Prototype for Change
With its massive scope and groundbreaking approach to research and development, the Joint Strike Fighter program has set the stage for innovation in aircraft procurement.
By Margaret Bone

By any measure, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program is nothing short of amazing. From its inception as little more than a novel theory to the "downselect" (contract selection process) that produced a winning aircraft in October 2001, JSF has changed the methods of aircraft design in particular as well as defense procurement practices in general. It represents a fundamental shift in the way many people, corporations, and nations traditionally have conducted their fighter-aircraft business. While it may seem surprising that simply building some tactical jets would have such impact, the enormous numbers involved make it clear that this is one huge program—in fact, the largest of its kind in history.

Today the program to build the f-35, a single-seat, supersonic, radar-evading stealth aircraft, is tagged at $200 billion for U.S. armed forces and rises to an estimated $600 billion with anticipated foreign sales. Approximately 3,000 aircraft are scheduled for delivery to the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy and to the United Kingdom. Initial operating capability will begin in 2010 for the Air Force and Marine Corps, as the first production aircraft roll off the Lockheed Martin assembly line. Both the U.S. Navy and the United Kingdom will start receiving jets in 2012. There will be three different variants designed from a single common aircraft design, thus the JSF "family" of aircraft.

The Air Force will fly 1,763 of the conventional takeoff and landing (ctol) variant, scheduled at about $35 million a copy. The Marine Corps needs 609 of the short takeoff vertical landing (stovl) variant at about $40 million a copy. The carrier-capable (cv) Navy variant is the most expensive, at about $45 million a copy for a total of 480 planes. The United Kingdom requires 150 jsfs and is evaluating both the stovl and cv variants. While a buy of 3,000 airplanes may seem extraordinary, a look at the status of legacy aircraft now in service underscores the need.

For example, Air Force f-16s will be attrited in very large numbers in the 2005 time frame. The venerable a-10 is now an aging platform. Marine Corps av-8b Harriers already have gone through refurbishing to extend their useful service life. The f-14 Tomcat, long the workhorse of the carrier deck, is close to being retired. And the f/a-18 Hornet, flown by both the Marine Corps and Navy, will need to be replaced.

The JSF has been designed to either complement or replace the tactical aircraft inventory of this nation well into the 2040 time frame. With 70 percent to 90 percent commonality of parts and support shared among the three variants, the JSF also addresses another need of the Department of Defense (DoD)—that of "necking down." Currently, three of our armed services fly and support nine completely different types of tactical aircraft, and that's expensive. By reducing to JSF complementing perhaps f-22 Raptors and f/a-18 e/f Super Hornets, the expense of maintaining tactical air superiority will in theory be greatly reduced in the out-years, and not just for the United States.

"We are actively encouraging our allies to come with us on this program," says Michael W. Wynne, principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Discussing the ramifications of selling JSF internationally, Wynne notes, "If you go back to the f-16 program with its international customers, you'll find there are advantages in having shared approaches to improvements, as well as tactics and aircraft strategy with allies, in a joint environment. That was not well-understood before the f-16 program; it was an unknown benefit. The jsf, bringing with it an open architecture communications system, will allow an integration of these user groups to become second nature. We can share the same tactics, the same flying characteristics, and talk to other aircraft. … It will help [our allies] because they will gain an economy of scale, and JSF will drive a far more cohesive force in the future," he explains.

Affordability is built into another aspect of the JSF program, now called the sdd (system development and demonstration) phase. This phase will produce 22 aircraft that will be tested in flight and on the ground. According to Wynne, "One of the lessons learned over time is the better you spend dollars in the [sdd] stage of full-scale development and mature all aspects including logistics, the greater are your savings in the long term. You embed a much better engine-maintenance schedule, a much better electronics schedule, and [achieve] the maturity you need. ... The savings are enormous."

Yet as strides are made in maturing the technologies of everything from precision-guided munitions and missiles to unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) used for reconnaissance and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (ucavs) used for weapons delivery, JSF often is referred to as being possibly the last manned tactical aircraft program because critics have questioned the wisdom of building more manned aircraft in such large numbers. Additionally, it has been suggested that an unmanned JSF would be of great value. "I would say ucavs and uavs are a reality as far as our planning purposes [are concerned]," says Wynne. "We are developing those kinds of concepts of operations which would allow us to better use the resources we have. Right now, there's a ucav at Boeing undergoing development. This is clearly the wave of the future. The debate centers not on the question [of whether] it's physically possible to convert a jsf-like aircraft into a ucav, but should you? There are a lot of arguments regarding the quality of having a pilot in the seat who can view the battle space and make decisions en route," he continues. "I think this is an ongoing strategy debate awaiting the full development and test of ucavs. The JSF will give us plenty of time to determine our future tactics and concept of operations if we choose to go down a different route. Right now, our strategy is to go for an all-stealth, manned, tactical air fleet good through 2040."

The United Kingdom agrees with that strategy. In 1995, it became a full collaborative partner, investing $2 billion in jsf, the only country to participate at that level. Stephen French serves as minister (Defence Materiel) for the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., and has been intimately involved with the program. "When we recognized that JSF might well be a contender for what our Strategic Defense Review had recommended, we felt our involvement at the earliest stage was essential to have benefits from the start," he comments. "We have a commitment to procure two new carriers by 2012, and there are critical design decisions to be made with regard to aircraft. In the past, we have found economies with stovl aircraft, which require no catapult and arresters. Our existing carriers are about 20,000 tons, and the new ones will likely be 40,000 to 50,000 tons. While this may be small for the [United States], it's certainly big for us."

The British buy of 150 jsfs is important for another reason, French says. "It's a precept that we will, for the most part, be operating in a coalition or alliance scenario, though we retain the ability to conduct national-only operations. Therefore, we look closely at interoperability drivers in all our equipment, and that is one of the extra benefits in Joint Strike Fighter. We have taken the concept of jointness as far and as fast as we can, and the need for what we call the ‘purple' approach to defense is perhaps one of our highest priorities. One of our contributions in the work of this project has been to develop a joint support philosophy and have our people fully integrated in the joint program office here," French concludes.

Since October 2001, Group Capt. Mark Green has served in the Crystal City, Va., offices of the JSF program as deputy director of Systems Engineering. As a former Royal Air Force Strike Attack squadron commander, Green has a special interest in what will replace the British Harrier. "The greatest operational enhancement JSF will bring to the pilot will be as a result of developments in the area of avionics," he says. "jsf will be able to use real-time information to detect, classify, and identify targets prior to attack with precision-guided weapons. The structure and subsystems of the JSF will operate with minimal day-to-day maintenance, which is important."

Also important is perhaps one of the greatest challenges with a history-making program of this massive size and scope: keeping it focused. Since November 2000, Tom Burbage has been the general manager for Lockheed's JSF program. A former test pilot, Burbage has more than 3,000 hours in 38 types of aircraft and has a pilot's ability to simplify a situation, even one as complex as jsf. "Once the landing gear is up, it doesn't matter—the airplanes are the same," he explains. "All three do air-to-air and air-to-ground. If the landing gear is down, you're either based on a ship or a field or on a 10,000-foot runway. So basing requirements really drive the design, and you just want to make those basing design considerations ‘transparent' once you have the landing gear up."

Burbage helped simplify the complex management process as well, putting in place what he terms the "best athlete" principle. "Our fundamental team was formed shortly after the 1996 downselect from three competitors for JSF to two [Lockheed and Boeing]. We had teamed with bae Systems and Northrop Grumman, while Boeing had bought McDonnell Douglas. We went through a couple of years of team building where we formed the trust and allegiance to organize the best athlete principle—which means if we had a [really] important job to fill at jsf, we would look into those three companies and choose the best person to fill it." Martin McLaughlin from Northrop Grumman was selected to head airframe building in the Lockheed Martin plant, and pilot Simon Hargreaves from bae Systems was selected to be the chief test pilot for the stovl variant. "We let a subcontractor pilot be the first to fly our plane because he was the most qualified stovl pilot in the world," he said.

This collaborative, team-building concept even extends to appearance. "When you walk into a JSF group, we all look the same and wear the same badge," Burbage explains. "However, at periods of time when a program goes from one phase to another, you have to watch out for fracturing of the team, which is a natural phenomenon, and reestablish the team fabric."

This team is spread worldwide, connected by computers that have brought a new definition to a standard workday. According to Burbage, "We have engineers spanning nine time zones—from El Segundo, Calif., and Fort Worth, Texas, to Wharton in the U.K.—seamlessly connected. You almost have a 24-hour workday. Actually, there is only one two-hour period, from 10 to 12 [Central Standard Time], when we have everyone at [his or her] desk for communications, and we try to reserve that time. It's a neat management challenge," he adds.

At this point in the program, approximately 27 states are participating with Lockheed. "Since such a significant piece of the puzzle needs to be in the international defense community, we don't have as much going to domestic suppliers but going more to global representation, and that has a political effect of its own," notes Burbage. The list of expected buyers for JSF is expected to grow but right now includes Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Turkey. Virtually any of the 35 nations that currently fly f-16, f/a-18, or the av-8b could be considered potential customers. However, there are issues yet to be decided about how much stealth technology and systems information would be allowed with such sales.

When the much-heralded JSF downselect from two competing industry giants to one winner was announced in October 2001 by Secretary of the Air Force James G. Roche, both competitors acknowledged a salient fact: The Lockheed Martin lift-fan propulsion concept was probably a deciding factor. The company's famed Skunk Works, long known for developing leap-ahead technologies, was where Paul Bevilaqua and coinventor Paul Shumpert created and refined the concept. Lockheed then patented that propulsion system with Bevilaqua's name on it. According to Burbage, "Ten years later it turned out to be a real discriminator because we had the patent, and the competition couldn't use it." While JSF may be the first aircraft to benefit from the unique lift-fan concept, civil aviation application may not be far behind. The wealth of technology applications and spin-offs from this program have just begun.

Burbage describes 2001 as "one of the most action-filled years, a very intense period. We flew three different aircraft from Oct. 24, 2000, through Aug. 6, 2001. It was fast-paced, a high-tempo environment, and at the same time, we were submitting our JSF proposal.

"It's like a dog chasing a truck down the road for a long time," Burbage explains. "The good news is that he caught it, he sunk his teeth in the tire, but the bad news is the truck's still going. ... It's a fast pace."