Participating nations likely will agree by next month on a set of terms that will make up a key international procurement pact for the Joint Strike Fighter program -- despite recent grievances aired by several foreign governments involved in the effort, two U.S. F-35 officials say.

Details of the highly anticipated memorandum of understanding need to be finalized in June to give the involved governments ample time to review the contents, Jon Schreiber, director of international programs for the JSF program, told Inside the Air Force during a May 4 interview. “We think we'll be able to lock up the text” by then, he said.

Schreiber declined to comment on what form the draft agreement could take, or how it will address hotly debated issues such as which specific technologies the Pentagon will share with other participants.

The eight U.S. partners helping develop the futuristic fighter are the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Australia, Norway, Denmark and Canada.

Discontent among several partner nations has grown in recent weeks, beginning with the U.K.'s threat to withdraw from the F-35 program in March if the Pentagon did not revise its strict technology transfer policies. Most recently, the newly elected Italian government renewed calls to leave the F-35 effort and instead buy the Eurofighter Typhoon. Italian officials said they view that fighter as a “Euro-centric” alternative to the JSF.

“If the governments go European-centric, and say the way to do that is Eurofighter, once they start balancing the cost of the Eurofighter. . . they're going to have an interesting dilemma on their hands,” JSF Deputy Program Executive Officer Brig. Gen. Steven Davis said. “The Eurofighter is still a very expensive airplane, and its capabilities are still reasonably well limited,” he added during a May 2 interview.

While a portion of such rhetoric seems to some as rooted in principle, Schreiber and Davis noted the timing of such claims comes as partner nations are jockeying for economic leverage ahead of the upcoming draft MOU.

“They have their own budget issues and government issues, just like we're having now,” Davis said. “And what your also hearing is a lot of, I don't want to say ‘posturing,' but a lot of serious concerns” as member nations prepare to sign, he added.

The draft MOU -- and later the final version -- will lay out a set of principles governing the fighter's production, sustainment and follow-on development, U.S. and foreign defense officials say. The document is also expected to lay out how many fighters each country anticipates buying, and when such purchases will occur (ITAF, March 17, p17).

“Each of the partner countries are working with the U.S. in order to receive MOU signatures at the end of the year,” Ed O'Donnell, director of international programs for JSF engine-maker Pratt & Whitney said. “And they are doing everything they absolutely can to build the most confident, credible business case or package to be able to staff” it. His company is the maker of the programs primary power plant, the F135 engine.

The underlying current behind some of the recent comments from participants about potentially withdrawing from the multibillion-dollar effort lie in dissatisfaction with outstanding work-share agreements, or the seeming lack thereof, he added during a May 2 telephone interview.

“Generally, most of the commentary and the literature you see out there. . . comes from disappointed companies that haven't yet won enough business to satisfy their stakeholders,” O'Donnell said. “So they're signaling that they'd like more, which is not unlike what anybody else would do.”

The problem, according to Schreiber, was that a number of coalition countries could not comprehend the fact that the JSF program criteria did not mandate work-share agreements prior to countries signing on -- a drastic departure from previous international weapon programs.

“They heard the words coming out of our mouths,” he said. “But they didn't believe it.”

While drawing the ire of participating countries that lack a competitive aerospace industrial base, Davis said integrating work-share guarantees would have made the entire program fiscally impossible. “If we put [such] agreements in place, it would have driven up the cost of the airplane. There's no doubt about it,” he told ITAF.

Davis added that the nine-nation program could lose a single partner nation -- should a country decide to withdraw due to work-share issues -- and avoid schedule delays and and additional cost spikes.

“I don't want to say they're not important -- they're all important -- [but] we could lose a partner and it would not affect us from a schedule or cost issue.” he said. “Now, if we started to lose two or three, we'd have to re-evaluate that.”

O'Donnell added that industry officials from Pratt & Whitney and Lockheed Martin, the F-35's prime contractor, have been helping to nurture fledging aviation industries in partner nations like Norway. The idea is to avoid a potential domino-like effect of partner nations withdrawing from JSF because they lack a robust aerospace industrial base.

“We have had teams, Pratt and Lockheed together, going into each country expressing our industrial participation packages, we are all driving to getting [that] in place,” O'Donnell said. “I have strong beliefs that we are going to be able to have this piece of the puzzle together in support [of the MOU] by the end of the year.”  

Schreiber agreed the Pentagon essentially could forge ahead with JSF development if a single partner opted out. But he noted the intangibles resulting from a slate of strong international partners, under an accepted procurement pact, would produce amicable relationships that are in the best interests of all the allied nations involved.

“The U.S. can build this airplane all by ourselves,” he said. But “you don't fight wars alone.”