Letter to the Editor: Weapon systems acquisition malady

By CCTA Member, Carlton Melvin, Havelock, NC
It’s déjà vu “all over again” up at the Pentagon. They just keep getting better at the art of squandering billions on rosy and ill-conceived cost estimates for development of any given weapons system. One glaring case in point: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Here’s how it goes: Low cost estimates early-on suck Pentagon civilians and Congress into initiating funding. Development and manufacturing sites (pork) are set up in the anointed states to create jobs. Then, after the obligatory time, costs begin to very subtly rise above initial estimates. It happens every time. Per the GAO (Government Accounting Office), the estimated development and procurement costs for the F-35 in 2001 was $233.3 billion. Fast forwarding to the present finds this number almost doubled at $400 billion; nearly a 100 percent cost overrun . In a mere 11 years. Not to speak of the total cost to fly the 2,443-plane family of complex variants for three services for 30 years, which has already exceeded the $1 trillion mark and is still going.

Even Pentagon officials acknowledge its lack of affordability. The undersecretary for acquisition just last year declared the F-35 procurement process to be “acquisition malpractice”. Man-hour estimates for unscheduled engine changes has ballooned . What sort of maintainability is that? Additionally, there appears to be serious pilot visibility (blind spot) issues. Overall, reliability and maintainability issues seem endless. Gross miscalculations up front combined with attempting to combine three different capabilities in one aircraft and then mismanaging it even beyond that sees the program currently still putting out fires when the buying process should already be finished.

So the high stakes game still goes on — the Pentagon civilians keep blessing the program because they have already invested taxpayer money to the tune of big bucks while Congress blindly pays the bills for fear that pork in their states will dry up. And don’t forget, the GAO does not investigate the Congress. And so it goes.

And to think that the old A-4 Skyhawk (the darling of many Navy/Marine attack pilots in the Vietnam conflict) was designed, built and the first XA4D flown in a mere two years following its conception on paper. And only three years later, in 1957, I personally flew an operational A4D-1 . Since then our procurement process seems to have gradually become one of dog-paddling in the proverbial “Vaseline pool”

CONTINUED: 
http://www.newbernsj.com/opinion/letters/letter-weapon-systems-acquisition-malady-1.122437

JONES ACTS TO STOP HARMFUL CUTS TO MILITARY AND ENC BASES

Washington, Jan 25 -


WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) joined House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) in cosponsoring H.R. 3662, The Down Payment to Protect National Security Act. H.R. 3662 would institute a one year delay in $500 billion in harmful ‘sequestration’ cuts to America’s military which are required by the 2011 Budget Control Act (S. 365). The delay would give Congress time to craft an alternative deficit reduction proposal that would not harm the ability of our armed forces to defend this nation. The delay would be paid for by a 10% reduction in the federal workforce through attrition.

“I have long led the fight to cut federal spending, but devastating our military is not the way to do it,” said Jones. “If these cuts go through, there could be additional, significant cuts to end strength, as well as a reduction in procurement of essential new tools like the F-35. There could also be dramatic cuts in healthcare and other benefits and services for members of our armed forces, and potentially another BRAC round. That’s just not acceptable for Eastern North Carolina, or quite frankly, America.”


READ THE REST OF CONGRESSMAN JONES PRESS RELEASE:
http://jones.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=276550