Costs Forcing Shorter ‘Wish List’ on Fighter Planes

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Larry D. Welch said Friday that some of the “wish list” technology that was intended for the next-generation Advanced Tactical Fighter will have to be abandoned because it is too costly.

The fighter, which is under development in a competition between Lockheed and Northrop, is projected to cost upwards of $64 billion for the fleet of 750 aircraft, and additional Navy orders could increase that figure.

Northrop and Lockheed each won $691-million contracts in 1986 to conduct preliminary development over a 50-month period. But earlier this month the Air Force added six months to the schedule.

The delays in schedule will add an estimated $500 million to the program, but Welch said he could not clarify whether the government would bear the entire cost or whether the two contractors would pay a portion.

The two companies, along with their teams, have collectively borne more than $500 million in losses under their fixed-price contracts on development of the fighter program. The losses have been in the form of cost sharing because the contracts did not pay enough to complete all the required work.

Welch said the Air Force will cover the “essential costs” of the six-month delay in the program, but he noted that those essential costs will not necessarily cover all the actual costs borne by the two contractors.

“If all of this is fuzzy, it is meant to be,” Welch said when asked to clarify exactly what the $500-million figure covered.

The aircraft will cost an estimated $35 million to $40 million each, but those figures are now somewhat dated because of inflation over the last several years. Welch said he did not have more current estimates. Additionally, the unit cost figures do not include the current development program or the estimated $13 billion for future full-scale development.

Lockheed and Northrop officials said they remain uncertain about exactly how the schedule delay and additional costs will be handled. “We have not yet received official notification from the Air Force as to how it plans to revise the contracts,” said Lockheed spokesman Jim Ragsdale. “I assume that the Air Force will be getting with us in the near term to tell us all that.”

It also remains unclear exactly why the Air Force delayed the program. Northrop and Lockheed have denied that they have problems, but recent trade press reports suggest that Lockheed has fallen behind schedule because its partner General Dynamics failed to deliver certain portions of a prototype fuselage on time.

“We are on our original schedule and plan to fly early next year,” said Northrop spokesman Tony Cantafio.

Among the “wish list” technologies that the Air Force may drop, Welch said, is active array radar, a new type of radar technology. “It gives you tremendous capabilities but each one of those cost $5,000. That is unaffordable,” he said.

Welch also said a sensor system has been dropped, but he declined to identify it. He said overall that “antenna coverage” has been downscaled on the aircraft.

But the essential capabilities of the new fighter to elude enemy radar through stealth technology and its ability to cruise at supersonic speeds remains unaltered, he said.

The aircraft will be the first operational fighter to sustain supersonic speeds for long distances, as opposed to current fighters, which can go supersonic for only short distances.