JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER NEEDS TO FIT 3 CUSTOMERS.

Byline: Kyung M. Song The Seattle Times

It hasn't even been aloft yet, but the Joint Strike Fighter already has a mission as tough as any it might face in combat.

The nation's newest fighter jet is attempting to become the first to be built simultaneously for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps. A similar effort during the Vietnam War was such a flop that the United States didn't try for a common aircraft design again for 30 years.

To meet Pentagon cost requirements, each Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) also has to cost $38 million or less. That's a fraction of the cost of a single F-22 Raptor, the craft designed for the Air Force only whose ballooning price tag has roiled Congress.

If successful, the JSF, a single-engine, single-pilot fighter, would secure financial supremacy for Boeing or Lockheed, the nation's top defense contractors.

The two companies are working on competing designs for the JSF. The victor will get the biggest Pentagon contract ever and the chance to build what could be the last manned U.S. fighter for a generation or more.

The rivals have picked very different paths for their JSF proposals. Each is betting it has figured out a better way to satisfy the widely differing needs of three customers. Meanwhile, skeptics wonder if it's possible to build an aircraft that could operate on the ground, take off from moving ships, land vertically and still have enough features in common to keep prices down.

Seattle-based Boeing has opted for an unorthodox, more compact design that emphasizes simplicity and reduced weight. It also decided to stick with a proven propulsion technology for the crucial short-takeoff and vertical-landing model for the Marines.

The version from Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed looks more like a conventional fighter, with a longer, sleeker body. But it features a unique propulsion system that uses thrust from a shaft-driven fan as well as the engine to lift the aircraft vertically.

``Each of us believe we have the better mousetrap,'' said Fred May III, Boeing's JSF director of aircraft development.

Pentagon price caps

The JSF is the first fighter designed with economy in mind. That's a distinction in military procurement, where technology long ruled buying decisions and weapons prices seemingly grew extra zeros overnight.

The Pentagon has capped the price of each JSF at $28 million in 1994 dollars for the Air Force, $35 million for the Marines and $38 million for the Navy. The three versions are required to share more than 90 percent of their design to keep manufacturing, training and maintenance costs low.

Boeing and Lockheed won a three-way contest in November 1996 to each build two test aircraft to demonstrate their design concepts. The loss was devastating to McDonnell Douglas. The St. Louis defense contractor - and Boeing's sole domestic competitor for commercial jetliners - merged with Boeing the following year.

The Air Force wants to buy more than 2,000 JSFs to replace the workhorse F-16 Falcon and the A-10. The JSF is a strike aircraft, meaning that its primary mission is to attack targets on the ground. During battle, the JSF would follow behind air-to-air fighters such as the F-15 Eagle or the proposed F-22, whose job is to clear out enemy aircraft.

The Navy is interested in 300 JSFs to fly alongside its newest strike aircraft, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The Navy version of JSF would have to withstand punishing salt air and be rugged enough for arrested-wire landings aboard aircraft carriers.

The Marines want 642 JSFs to replace their AV-8B Harriers and F/A-18 Hornets. They eventually plan to fly the JSF as their only fixed-wing aircraft.

The British Royal Navy and Royal Air Force also are partners in the JSF program and plan to buy 150 of the fighters. In all, the JSF contract would be worth $300 billion or more, once export sales, weapon systems and service contracts are added in. The Pentagon is scheduled to choose a winner in spring of 2001.

The greatest engineering challenge - and perhaps the one that will most determine who wins the contract - is in the vertical lift version for the Marines. The AV-8B is the only aircraft that now takes off and lands vertically. Boeing has chosen to update the original British ``direct lift'' technology for its propulsion system.

May said Boeing decided direct lift was the easiest solution that met all the performance requirements. It's a simple, proven technology that uses two nozzles to direct jet engine thrust downward to lift the aircraft. The nozzles are the only extra weight during cruise, when the aircraft wings, not the engine, provide the lift.

Lockheed rejected the direct-lift system as unacceptable, said Frank Cappuccio, vice president and director of Lockheed's JSF program.

Lockheed's propulsion system relies on a shaft-driven lift fan to generate cooler-air thrust. The additional thrust allows the aircraft to carry more weight while reducing the need for an outsized engine only for liftoffs, Lockheed says. The cooler air also dissipates the heat from the engine thrust before its reaches the engine inlet, helping the engine run more efficiently.

Boeing contends the lift poses extra risks to the pilot and the aircraft in return for only minimal benefits. The company believes its direct-lift version is safer and allows quicker transition between wing-borne flight and vertical flight. Boeing says the lift fan turns into a dead weight during the 95 percent of the time when the aircraft is simply cruising.

Cappuccio, however, said direct-lift technology can't meet the requirements for all the military services.

``If what they have is so good, why don't they make more AV-8Bs?'' Cappuccio asked rhetorically. ``What the customer wants is something better than the Harrier.''

Frank Statkus, the JSF program manager for Boeing, said he is confident that the company's aim to ``keep it simple and keep vulnerability low'' is the right approach.

``In the end, I think it will be mandatory'' that the JSF be affordable, said Statkus.

The two companies received $700 million each for the four-year concept-demonstration phase. Both Boeing and Lockheed were in danger of overrunning their spending limits before the Pentagon restructured the JSF program this spring to ensure that they stay on budget and on schedule.

Boeing said that without the changes, it anticipated going over budget by $35 million. Lockheed won't divulge what its overrun figure might have been, although a spokeswoman dismissed as speculation reports that it was $100 million or more.

``If it's not affordable, nobody is going to buy it,'' said May, the Boeing aircraft-development director. ``That's what's going to win or lose this contract - affordability.''

Design change for Boeing

Cappuccio disagrees that the JSF competition will be judged primarily on cost at this stage of the competition. He believes the Pentagon is more interested in what the aircraft promise to deliver and how well Lockheed and Boeing managed the technical challenges.

Cappuccio contends Lockheed has an edge over Boeing because its two test-model JSFs look very similar to what its production model would look like.

Boeing altered its design after it locked in the shape of its concept-demonstration models. Computer simulation showed that the original design was too heavy for low-speed carrier landings. So Boeing shortened the JSF's wings and added horizontal tails. It also changed the angle of the chin engine inlet.