Here's how the Pentagon screwed up the F-35 program
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2014/03/heres-how-the-pentagon-screwed-up-the.html?page=all
Here's how the Pentagon screwed up the F-35 program
Jill R. Aitoro
Mar 4, 2014, 11:20am EST Updated: Mar 4, 2014, 12:20pm EST
We've all heard about how Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 program is over budget and hitting its fair share of functionality roadblocks. Here are a few reasons why and they have little to do with Lockheed.
Last week, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., called the $400 billion F-35 program "the poster child for doing procurement the wrong way." But how so? More than a decade ago, the Pentagon seemed to start off right, whittling the options down to Boeing and Lockheed and eventually choosing the latter after a fly-off.
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Some of the bigger mistakes? Setting up a Joint Program Office that "often ignores NAVAIR and Air Force Materiel Command, who actually know how to build and buy airplanes," said Rebecca Grant, president of D.C.-based IRIS Independent Research and director of the General William Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies, a nonprofit research arm of the Air Force Association.
Also, combining three programs the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps into one, which made it look like a cost behemoth, while also requiring all three service buyers to agree on technical steps, from flight worthiness to software priorities. That point from Grant echoes the findings of a recent report from Rand Corp., which questioned the theory that building different versions on a common base will reduce costs.