Navy reductions to the short take off and vertical landing
(STOVL) variant of Lockheed Martin's [LMT] F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
(JSF) are an attempt to take a somewhat less aggressive approach to
procurement of the aircraft but still meet the Marine Corps' planned
initial operatioanl capability (IOC) date of 2012, said a top Navy
aviation official.
"We have a program of record profile that I always said was
somewhat of an aggressive profile. If you look at the ramp of JSF a
couple of years ago it was an aggressive ramp," William Balderson,
deputy assistant secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and
Acquisition) Air programs, told reporters at a media briefing earlier
this week.
Since then a couple of things have happened over the course of
the past year, he added.
In FY '07, the president's budget included long-lead for six
STOVL instead of the eight originally in the Navy's program of record.
The second thing that happened was that there were some fact-of-life
slides to STOVL (F-35B), Balderson explained. STOVL first flight
schedule slid from the October '07 time frame to a projected time frame
of June '08.
"So we looked at the combination of slide of first flight and
budget action for '07 and we thought the most reasonable profile for
STOVL in '08 was six vice eight," he said.
If the Navy would have included more than six STOVLs in its FY
'07 budget, it would have had a mismatch between long-lead funding and
the procurement buy, an issue the service would have had to address,
Balderson said.
"The other thing we did, since it was a POM (program objective
memorandum) year, and we were addressing a longer period of time, we
looked at the state of the program, we looked at the challenges of the
program, and although we are very pleased with the progress of the
program and performance and we are very committed to STOVL and very
committed to CV (carrier variant), we felt that making that ramp
somewhat less aggressive was the right thing to do," Balderson said.
"As I said last week in a talk, I think we now have what's a realistic
ramp from a programmers standpoint but also one that meets the Navy-
Marine Corps in terms of IOC."
In its FY '08 budget, the Navy cut 58 F-35Bs, between FY '08 and
FY '13, from its budget, down from an original acquisition of 109
aircraft. The service still intends to buy 40 F-35s in FY '12 and 42 in
FY '13, according to budget documents.
"The Navy slowed the production of JSF to make sure we have the
right platform," Rear Adm. Stan Bozin, director office of the budget,
told reporters during a briefing on the service's FY '08 request
(Defense Daily, Feb. 6).
Balderson said earlier this week there is still room to make
further cuts to the F-35B numbers if necessary.
About a month ago, the Navy held talks about the affordability
assessment as the service went into POM '08, Balderson said.
Officials looked at the capability the Navy needed and the most
affordable way to buy capability. But the second piece of that
affordability assessment--sort of an operational risk assessment--
looked at how much could the Navy afford to slide delivering certain
capability, Balderson said.
"Are there fallbacks in terms of buying legacy or sustaining
legacy longer, and that has to be a big part of the equation when we
look at balancing affordability and capability," he said.
"If you would look at any area where we are transitioning from
legacy to new, we always have to be mindful of the potential for
program realities that might drive the new system to the right," he
said. "We also have to be looking at situations where, in some cases,
we eat up the service life of a legacy system more quickly than we
think we are going to. So we have to come at it from the standpoint of
always being mindful of the potential to accelerate follow on and to
extend legacy."
The Navy has been through the affordability-capability balancing
act pretty thoroughly with all the type model series, Balderson noted.
"We are certainly hopefully we have a program where the risk is
bounded and realistic and we are certainly hopefully we don't have to
make any more adjustments to that profile," he said. "But if we do,
we'll look at other alternatives and we will adjust if we have to."
