The House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces wants to authorize the Pentagon to buy aircraft and spare parts in bulk to save money on future purchases of both the V-22 Osprey and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
In its draft mark of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the subcommittee provides authorization for the secretary of the Navy to enter multi-year contracts of up to seven years when purchasing Bell/Boeing [BA] V-22s for the Navy and Marine Corps. It also provides for common configuration-readiness and modernization (CCRAM) upgrades for the aircraft. Bell is division of Textron [TXT].
A recent Independent Range Review (IRR) of the MV-22 program showed that heightened demand for the aircraft required on-the-fly modifications to the design as they came off the production line, resulting in 77 different configurations of the aircraft being rushed into combat zones. When every fourth aircraft is substantially different from the previous three, maintenance and support logistics are complicated, so the Marine Corps is working through CCRAM to bring all of its 263-plus V-22s to a common configuration.
As the aircraft – oldest to youngest – proceed through scheduled depot maintenance, they will be reconfigured into a common variant by Marine Corps, Bell and Boeing maintainers. The work will be done during incremental preventive maintenance prescheduled for each aircraft.
“The committee encourages the Department of the Navy to execute a procurement profile for this multiyear in order to acquire the aircraft at economic order quantity levels that most efficiently acquire the aircraft and fully procures the programmed acquisition objective aircraft for the Department of the Navy,” the subcommittee’s draft, released June 20, reads.
Bill language does not authorize multi-year procurement of Lockheed Martin [LMT] F-35 aircraft, but would allow economic order quantities (EOQs) for long-lead-time materials for the jets. The materials and equipment must have completed hardware qualification testing and used in fiscal years 2019 and 2020, according to the mark. That would involve F-35 low-rate initial production lots 12, 13 and 14, through which international program partners are paying up front for multiple production years, according to subcommittee aides.
The U.S. government is not authorized to enter multi-year contracts with Lockheed for the F-35, though the idea has been floated by the program office as a cost-reduction measure. Congress has been unwilling to authorize the Defense Department to make such a move, but the subcommittee mark would allow the Pentagon to piggyback on the international multi-year by buying certified parts in bulk.
The subcommittee also would limit the value of such contracts for fiscal year 2018, or any year thereafter, to $661 million. The secretary of defense also would have to notify Congress that an impending EOQ buy meets certain conditions and then wait 15 days before initiating the purchase.
The fiscal year 2018 Defense Department budget submission includes $10.8 billion for a total of 70 F-35s for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
The subcommittee is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m., Wednesday to markup its section of the House version of the NDAA.