Guest it is built to show the difference of the f35. The capability provided, and the avionics as well as the range. We have simulators of the f35. It is a way to communicate this quantam leap in ability. Host who are you demonstrating it to . Who visits the Fighter Demonstration Center . Guest we have the navy, marine corps, and the air force. We also have eight International Partners. We continue to add more partners, more countries to the program. Israel and japan have committed we see the airplane. Another set of countries buying the program or buying the airplane in the years to come. This allows us to communicate that difference in washington, d. C. , to the decisionmakers on the program. Host you have visits from members of congress as well. What is the purpose for them to see the center . Guest they can fly the simulator and they can see the technology and the jobs. F35 has 125,000 direct and indirect jobs, building the f 35. These are high Tech Aerospace jobs that will be part of our Aerospace Industry for years and years to come. They are building High Technology avionics. They are doing things with software that make this a next generation airplane. They are also building it for airport. We have about 50 billion of export value. Host lets talk about the history and the goals of the f 35. What is its mission . When did it begin . Guest the program was built to recapitalize the Fighter Forces that are out there today. Look at the last 20 years of operations, whether it is bosnia or libya. Ghter aviation enables air Maritime Operations and land operations. Our Fighter Force is getting older. We have 40 less fighters after desert storm. That Fighter Force is getting older. Today the average age is approaching 25 years old. Look at the potential threat that is out there today. Russia and china are working on no less than three fifth Generation Fighters that are flying in generation today. They are advancing surface to air missiles to take away this advantage of the fighters we have had in the United States for years and years to come. We need to invest and we need to the f35 does that. It is those eight partner countries. It brings the nextgeneration technology. This allows our pilots to go where they need to go when they need to go. This builds on the technology in the f22 and advances it 10 years along. It brings increased range. It is stealth where it needs to go and is advanced avionics to use the advantage of the technology. Its the excess range to go further than we have before. That is the advantage of the f 35. Host all the different branches of the government are going to have a variation of f35. How will they differ across the branches . What are the challenges for making a different one for each of the branches . Guest they have different it is made to take off and land from it is a short takeoff and vertical landing. It is meant to land and take off facilities. Nary for the u. S. Navy version, it is made to take off and land off of catapults and arresting gears with tail hooks. The challenges are on the unique requirements associated with the different airplanes. Are outor the f 35b, we for the second time at the uss ,oss, doing short takeoffs taking off with over 40,000 pound aircraft in less than 500 feet. Coming back and landing night and, at sea, in a time. We are doing those operations today. We did them last night and yesterday. For the u. S. Navy variant, we are taking off and landing off of big aircraft decks at sea. Yesterday, we did catapult operations at Naval Air Stations in patuxent river. That tends to be a challenge. We are also building a fifth generation airplane. Firsts the first stealth airplane for the marine corps and the navy. It will allow them to do missions they never have done before. It is redefining multirole fighters. I flew some missions that were air to air missions or air to ground. Ef 35 will expand the mission set. The f35 will expand the mission set. You will be able to do electronic attacks. You will be able to do intelligence operations, Reconnaissance Operations tommy even commandandcontrol operations that youve never seen on a fighter jet before. Thats the value of f35 in redefining the multirole fighter. We are able to do it across all three services and do it in a much more efficient manner. Why is Southwest Airlines so successful . They fly a single airplane. The pilots are trained on a single airplane. The maintenance crews are trained on a single airplane. They are much more efficient. That is the value of the f 35. Now you have avionics that are common through the three services. You have a single supply chain on those avionics and propulsion systems. You have an airplane that provides the next leap of capability and is common across the three u. S. Services. But it does not stop there. You have the partner countries in israel and japan joining. We are sharing the burden. We are sharing that National Security and Cooperation Among our best allies in the great air forces of the world. That is the value of f35 and would rings to National Security. Post what is the topic, the future of the fwe are joined by steve35. Obryan. We will take your questions and comments in just a minute. Republicans, 2025853881. Democrats, 2025853880. And 2025853885. We have a fourth line for active and retired military, 202585 3883. Lets talk about the cost of the f35. According to the Government Accountability office and congressional quarterly, total estimated Program Costs now is 400 billion, nearly twice the initial cost from original estimates. Why is that . Guest right now were driving the cost down. Certainly, this program has had its challenges. Underestimated the complexity of the production, development, and tests. But the program is on track. Were driving the price down. From the first year of production to the seventh year of production, we have reduced the cost of the airplane by over 55 . We are not satisfied there. We are going to continue to drop this price of the airplane as the u. S. Government estimates note that, in 2018, the average cost will be 85 million, about 75 million in todays dollars. That is in line with older generation airplanes. It is a quantum leap in capability. We are focused on reducing the cost. We have been on track for the last three years. We are continuing to focus on reducing into about the same price as a fourthgeneration or prior generation of airplanes out there today with a quantum leap in capability. Host back to the costs from the gao. 316 billion dollars in development and procurement spending now through 2037. Thats an average of 12. 6 billion per year. The per claim cost estimates have climbed from 81 million in 2001 to 161 million today. Operation and sustainment costs alone will exceed one dollar trillion over the fleetboston lifespan. The fleets lifespan. Respond to those numbers. Guest i think this airplane is Cost Effective overall. It will replace three different make models of airplanes. Those three airplanes have three separate supply chains and seven they have a different training pipeline. They have all of this different, separate infrastructure. Will replace those airplanes with just one f35b and one pilot. The commandant said in front of congress that will save the nation almost one dollar billion 1 billion per year. We are replacing a multitude of airplanes in the u. S. And we are doing this with a single type of avionics to drive down the cost. The International Component now you have eight partner countries and japan and israel contributing 5 billion to the development of the airplane. They also contribute to the they drive down the price of the airplane for the u. S. To the tune of about 26 billion. Every airplane for the u. S. Services is 10 million less because of the international participation. We encourage interoperability. I flew jets in combat operations. Our International Allies our capabilities were inoperable. Now with the f35, our best allies are going to have the same airplanes, same capabilities. The value will be extremely high for coalition operations. Andt is what the f35 brings. That is how it brings smart recapitalization. Host let me get to phone calls. Stanley in utah, go ahead. Caller i have a question. How does the 35 stand up against does it have the stress factoring that the f22 has . Is it like the f22 . Guest they are made to be synergetic. The only both stealth. 2 5Generation Fighters out there today. Generationo fifth fighters out there today. They both use different avionics. They are made to work in concert. F22 is an airtoair airplane. Like intelligence gathering and command and control. Those are the things they f35 does. It is made fores. Our International Allies as well. Eight partner countries. Israel and japan. We believe more countries will join the program in the future. It is the synergetic factor that f35 and the capabilities it has, and it is made to operate with the f22 in our best air forces around the world. Host john is retired military in jacksonville, florida. You are up next. Caller how are you doing today . Good morning. My two questions are how much longer can we sustain i am retired f16 . From the local air guard wing. We have f16s. What about the countermeasures . The countermeasure devices that the f35 will have . Will be comparable to the russians . Or will it be better . Guest thank you. We doan we do . What can to recapitalize our fourth generation airplanes. Just like the car that you drive. Those airplanes were designed in we needon administration. To recapitalize these fleets to maintain and outpaced the threat. You are buying the f35 not just for todays threat but for the next 50plus years. The airplane is made to be reprogrammable and made to be upgraded from the beginning. So, it is a softwareintensive airplane designed to be upgraded, designed to outpaced the threat. The f35 continues that advantage. The f35 is designed to do that. We start at a head start above any adversary. We have been doing stealth airplanes far longer than in china and russia. When you look at the f117, the f22, the be two, the f35 builds upon that technology. That you need to continue to build and invest and maintain the advantage because the threat is not stagnant. The threat continues to understand and evolve. The f35 is built to do that, not just for the three u. S. Services but for our eight International Partners. This allows us to continue to outpace the threat. Thats why this is the right airplane for our National Security in the next 50plus years. Host we have a tweet. The f35 is the new f22 and neither will ever see any real combat mission. Guest ian tell you can tell you where production is at today. We have over 100 airplanes that have rolled out of the factory. We have 75 airplanes flying today. We are at six different basing locations throughout the United States. We are at Naval Air Station pax river. We are down at Eglin Air Force base in florida. We have operations going on with operational airplanes at Marine Corps Air station yuma as well as Nellis Air Force base, Edwards Air Force base. We are at the uss ross today on the east coast of the United States doing short takeoff and vertical landings with the f 35b. We have eight countries under contract to buy the f35. This is an airplane that is continuing to progress. We continue to do flight tests. We are dropping munitions out of the airplanes today. Airtoair missiles. We have our laser guided bombs. They are precision errorto ground weapons. Airtoground weapons. Those are being dropped off of f35 today. We are increasing the production and dropping the price. We are deploying the airplane to many locations. We believe the f35 is progressing toward initial operating capability for the u. S. Marine corps. We our focused on doing that in 2015. Host 2015 is when they will be ready for war . Or some type of mission . In 2015, the United States marine corps has declared that is their targeted initial operating capability. We have an operational squadron. There are jets landing and taking off off an amphibious ship. They are training and operating and we are upgrading the airplane to be ready for combat should the nation require it, and support the marine corps in that endeavor. Host peter from new york on our republican line. You have to turn the television down. Talk to me through the phone. You are on the air. What is your question or comment . Caller when will the f35 be ready to go into combat . Host you just said 2015. Is it just for one branch of the military . Guest 2016 for the air force. They are setting for operations. Setting for operations right now. By the beginning of next year, we will be deploying airplanes or moving airplanes to the Luke Air Force base in arizona, as well as the next operational aircraft. The u. S. Air force is planning on having a squadron of 12 to 24 airplanes that will be ready for combat as they declare their initial operating capability. Again, this will be a stealth airplane, on airplane capable of doing precision airtoair and airtoground missions. It was built for range. It has twice the amount of fuel of the airplanes it is replacing. It is upgraded avionics. It takes what we have that i what we had in the airplanes that i flew and puts it in a fifth generation capability. This allows you to do what you need to do where you need to do it with the advanced avionics and longrange to do it in many different places. Thats the beauty of the fand we are providing to our 35. Allies. They, too, will have that initial operating capability before the end of this are and of the century. Host we will keep talking with steve obryan. We will keep taking your phone calls and getting your questions and comments. Pedro is live from the center to talk more about the technological uniqueness of the f35. Host were at the f35 Demonstration Center at Lockheed Martin. If you were to go around and come across the spacious building here, an you would come across the f35 cockpit demonstrator. It is probably the closest thing youll see to flying an f35. What is most impressive is what is inside the cockpit. Joining us is elliott clemence. Thank you for joining us. Happy to be here. Host i see a lot of touch screens instead of switches and dials. Why is that . Guest having a touch screen reduces workload for the pilot. Back in the old days, there is around 150plus knobs and that keeps the pilot very busy. Screen,r as the touch how much work load is reduced . Guest with the touch screen, your workload is greatly reduced. You can focus on the tactical situation. You can have enhanced Situational Awareness which affects your survivability. To put that in a different perspective, if the pilot is not as busy with knobs and switches and trying to control precisely where his radar is looking, and he can pay more attention to the big picture and be more lethal as a tactical pilot. Host some of the controls that you do this tells you your fuel. If you were to push this, it tells you your weapons capability. This is the overall function of the plane. Walk us through some of these other things. Guest this is our tactical situation display. This is our primary display for employing weapons tactically. Synthesized here is information from all of the sensors in the airplane, presented to us in a very simple and coherent format. It allows the pilot to go ahead and make good decisions and employee weapons. Over here, we have our infrared search and track. Over here, we both are infrared sensors. This gives you a sense of what is going on outside . Yes. It is very easy to access, and it is very intuitive to operate. What happens if the electronics fail, as they sometimes do . This is a replica of the actual cockpit. We have a panoramic display that is divided into two parts. If one computer goes out, the next one will take over. We have a fair amount of redundancy. This is a standard side stick throttle. Those interceptors have various switches and knobs. The pilot doesnt necessarily have to touch the touchscreen while flying. Switchs one particular by your finger that operates a Voice Recognition system, so we can talk to the airplane and give it commands. All that goes to the idea of reducing the workload . Correct. Display isd of necessary for the architecture of the airplane. Variouslane has centers. It has electrooptics of sensors electrooptical sensors. We need a big touchscreen like the one you see here. If it blanks out, what happens . If both computers and screens went down, you would have this little standby flight display to fly off of. That would allow you to return to your base. For someone who flies this, what is the learning curve . It is different. For me, training time was very minimal. 10 hours in the simulator. Some academics. The june new generation, they will adapt to this very quickly. Us. E will be with tease the folks about the next segment. This is not the only display in the airplane. Our helmet acts as a functional display as well. Or going to talk about how that works and the sensors integrate into the helmet. Elliott clements with us. This is the test simulator. Thank you. Back and talkgo about the different aspects of technology that goes into the f 35. Reportbrien, the gao talk about the different challenges that go into the technology for the f35. Thegao reports that one of biggest headaches is the lagging effort to write the complex software that is needed. Can you respond to that . Is the keytware challenge. This airplane carries 8. 6 million lines of code. Prior generations of airplanes only have about one m