Federal auditors rate reliability of F-35 engine 'very poor'
By Brian Dowling
The Hartford Courant
Published: April 27, 2015
The Pentagon's most expensive weapons program ever — the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — should undergo an affordability assessment, according to the Government Accountability Office.
First version of F-35s will not outdo A-10 in battlefield capabilities
Marine Corps pilots of the first F-35 joint strike fighters scheduled to begin flying this summer will not be able to use night vision technology or carry more than four bombs and missiles, Defense Department officials testified in the House on Tuesday.
$400K helmet helps F-35 Lightning II pilot 'see through the plane'
To truly understand the most expensive weapons program in the history of the Pentagon, forget the F-35 Lightning II aircraft itself for a minute. Consider the helmet. It’s designed to protect the pilot’s head, of course. But compared to everything the helmet does, protection becomes something of an afterthought.
HARTFORD, Conn. (Tribune News Service) — A federal report has slammed the reliability of Pratt and Whitney's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter engine.
"Program data show that the reliability of the engine is very poor," less than half of where it should be according to the Government Accountability Office, "and has limited the program's progress toward its overall reliability targets."
Company executives said they were surprised by the strong language, and responded Monday by holding briefings with policy groups and reporters.
As part of their report, federal auditors warned lawmakers that the engine, which is manufactured in Middletown, "has a long way to go to meet program goals" and that "more technical problems are likely."
The Pentagon plans to buy more than 300 of the aircraft over the next five years for more than $50 billion. Building concerns about cost and reliability could prove to be a major speed bump for the program, which has already significantly delayed higher production levels.
Many of the concerns about the nearly $400 billion tactical fighter program stem from high-profile development issues that have grounded the fleet on occasion. Those, together with smaller issues, have led to significantly lower flight hours than initially planned. But both Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney have also struggled with their supply chains, auditors said, resulting in delays and concerns about planned increases in production.
The thrust of the report shows that the fleet of Joint Strike Fighters is averaging far fewer flight hours between failures or maintenance incidents than the program expected. "This means that the engine is failing at a much greater rate and requiring more maintenance than expected," auditors said.
The main Joint Strike Fighter variant, the F-35A, has only averaged 21 percent of the flight hours it needs to be on track, while the short-takeoff and vertical landing variant of the plan, the F-35B, has completed 52 percent of the flight hours expected.
In a conference call Monday with reporters, Pratt & Whitney's head of military engines Bennett Croswell said: "That data is completely accurate, but it fails to tell the rest of the story."
Croswell, who was surprised by the report's characterization of reliability, emphasized that Pratt & Whitney has updated its latest production engines to fix prior reliability issues. Those engines are meeting current government reliability marks, according to company data. "We can deliver it today; we just need to get the engines retrofitted," Croswell said.
That said, the retrofits will take "a couple of years" before they improve the government's flight-hour reliability marks, he said.
"I don't know how you can say we have poor reliability" when the engines have fewer major maintenance issues that require the removal of an engine "and we are delivering mission capability," Croswell said. "That doesn't seem like poor reliability; it seems good, very good."
Federal auditors also concluded that the program's "procurement plan may not be affordable" and recommended that the Defense Department review that plan with the plane's technical performance and funding availability in mind.
In their report, auditors said that achieving reliability goals "will likely require more time and resources than originally planned."
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute, said he looks to Pratt & Whitney's cost commitments and the program's upcoming milestones when gauging the success or failure of the F-35 program.
"If the performance of the engines was so poor it would be delaying the debut of the aircraft, and it isn't," he said. "The Marines have their initial operating capability this year and the Air Force has theirs next year, which is on the schedule they stated."
According to company numbers that account for additional hours that engines are running on the ground, the conventional variant performs at 147 percent of required reliability levels and the short-takeoff and vertical landing variant performs at 119 percent of required levels.
Croswell said that four of every five parts for the engine are produced outside of Pratt & Whitney.
Forty-five percent of Pratt & Whitney's key suppliers have delivered late parts in the last year, the report said, causing the engine maker to dip into spare part supplies to keep up with production.
While the number of parts being borrowed has declined, auditors said, the number is still too high, which "could lead to further part shortages and late engine deliveries if production rates increase over the next several years as planned."
©2015 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)
Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at
www.courant.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/federal-auditors-rate-reliability-of-f-35-engine-very-poor-1.342744
