On 6/23/2011 7:42 AM, Eunometic wrote:
The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) nearly endorsed a
move that could end Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — and
the effort may continue.

The committee’s top Republican, John McCain (Ariz.), sponsored the
language, offered during the panel’s markup of its defense
authorization measure for fiscal 2012.


The proposal died there on a 13-13 vote before the committee approved
the markup last week, but McCain has raised the prospect of trying
again later with all senators.


Under the move, if at the end of 2011 the cost of the JSF purchased
under the current Lot 4 contract ran 10% more than the target price,
the amendment would have put the Pentagon’s largest weapon system on
probation. Then, if the program continued to run at a 10% cost
overrun
one year later, the only money that could be spent thereafter would
be
to fund program cancellation costs, the proposal stipulates.


“If this weapon system continues to have horrific cost overruns, as
it
has, then we’ve got to end it,” McCain says, adding that he plans to
revisit the idea when the annual defense policy bill comes to the
Senate floor. Even then, the Senate’s bill must be reconciled with a
version already passed by the House before going to the White House
for enactment or to be vetoed."

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/gener...20JSF%20Threat

McCains a weird one!

No, he's being fiscally solvent. 10% overruns in that kind of
hundreds of billions is billions. Either Lockmart get's it's act
together or they deserve to have the thing canceled.

They won the contract under X dollars. If they can't do it,
there is another one in the wings that lost the contract that
would get another shot and benefit from the knowledge gained in
the F-35 Program. As well as the upgrades to the current
aircraft would be a plus. The F-22 is going to end up with much
of the avionics, the F-15 can be put back into heavy production
with the upgrades as well. The F-16 would benefit as well.

As it stands right now, there still isn't anything (other than
the F-22) than the F-15. If the F-15SE can be had for less than
the F-35, then that might be the way to go. Certainly, a less
cost affective way. The F-15SE is as stealthy as anything the
Russians or the Chinese has today or will have in the next 15
years. In fact, from the front, the F-15 is as stealthy as
anything made today including the F-22. But, like the Russians
best, it's not stealthy from the side or the rear. At 100 mil
each, it's cheaper than the F-35 with all the cost overruns at at
least 156mil each. Adding 10% to that, puts it over 160 mil.

Boeing is proposing an upgrade to ALL F-15E types to the silent
eagle. Making the F-15E(S) superior to the best the Russians
have available but only have a handful of the SU-35s in service.
Sorry, Euno, only one of the PAK Russian Fighters is being
flown and it's not even close to be ready for production, much
less combat ready. And the Russians are having trouble scraping
enough Rubles together to replace their SU-27s that are in
serious need of replacement. See, the US isn't the only one with
this problem. And your country is having trouble scraping enough
Kangaroo bucks to replace the F-111s.

The money saved could be used to increase the fleet of F-22s as
well. Maybe even buy a couple more B-2s. How about doing some
serious upgrades and one for one replacement for the aging F-18s
and F-15C models. With the overruns happening, 400 billions buys
a lot. By not spending that money, and using 300 bil of it,
that's 300 B-2s or 3000 F-15SEs or 4000 F-18s. For a change, the
US might have more Aircraft than they have pilots instead of
having 3 or more pilots for each aircraft.

Being fiscally prudent keeps the program from having billions in
overruns or cancels it because it can't be afforded. Yes, it
would be a nice addition but it's not quite necessary yet.

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