A top Boeing [BA] executive blasted cost comparisons drawn between the company’s F/A-18 tactical fighter and the Joint Strike Fighter yesterday, calling into question claims made by industry competitor Lockheed Martin [LMT].
Chris Chadwick, Boeing’s president of military aircraft, fired back against recent statements made by Steve O’Bryan, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for customer engagement, on the JSF program, claiming that pricing for the F-35 “compares well” with the latest variant of the Lockheed Martin-built F-16 or Boeing F/A-18 tactical fighter.
“I think Lockheed [Martin] needs to be a little more true to their facts,” Chadwick said in response to O’Bryan’s comments during yesterday’s teleconference with reporters. “If they are going to compare [the F-35] to the Super Hornet, they have got to get their facts right.”
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for all three variants of the JSF, which is slated to replace older models of the Navy’s Super Hornet and the Air Force’s F-15 Strike Eagle.
Specifically, according to Chadwick, O’Bryan noted that along with a comparative price point–in both production and maintenance–the services would be getting a more advanced aircraft, because the JSF was a fifth-generation fighter and the Super Hornet was only fourth-generation technology.
Fundamentally, that is an untrue statement,” he said, adding a fully-deployable F/A-18 runs roughly $53 million per copy, which includes costs covering the fighter’s engines, radar system, electronic warfare systems and combat countermeasures. Lockheed Martin estimates the jet will run roughly $65 million per copy.
Moreover, the argument over generational differences is “absolutely irrelevant,” when measured against capability and mission requirements, Chadwick said, noting the F/A-18 has already proven itself as the Navy’s main fighter aircraft “able to counter the most advanced threats, now and in the coming decades.”
The estimated figures O’Bryan used to compare the JSF to the Super Hornet production were “based on numbers of unsold aircraft that in fact may never be built, and projected capability that is not yet designed or tested,” Chadwick said.
On the maintenance side, the Boeing-built Navy fighter has “known operational costs” developed over the aircraft’s years of service, while Lockheed Martin’s argument is based “again [on] just an estimate,” according to Chadwick.
Emphasizing his point, Chadwick noted that Christine Fox, director of the Pentagon’s cost assessment and program evaluation shop, told Congress last month that projected operation and maintenance costs for the JSF fleet will exceed that of legacy F/A-18 and F-16–which the F-35 is slated to replace.
For their part, Lockheed Martin spokesman for the JSF program, Michael Rein, said the company stood behind O’Bryan’s assessment of the estimated costs for the program. The $65 million per unit figure does include the cost for radars, propulsion systems and “ancillary equipment” — such as “podded” systems — that the F/A-18 system does not account for.
Including those ancillary costs into the F/A-18 per unit price tag, Rein added, does bring the two aircraft closer together in cost.
Chadwick’s aggressive response to Lockheed Martin’s comparison come at a time when Boeing is in early talks with a number of JSF partner nations regarding possible procurement of the F/A-18.
JSF partner country Australia has already stated publicly its desire to buy a number of Super Hornets, with company officials eyeing possible Super Hornet deals with India, Brazil, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and several countries in the Middle East, Chadwick told reporters in April.
Along with Australia and the United States, partner nations in the JSF program include the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Israel and Singapore are also participating in the program, but not as full partners.
Those talks have also coincided with the company’s recent unveiling of a new international variant of the Super Hornet, specifically designed to address the needs of the foreign military market.
Chadwick declined to comment on the details of the JSF negotiations, or whether Boeing’s responses to Lockheed Martin’s comparisons were prompted by a desire to keep those talks on track. However, the Boeing aviation chief did admit his reaction was prompted, in part, by the company’s roll-out of the international Super Hornet aircraft.
“That is certainly part of it,” Chadwick said, noting that shrinking defense spending levels are forcing Boeing “to get back out there and really talk about…the capabilities of this weapon system” to a growing list of potential international clients.
“As we have [those] discussions, the approach that we take is to ensure that our customers know that they have options,” according to Chadwick. “If there is additional information they would like…we will work through the appropriate channels to ensure that they have that data.”