Once again, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is warning Congress and the Department of Defense to hit the brakes on the long-troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The latest report, much like previous reports, recommends that Congress withhold funding until the Department of Defense (DOD) can make a better business case for the program (including assessing ever-changing long term costs and how those might affect other systems) and delay an October 2019 full-rate production decision until “critical deficiencies” are resolved.
To taxpayers, this should sound like common sense: few people would commit to a major purchase if it had significant problems. But so far, that hasn’t deterred Congress or the Pentagon. Congress regularly appropriates funds for more F-35s than the Pentagon requested, and the Pentagon hasn’t changed tactics in its pursuit of the F-35, despite cost-overruns, delays, ongoing mechanical, software, and helmet issues, upgrades, and concerns from allies.
The GAO report reads like a greatest hits of past F-35 reports, laying out numerous unresolved questions and issues around the F-35. Here are some of the more troubling highlights:
A planned testing schedule has slipped - increasing the likelihood that additional problems might be identified and not addressed in time for the 2019 full-rate decision.
DOD “plans to defer resolving some critical deficiencies” until after the full-rate decision.
DOD plans to spend billions “modernizing” the F-35, supposedly a cutting-edge system, with new capabilities. The total cost of this plan is unclear - and the Pentagon hasn’t made a “sound business case—a baseline cost and schedule estimate” for this new plan.
The 213 aircraft already delivered need retrofitting to address new issues that have come to light through the questionable practice of “concurrency” - building and testing the program at the same time - and the costs are unclear. Worse, more than 501 aircraft will be procured BEFORE initial testing is complete.
“As of January 2018, the F-35 program had 966 open deficiencies - 111 Category 1 and 855 Category 2.” Category 1 describes deficiencies that could “jeopardize safety, security or another critical requirement.” Category 2 refers to deficiencies that could “impede or constrain successful mission accomplishment.” Again, many of these will be unresolved by the October 2019 full-rate production decision.
The F-35 continues to have reliability and maintainability issues and has only met or is close to meeting one-half of these targets. The GAO found that this targets might not be met by the time the program is considered “mature.”
Unfortunately for taxpayers footing the bill for the F-35, it’s unlikely that Congress or the Pentagon will take the GAO’s findings to heart. The watchdog agency has repeatedly recommended that testing be completed and problems resolved before Congress dedicates billions of dollars on the next annual purchase. GAO has previously called for better cost estimates that take in not just lifetime programmatic costs (including upgrades), but also how the Pentagon plans to afford and maintain other systems at the same time. And GAO has regularly warned that acquisition best practice includes “demonstrating the reliability of a system before full-rate production” to avoid subsequent retrofits and delays.
This comes at the same time the Senate Appropriations Committee has raised questions about promised savings through bulk purchases of parts and equipment. Taxpayers were initially promised $1.2 billion in savings through this accelerated buy, but new analysis indicates that savings could only be half that.
Despite all this, Congress and the Pentagon show no signs of slowing down this wasteful program. In the recently passed House Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2019, the House approved a plus-up of 16 F-35s over the Pentagon’s request, for a total of 93.
Over time, the F-35 has become a poster child for poor acquisition practices, but it’s far from the only example that abounds at the Pentagon. GAO recommendations to implement common sense business practices, like “try before you buy” and having a clear sense of anticipated costs, should be extended across Pentagon procurement. Ignoring these basic principles doesn’t make Americans safer. It only needlessly adds to our growing fiscal crisis.