Do Joint Fighter Programs Save Money? | RAND
In the past 50 years, the U.S. Department of Defense has pursued
numerous joint aircraft programs, the largest and most recent of which
is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Joint aircraft programs are
thought to reduce Life Cycle Cost (LCC) by eliminating duplicate
research, development, test, and evaluation efforts and by realizing
economies of scale in procurement, operations, and support. But the need
to accommodate different service requirements in a single design or
common design family can lead to greater program complexity, increased
technical risk, and common functionality or increased weight in excess
of that needed for some variants, potentially leading to higher overall
cost, despite these efficiencies....
Our analysis shows that historical joint aircraft programs have not saved overall LCC versus single-service aircraft programs and that JSF is currently not on the path to saving LCC versus comparable notional single-service fighter programs. The objective of this research was to inform the formulation of acquisition strategies and program structures for future fighter and other aircraft major defense acquisition programs. These findings do not, therefore, directly address policy questions regarding the current or future status of JSF. However, they can provide insight into how and why JSF has arrived at its current status with respect to cost and cost growth, and they could contribute to broader analysis seeking to develop policy options for the way ahead for the JSF program.
Do Joint Fighter Programs Save Money? Technical Appendixes on Methodology | RAND
After spending multi-billion$ on the JSF the Air Forces own think tank tells us! Anyone who lived through the TFX and F/B-111 could have told them this.
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