"Independent" Test of F/A-22 is misleading

Here’s a surprise: The Air Force has issued a press release boasting that the F/A-22 Raptor has just passed its “independent” testing by – the Air Force. The fighter has demonstrated “overwhelmingly effective” war-fighting capability, according to the Initial Operational Test and Evaluation report by the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center at Kirkland Air Force Base, N.M.

This news release is a little misleading because the “independent” tester, the Air Force, really isn’t all that independent. The Pentagon’s real independent tester, the Director of Test and Evaluation, has yet to complete its report card of its rigorous testing of the $257 million per copy aircraft.

Testing issues aside, we think the fighter is way too expensive and its mission has disappeared with the end of the cold war.

That’s not to say there’s not a cold war brewing in Congress that such news releases tend to bolster. The Pentagon has approved a budget cut of just over $10 billion to reduce the number of F/A-22 buys from 276 to 180, but the Air Force isn’t going down without a fight. It’s preparing a power point presentation to ask for twice that number of Raptors.

Comments

[Posted on: Feb 03, 2005 at 01:22 AM]

I'd say that this is true in the traditional (non-DOD) business model sense. However, I would assert that program R&D costs are viewed by Defense Contractors as being based on total program costs. Decisions are made regarding the level of R&D activity with respect to the total number of deliverable items so as to reflect an overall lower unit cost. In a cost+ contract,if you de-scope the effort, the total costs including R&D are reduced. -- REW --

[Posted on: Feb 02, 2005 at 11:43 PM]

Not necessarily, because much of the Raptor program's per unit cost is wrapped up in R&D costs which remained fixed regardless of how many planes are procured. To figure out how much a reduced buy of 96 planes would save, you have to disaggregate the R&D costs from total costs and also figure out if a reduced buy would changes per unit cost as well. Maybe Eric Miller from POGO can give us an answer?

[Posted on: Feb 02, 2005 at 06:10 PM]

If each F/A-22 fighter costs $257 million then wouldn't reducing the buy by 96 aircraft save over $24 billion plus operating and Air Force chief of Staff training costs?

-HJC