Dutch Vote to Cancel Order for F-35 JSF

Steyr

Info from Aviation Week:

The Dutch parliament voted last night by 79 votes against 71 to cancel the order for the first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and to end Dutch participation in the program's Initial Operational Test and Evaluation phase.

The vote on a motion proposed by the Labor Party was based on the fact that price estimates made by Lockheed Martin in response to the Netherlands' original Request for Information and the Supplemental Request for Information of 2008 are not reliable.

However, Minister of Defense Eimert van Middelkoop said the vote was Labor Party “election rhetoric” prior to the June 9 general election and was quoted by Dutch News as saying that dropping out of the trials would still cost Dutch taxpayers €20 million, after having spent €800 million (some say more than €1 billion) to date.

The Netherlands has been run by a caretaker Labor/Christian Democrat government since the previous government lost a vote of confidence in February over the army's deployment in Afghanistan. Van Middelkoop said in a statement issued on May 20 that he was neither willing nor able to act on Parliament's vote as he believed the government's temporary status means it cannot take such irreversible decisions before the election.

But Labor MP Angelien Eijsink says it is irresponsible to continue with the JSF program. She cites delays, the Nunn-McCurdy cost breach, the 2-year delay of the IOT&E and poor progress in flight testing. She also mentioned that Parliament was still awaiting vital data on noise levels and said the industrial business case for JSF participation was no longer valid given the much lower than anticipated number of orders for the aircraft.

Labor says it wants to continue Dutch participation in the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase but other parties want to end it.

The Royal Dutch Air Force currently operates 90 F-16s, 18 of which are scheduled to be sold to Chile towards the end of this year. Originally the Netherlands was planning to buy 85 F-35s.

If the decision is implemented it won't exactly be a surprise. Dutch politicians have been rumbling for months that the JSF is far too expensive and the Netherlands' participation in the program is now in the hands of the electorate. But given the general economic doom and gloom in Europe right now, chances are high that the Dutch will vote for a party that is not going to be spending for something that many do not see the need for.

Avgas

Pretty sensational news Steyr

....but I'm not 100% clear does this means they will actually still plan to procure JSFs...just not chip in anymore dosh to develop them....?

Didn't the Norwegians throw a wobbly a while back....I thought that was all hunky dory and they were back on JSF message now... but does this re-open other wobblies?

Will this unravel the JSF 'Juggernaut' somewhat....or is it just storm in a teacup?

Manic Moran

I'm reading the intention to cancel the first JSF as being an intention to buy no first JSF.

You know, just once I wouldn't mind if the respective governments held the contractors' feet to the fired on something like this. If the contractors agree to sell for $X many million per unit, then if they can't meet their claims, they shouldn't expect the contract to go ahead.

NTM

Ping Chow Chi

It sounds like they are waiting for the first batch to go out so they know for sure how much they will cost as they do not believe the price estimates made by Lockheed Martin.