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GAO-11-903R 1 (2011-09-14)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaanzs0001 and id is 1 raw text is: A GA 0 .. .. A a bontabilty I Integrity I Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 September 14, 2011 The Honorable Carl Levin Chairman Committee on Armed Services United States Senate Subject: Joint Strike Fighter: Implications of Program Restructuring and Other Recent Developments on Key Aspects of DOD's Prior Alternate Engine Analyses Dear Mr. Chairman: After supporting a Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) acquisition strategy that called for a competitive engine development of the F 135 and F 136 engines, the Department of Defense (DOD) stopped requesting funding for the F 136 alternate engine in its fiscal year 2007 budget request, but the Congress continued to fund it through the 2010 budget. 1 In February 2010, DOD projected that it would cost an additional $2.9 billion through 2016 to support an alternate engine program. DOD decided that an engine competition would not likely generate enough long-term savings to justify this up-front investment and subsequently terminated the alternate engine program. In 2010, at your request, we reviewed the basis for DOD's $2.9 billion funding projection and reported that the projection did not include the same level of fidelity and precision normally associated with a detailed, comprehensive cost estimate and that the amount of up-front investment needed could be lower if two key assumptions in DOD's analysis were changed.2 Moreover, since DOD's projection and our last review, several fundamental changes in the JSF aircraft and engine programs have taken place. At your request, we examined the potential implications of these changes to the $2.9 billion funding projection. We also examined the potential implications for DOD's broader cost-benefit analysis that captures the long-term costs and benefits of the competitive engine program. In performing our review, we obtained data and met with officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, regarding their $2.9 billion 1 The JSF program began in 1996 with an acquisition strategy that called for a competitive engine acquisition program. The program planned to first develop and procure the F135 primary engine and, with a few years lag time, develop the F136 alternate engine to compete for future procurements and for life-cycle support activities. 2 GAO, Joint Strike Fighter: Assessment ofDOD's Funding Projection for the F136Alternate Engine, GAO-10-1020R (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15, 2010). GAO-I 1-903R JSF Alternate Engine Program

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