Posted on 01/19/2011 9:02:15 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The U.S. F-35 will be delayed yet again, and one of the three versions may be cancelled. The new service date for the F-35 appears to be a year later now, in 2015, although the U.S. Air Force is being a bit vague on this point. Not so vague is the Department of Defense, which has put the vertical takeoff (F-35B VTOL) version on two years probation. If a growing list of problems with the F-35B are not fixed by then, the VTOL version will be cancelled. Meanwhile, it looks like the F-35A (air force) and F-35C (navy carrier) versions will likely, maybe, perhaps, one hopes, ready to roll in 2015. Meanwhile, development costs for the new U.S. F-35 fighter-bomber has grown by a third, to over $60 billion, over the last few years. That means the average development cost of the estimated 5,000 F-35s to be built, will be about $12 million each. This overhead share will increase as the number of F-35s bought declines, and that is what happened. The air force wants to buy 1,763, to mainly replace aging F-16s and F-15s. But now air force generals are talking about just buying "more than 1,500" F-35As. The total purchases may be way less than 3,000 aircraft (for the U.S. and foreign users).
(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
The more other countries buy the plane the cost will be lowered.
And yet the higher the cost, the fewer that will be bought by other countries.
Obviously the solution is to buy 10 thousand of them.
I would “encourage” nations who have signed on to the program to commit to the numbers they agreed to buy. I would also sell the product to Japan ,South Korea, Sinagapore and Taiwan to commit to at least to 50-100 planes.
Everybody was on board at $65 million per copy. Far fewer are on board at $100 million per copy.
This is why were’ seeing all the kerfuffle about the Chinese J-20...and already countries are saying they need to buy more, sooner.
We have to stand firm and agree to the purchases. They participated in development of the plane and they have to live up to their end of the bargain.
More, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, money.
You need to draw the the line. DoD has not,HASC has not, Obama has not.
Just about every military weapon or conveyance ever built by a contractor:
Later, More Expensive And Fewer
STOVL
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