A Tale of (Not Quite) Two Engines

As the FY10 budget battle continues on Capitol Hill, in the White House and throughout numerous federal agencies, it is worth a few moments of reflection to consider the truly monumental task at hand. Urgent funding for two wars, economic stimulus, health care reform, a looming Baby Boomer demographic tsunami, record unemployment, decreasing tax revenue, a weak dollar, resurgent adversaries across the globe and myriad other challenges constitute the greatest threat to fiscal stability in nearly a century.

Wise legislators like Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) understand that some sacrifices, desperately needed now and in the future, will have to come from non-essential, big-ticket military programs. During a late-October press breakfast, he candidly admitted, “The bottom line is there is going to be significant pressure on defense budgets going forward.”

Surely the $560 million proposed for the F136 alternate engine in FY10 alone could be better spent elsewhere. After all, these funds, as well as the billions already spent, represent just a fraction of what it will really cost over the next five years to field the F136.

It has been reported recently that during nine months of system development and demonstration, the F136 has managed just over 50 hours of testing and has suffered four known failures; that’s one failure for every dozen hours of test. The F136 team likes to tout having hundreds of hours of accomplished testing….unfortunately, that testing was pre SDD and was not accomplished with the same engine now facing so many setbacks.

Over a comparable length of SDD time, Pratt & Whitney’s F135 logged more than 700 hours with no failures. To date, those numbers stand at 12,800 hours and just four incidents which caused a delay in testing.

One of the F135 engines was recently disassembled after 2,500 cycles, equaling eight years of life, and it looked pristine, (if only I could share the photos with you). Meanwhile, another F135 engine recently logged more than 38 continuous hours of altitude qualification testing, the longest run of its type yet.

The contrast between the two programs couldn’t be starker. While the F135’s logbook grows by the day, it is reported that F136 test slots at the U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center will go unused for the next several months.

When President Barack Obama signed the defense authorization bill on October 28, he stated, "This bill isn't perfect. There is still more waste we need to cut. There are still more fights we need to win."

We agree with him, Defense Secretary Gates and others. Proposed funding for a would-be second engine is not only unaffordable, but will simply prolong an increasingly uncompetitive alternative that ironically means less choice for American taxpayers.

-- Eagleblogger

Two Engines Can Mean Twice the Problems, Costs

Defense analyst Loren Thompson writes in a new post on his Early Warning blog that recent problems with the alternate engine highlight the fact that two engines can mean twice the problems and additional costs:

This issue underscores a logical flaw in the case for an alternate engine. Backers argue that having a second engine is insurance against a design flaw in the primary powerplant being built by Pratt & Whitney for the single-engine F-35 fighter. But that reasoning works both ways -- add a second engine to the mix, and you've doubled the potential for design issues, just like you've doubled the cost of developing engines by having to fund two design teams and two development programs. With several billion dollars remaining to be spent before the alternate engine joins the fleet, there is still time to rethink whether a second engine is really needed. The Pentagon says one engine is enough.

Full post is here.

Why 70% Doesn’t Even Come Close

Proponents of the unnecessary F136 alternative engine, including some U.S. Senators, like to say that the alternate engine is 70% complete and therefore worthy of continued funding.

But that figure, if it’s even accurate, applies just to the initial system development and demonstration (SDD) phase, a milestone met by Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine roughly five years ago. Traditionally, less than half the money needed to field a new engine is spent during SDD. As if the $600 million wasted annually on a delayed, duplicative engine isn’t bad enough, consider that a far larger sum of money ($4-5 billion according to Pentagon and other independent estimates) will still be required to bring the alternate engine to production, costs which include creating duplicative test and production facilities, not to mention an entire supply chain.

Even the most optimistic of F136 scenarios ultimately means a competitive lot wouldn’t be awarded until at least 2013, with deliveries starting in 2015. How much of the taxpayers’ money will Congress continue to waste on an engine with no proven history or legacy of success and a design started from a blank sheet of paper? The F135 engine was built on the proven legacy of the Pratt & Whitney F119 engine, powering the U.S. Air Force F-22 fleet. The F119 is the most successful military fighter engine ever fielded and has accumulated 125,000 operational flight hours. That is the pedigree of the F135. The F136 alternate engine has no pedigree, and introducing a new, unproven backup engine just adds extra costs with no benefit to reliability. In fact, it increases risk.

Supporters of the backup engine have stood by the F136 on the very issue of competition despite numerous reports indicating that competition offers no guaranteed cost savings but rather will cause additional expense. How many additional billions of dollars must be spent between now and the time the F136 is even ready to compete? While alternate engine proponents--- through smoke and mirror messaging--- would like us to believe that the money already invested in the backup engine represents 70% of what is needed to make the alternate engine a reality, the truth is that their “70% complete” statement is both a misrepresentation of facts and misleading. The alternate engine is not 70% complete. There is still a very long and expensive development and test road ahead for the alternate engine, and it is littered with challenges which the program must overcome. Pratt & Whitney has been travelling that road for the past eight years. And with more than 12,800 hours, the F135 engine is in production and is the only engine powering the F-35 flight test program, successful flight after successful flight.

President Obama, Secretary Gates and many members of Congress have already rightfully concluded that the “new math” just doesn’t add up.

-- Eagleblogger

More Engines = Fewer F-35s?

Those of us just young enough to remember our childhood will recall the cartoon character Wimpy from Popeye who promised, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Even in our formative years, this ruse was a clarion call to be wary of deals that seem to good to be true.

Surely the same can be said for the increasingly desperate attempts by alternative engine proponents to mask the true costs of this still nascent program, not just now, but in the so-called “out years” as well. But don’t take our word for it.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a consistently vocal critic of the alternative engine sent a letter on October 14 to House Defense Appropriations Chairman John Murtha stating, “This program is unnecessary and could disrupt the overall JSF program by diverting resources away from efforts needed for the continuation of the program. If the final bill presented to the President would seriously disrupt the JSF program, I would recommend that he veto the bill.” Strong words indeed from a man who has served two presidents of opposing parties in the role of defense secretary, especially given the vital needs driven by two ongoing wars in Southwest Asia and emerging threats elsewhere in the world.

According to Congressional Budget Office testimony to the House Budget Committee that same day, the Pentagon will need non-war spending to average six percent more than the amount sought for FY10 over the next 18 years to fulfill the current administration’s plans. Yet, real growth in military and civilian pay and benefits, combined with projected increases in operations and maintenance costs exacerbated by the current high operations tempo, will consume roughly two-thirds of the DOD budget. House Budget Chairman John Spratt said these fixed costs could “squeeze out” funding for R&D and procurement, both vital to military equipment recapitalization. Steve Daggett from the Congressional Research Service testified that acquisition accounts could decrease from 35 percent of the FY10 budget to just 24 percent in FY20.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell amplified Secretary Gates’ sentiment, also from October 14. “Let me take this opportunity to note that even if the Congress provides an appropriation in one year, and it doesn't potentially impact additional airframes, a one-year allocation doesn't deal with how we look at a potential second engine program,” he said. “We look at this over at least a five-year time span, and we need to have a better sense of the funding stream over the life of that program.”

Therefore, every dollar counts, arguably even more as the years pass. A proposed House-Senate compromise F136 funding line of $560 million in FY10 to pay for the extra engine simply cannot be expected in future budget cycles. The figures from the recent CBO testimony make that abundantly clear. Alternate engine proponents make much of the money already spent for this engine as a rationale for continuing it. Let’s be clear, to field the alternate engine, by the government’s own figures, will cost an additional $4-$5 billion. The fallacy of the sunk cost is one of the most common decision traps. Funding this engine this year, an engine our warfighters say they don’t need and don’t want, and that is years behind the primary engine that the President and Secretary of Defense say works and that they are pleased with, is truly throwing good money after bad.

Ironically, this unfunded mandate for an extra engine could come at the expense of total F-35 airframes, the worst possible outcome for our armed forces. Wasteful duplicity is bad enough. But to do so in a way that is unsustainable and may actually result in fewer F-35 aircraft, thereby driving up the unit cost of each with no increase in capability, is a lose-lose proposition that is simply irresponsible. Sadly, unlike our two-dimensional friend Wimpy, it’s no joke.

-- Eagleblogger

The Big Picture: Why One Less Engine Will Better Power Our Nation

 “At this point, where we're trying to count every dollar and where a dollar added to one program takes away from another program that we think is more important, we feel strongly about the fact that there is not a need for a second engine.”

      Those words, spoken by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on August 31, 2009 remind us all that ultimately, the debate about whether to fund an alternate engine for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is about something far bigger.

      Sure, Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine has achieved more than 12,000 test hours, and a rock-solid pedigree from the most successful fighter engine ever fielded, the Pratt & Whitney F119 which powers our nation’s F-22 fleet. But, the reason this debate genuinely matters transcends the admittedly arcane world of thrust and fuel burn.

      Simply put, building a second engine brazenly defies logic and fiscal prudence. Government and independent sources project fielding a second engine will waste at least $4-5 billion. That doesn’t account for the additional billions required for redundant production lines and maintenance support. There remains absolutely no justification for exacerbating a federal budget crisis caused by the most severe recession in nearly a century in order to fund an alternate engine that is years behind in development, duplicative and unwanted by the warfighter and two consecutive administrations representing different political parties.

      Some industry insiders might recall the so-called Great Engine War as precedent for sourcing a second F-35 propulsion system. Whether that earlier endeavor really generated the savings claimed by its supporters remains open to debate. Regardless, one can point to countless procedural and technological developments in the intervening quarter century. At least four of them – acquisition reform, industrial base evolution, improved contractor practices and exponential gains in flight safety – render useless a blunt, expensive and time-consuming alternative engine distraction.

      Finally, there is everything else that has little to do with the future of airborne propulsion. A burgeoning federal debt, the daunting task of health care reform, emerging threats abroad and two current wars are just some of the most severe domestic and international challenges that draw on this nation’s intellectual and financial capital, which are finite. Why waste precious billions in resources on an alternate engine when they could be better spent at home and on our warfighters deployed overseas?

      Therefore, we continue to stand by Secretary Gates, President Obama and countless other leaders who have called for a single engine to power a single aircraft type. It’s the right thing to do, not only for the U.S. taxpayer, but for our men and women in uniform. 

       -- Eagleblogger