Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC
Boeing claims to have kept its Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme on budget by balancing the cost of a revised preferred weapons system concept (PWSC) with savings achieved in the construction of two X-32A/B demonstrator aircraft.
"We've had a management plan in place that has been working costs all along and the plan has not changed. We've been on that blue (budget) line and we continue to be on that blue line-I'm not running an over-budget programme," asserts Frank Statkus, Boeing JSF programme general manager.
He concedes that a recent major revision of its PWSC production configuration has pushed up expenditure, mainly as a result of additional wind tunnel testing. Despite this, the company claims to be ahead of schedule and as much as 50% under cost on assembly of the X-32A/B demonstrators.
Boeing has spent 56% of its $750 million concept demonstration phase contract funds to date, of which some 75% covers the cost of the two X-32s and the remainder the PWSC. Cost performance reviews are currently projecting around a 5% gap between planned budget and projected actual work spending through to the end of fiscal year 2001.
Statkus says the programme was structured this way at the outset and he is confident of remaining on budget by continuing to close the gap. "Every time we review the work we find there is less work to go in the shop, even though there might be more work in the design of the PWSC," he says.
The latest 373 design configuration incorporates a horizontal stabiliser and smaller 52.02m (560sq.ft) swept wing in place of the previous 372's delta wing. The changes were needed to cut weight, improve pitch control and carrier landing qualities. This may be further refined with the removal of the present design's vortex fences.
Boeing's revised 373 design now meets the 90% compliance stipulated by JSF programme office's joint interim requirement document 3 and in reality "is probably around 95%" Statkus says. He anticipates no "significant" changes through to the final 377 configuration Boeing plans to propose for the next engineering and manufacturing development phase.
While Boeing's PWSC mould lines are frozen, it concedes to falling short on payload-range performance for the Royal Navy and US Marine Corps short take-off vertical landing version, which will feature a clipped 9 m (30ft) span wing. "We need to get more weight out, we'll do it internally," he says.
Source: Flight International
