'The government must end the uncertainty over its F-35 plans'

02 March 2012

Labour's Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy has called on Defence Secretary Philip Hammond to give a full and public explanation of the future of the carrier programme. Below is the full text of Murphy's letter calling for greater clarity on the size and nature of the UK's F-35 order

Dear Philip,

I am writing regarding worrying suggestions concerning the carrier variant of the Joint Strike Fighter programme and the possible impact on the future construction of the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carrier. There are increasing fears in the United States and in other countries that the proposed programme for aircraft for our new aircraft carriers will not be completed to time and on budget. There are real worries that time and money may have been wasted.

It is vital that there is now clarity on the government's plans for this vital area of the defence equipment programme. In particular the public need to know whether the government are proceeding with the plans outlined in the SDSR to introduce the carrier variant of the JSF in 2020, and whether any consideration is being given to reversing the decision to abandon the Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing variant of the F-35.

Decisions taken by the Coalition government in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review significantly distorted UK carrier strike capability. The decision to scrap the Harrier fleet means the UK will have no carrier aircraft capability from 2011-2020 and then only one operational carrier. The SDSR decision to change the aircraft flown from the carrier from the STOVL variant to the carrier variant of the JSF required significant and costly modification to the operational carrier with the installation of catapult and arrestor gear. These modifications introduced greater cost and delay to the programme. The in-service date of the new carrier was extended from 2016 to "around 2020", as stated in the SDSR, and the Public Accounts Committee has said that the cost of conversion will be up to £1.2 billion, but that the Department does not expect to have a better understanding of total costs until the end of this year. Both the PAC and the National Audit Office conclude that this decision has increased uncertainties around cost, technical, safety and commercial issues.

This uncertainty is increased by the rising cost of the unit price of the JSF. There have been delays in the US order of F-35, a cut in the Italian order and signals that other countries may follow suit. The overall cost of the programme is now unknown, as was confirmed by the Minister for Defence Equipment and Procurement in Defence Questions on 20th February.

I am concerned that the cost of conversion combined with the increased unit cost could be prohibitive to the plans as outlined in the SDSR being realised. Indeed, we have already learnt that on current plans the UK will have just six operational JSF aircraft in 2020, which is an insufficient capability. The SDSR itself stated: "the single carrier will therefore routinely have 12 fast jets embarked for operations while retaining the capacity to deploy up to the 36 previously planned."

It is now time for a full and public explanation of government plans in order to give the defence community and the country confidence. In particular we need to know what consideration the Government is giving to returning to the STOVL variant, which may reduce costs, bring forward the in-service date and retain interoperability with our allies, notably the US Marine Corps.

There is a need for clarity on this strategic defence project for the sake of our nation and the thousands of high-skilled jobs that rely on certainty about this project.

I hope you will answer the concerns expressed within this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence

HAVE YOUR SAY

07 March 2012

Mr Murphy's concerns are understandable. But even he would probably admit that the government has limited control over, for example, delays in the F35 and EMALS programmes resulting from technical problems with their development.
Recent MOD statements suggest that their intention at the present time is to simultaneously deploy both the CVF ships with about 10 aircraft each, which in my view would be grossly wasteful in terms of resources and the number of personnel required.
The F35B version of the aircraft is more versatile, thanks to it's STOVL capability, and represents better value for money despite it's higher cost. But in addition to being expensive it is too large, heavy and complex for some roles such as tactical strike/close air support and counter-insurgency (COIN). The production of an improved version of the Harrier aircraft to fill this gap in capability should be seriously considered.
J. Southworth - University of Hull

12 March 2012

Bring back the P.1216!
Chris - London

12 March 2012

Who's bright idea was it to sell off our Harriers for less then the price of the upgrade that many of them were still recieving?

If we had retained them we could have kept the carrier strike capability until the new aircraft were ready.
Steve Diggle - Cambridge, UK

14 March 2012

F35B requires more support than C model due to requiring more maintainence, higher fuel requirements and higher sortie rate to do the same mission as the C, don't see how this is more versatile but it definately a lot more expensive both now and to run.
JC - UK

14 March 2012

The STOVL capability of the F35B makes it more versatile or flexible in terms of it's basing requirements, which could be of vital importance in a medium to high intensity conflict. This more than compensates for the slightly reduced range and probably slightly higher maintenance costs.
J. Southworth - University of Hull

15 March 2012

The F-35 program should have been cancelled. The policy of pushing the turkey forward at any cost only threatens to create a budgetary sinkhole that would weaken the defences of the U.S. and its allies. The JSF will never become a viable combat aircraft.
Guest - Australia

19 March 2012

The number of missions required to deliver a given weight of ordnance to a point located at a given distance from the aircraft's base, is the kind of naive criterion that people might have used to evaluate combat aircraft performance in the first quarter of the 20th century. If that was in fact the reason why the F35C was selected over the F35C, which would not entirely surprise me, then I suppose this tends to support the theory that if you locked some monkeys in a room with typewriters for a million years, they would never write the complete works of Shakespeare.
On the basis of range/payload alone, the best strike aircraft would be a C130 Hercules. And as we know, the USAF uses sub-types of this aircraft to deliver ordnance, specifically the BLU-82 fuel air explosive bomb. Originally, these bombs were used in Vietnam to create landing zones for helicopters. At that time they were called Cheeseburgers and dropped from B52s.
I would have thought it possible to design a UCAV that could accommodate one BLU-82 sized weapon internally, or a number of smaller weapons, or a combination of fuel and weapons. Such a UCAV might have a greater radius of action than the C130 while being much smaller and stealthier. This would be good for destroying terrorist training camps and drug factories.
The inability of the F35B to carry bombs larger than 1000lb internally is perhaps not as serious a drawback as it might at first appear, since in a high intensity conflict most strike missions would in practice be flown using externally carried stand-off weapons such as the JASSM and Tomahawk, whereas in a low intensity scenario it would be possible for the aircraft to carry an external bombload without impairing it's survivability too much. That said, the internal ordnance capacity of the F35 in any of it's versions is pretty unimpressive.
J. Southworth - University of Hull

26 March 2012

To correct my previous comment slightly, the BLU82B bomb has now been replaced in USAF service by the GBU 43/B MOAB which is larger at 21,700 lb and has GPS based guidance. It is deployed with the MC130 aircraft.
J. Southworth - University of Hull