F-16 Falcons and the Navy's and Marines' F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets. Britain and other U.S. allies have signed up to buy additional Lightning II models, which are being manufactured by Lockheed Martin.
Concerns about the F-35's cost and management prompted Defense Secretary Robert Gates to add more than $400 million to the budget last year for a program overhaul. When problems persisted, Gates announced plans in February to a put a three-star general in charge of the project.
"The picture that we're giving you ... is unacceptable. We have to wrestle this back into some sort of realistic box," said Ashton B. Carter, the Pentagon's undersecretary for acquisition.
Though the program's troubles have been well-publicized in the defense press for years, senators appeared taken aback as Carter and other witnesses outlined the scope of the delays and cost overruns. Democrats and Republicans took turns venting their frustrations.
"The taxpayers are a little tired of this, and I can't say I blame them," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee's ranking Republican.
"We went to the moon faster than we're developing this plane," said Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla. With the country "going broke ... this is not sustainable. We have to do better."
"I need to know whose fault it is. ... Is anybody in charge of figuring out whose fault this is?" asked Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.
Carter sidestepped McCaskill's request for names of individuals. Instead, he suggested that the plane's contractors and the Pentagon's acquisition bureaucracy share responsibility for the escalating costs and program delays.
"Our job is to get the best deal, to surface problems, tell the truth. ... That has not always been done in the course of this program," he said.
Carter said some problems can be traced to design errors, common in new aircraft programs. Pieces arrive on the assembly line but "don't quite fit," he said, so "everybody else waits around while changes are made." Modifications ordered during construction by the military to give the plane additional capabilities or more modern equipment also slow the line and add to costs, he suggested.
Senators wondered aloud if Lockheed and its subcontractors deliberately low-balled their initial cost estimates. LeMieux said he constantly hears from contracting experts that "the Defense Department gets gamed."
While Pentagon officials insisted they believe the new estimates are accurate and the actual cost per plane might be as low as $80 million, Carter acknowledged that "reality gets a vote here" and that design or performance flaws could surface during flight tests.
"There's still a lot of risks," said Michael Sullivan, a GAO analyst who led the agency's review of the program. Test models of the F-35 completed only 10 percent of their scheduled sorties in 2009, he said. As tests continue, problems will be uncovered and "there's going to be more design changes," plus increased costs and schedule delays, he said.
Sullivan added that the Pentagon's schedule calls for the purchase of 300 planes before flight testing is complete. Those aircraft may have to be redesigned and at least partially rebuilt to fix flaws uncovered during flight tests, further increasing costs, he said.
