Journal Article

Learning and forgetting in the jet fighter aircraft industry

Bongers, Anelí

2017

Overview

A recent strategy carried out by the aircraft industry to reduce the total cost of the new generation fighters has consisted in the development of a single airframe with different technical and operational specifications. This strategy has been designed to reduce costs in the Research, Design and Development phase with the ultimate objective of reducing the final unit price per aircraft. This is the case of the F-35 Lightning II, where three versions, with significant differences among them, are produced simultaneously based on a single airframe. Whereas this strategy seems to be useful to cut down pre-production sunk costs, their effects on production costs remain to be studied. This paper shows that this strategy can imply larger costs in the production phase by reducing learning acquisition and hence, the total effect on the final unit price of the aircraft is indeterminate. Learning curves are estimated based on the flyaway cost for the latest three fighter aircraft models: The A/F-18E/F Super Hornet, the F-22A Raptor, and the F-35A Lightning II. We find that learning rates for the F-35A are significantly lower (an estimated learning rate of around 9%) than for the other two models (around 14%).

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Aircraft / Aircraft industry / Aircraft models / Analysis / Biology and Life Sciences / Construction costs / Demographic aspects / Engineering and Technology / Fighter aircraft / Fighter bombers (Airplanes) / Industrial engineering / Industry / Learning / Learning Curve / Learning curves / Lightning / Manufacturing engineering / Memory / Military aircraft / Physiological aspects / Production costs / Production increases / Psychological aspects / Research and Analysis Methods / Research design / Social Sciences / Training