Analyst: F-35C to Cost $337 Million Apiece in FY15

DOD Buzz ^

[DaveA37]

Interesting! I wonder what the actual “real cost” is to produce this plane. Having previously been involved with the manufacture of automobiles, I know there are sooo many inflated costs, no one can tell what the “actual” cost really was/is. Same goes for these aircrafts.
(Obviously much of these costs are labor)

[riverdawg]

An aircraft designed to do that many things will likely do none of them very well.

[Kenny Bunk]

......designed to do that many things will likely do none of them very well.

Drawers full of broken Swiss Army Knives have brought that point home to me.

[bt_dooftlook]

That’s impressive! Not too sure that it’s true, though

The video of the incident shows a Zuni rocket shorting and striking McCain’s plane which was on the other side of the flight deck...

[Oztrich Boy]

Drop bombs

[SeeSharp]

Drop bombs

The F-22 has an internal weapons bay, as does the F-35.

[Oztrich Boy]

But let's not drag up that old story of him wet-starting his plane as a practical joke on the guy behind him ... which cooked off the guy behind's Zuni rockets, which punctured John's fuel tanks, causing him to dump his bomb ordinance into the fire and scamper away across the tightly packed planes to safety (on film). because it's total bunk.

McCain is in 416, facing inward, no guy behind him. 405 was hit by a missile fired by an electrical fault in Phantom 110 on the other side of the Flight deck

[Kenny Bunk]

That’s impressive! Not too sure that it’s true, though

Gentlemen that's exactly why I said

But let's not drag up that old story of him wet-starting his plane as a practical joke on the guy behind him ....

and uh .... sorry (if that's true .. we'll review the films.) Got it from ...among others ... my EX-Bro-in-law, who was aboard that day and has been quite useless ever since. However, that MacCain's "career" in the military was a little out of the ordinary is quite true.

[Oztrich Boy]

Here ya go Episode 4: Aircraft Carrier Explosion

[SZonian]

The only bombs an F22 can carry/deploy are the small 250lbs. SDB’s...the F35 can carry up to ~12k in weapons including 2k class precision, not GPS, but precision bombs. Electro-optically guided...similar to laser.

In addition, the F35 is designed to be a strike aircraft, not necessarily a fighter first. The F22 provides CAP while the F35 ingresses into hardened targets to neutralize AADS.

Think F117 during the first few days and then it transitions to bomb truck once the AADS are down.