Posted on 11/03/2014 9:37:08 PM PST by lbryce
There's nothing to see that has the F-35C landing on the USS Nimitz other than routine, only as a historic event of the first one ever to land on an aircraft carrier.
Published on Nov 3, 2014 The first aircraft carrier arrested landing with the F-35C is scheduled this week aboard the USS Nimitz off the coast of California. (Nov. 3)
Ping to my favorite tailhooker. :)
Earlier discussion here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3222894/posts
Pinged you there. looks to my eye like a #3. No way he would blow this one................
Doesn’t look like it was too hard on the gear, but then again I’ll bet that thing was loaded light as can be for that test.
How will that techno-wonder handle it with half fuel on board, some leftover ordnance, in bad weather and rough seas, at night?
Can we even afford to risk using them on a carrier in those conditions?
Sometimes there’s no choice.
Historic because it took 13 years to get to that point.
GAO:
According to the Government Accountability Office (G.A.O.), which is relatively independent, the price tag for each F-35 was supposed to be $81 million when the program began in October 2001. Since that time, the price per plane has basically doubled, to $161 million. Full-rate production of the F-35, which was supposed to start in 2012, will not start until 2019. The Joint Program Office, which oversees the project, disagrees with the G.A.O.’s assessment, arguing that it does not break out the F-35 by variant and does not take into account what they contend is a learning curve that will drive prices down over time. They say a more realistic figure is $120 million a copy, which will go down with each production batch. Critics, like Winslow Wheeler, from the Project on Government Oversight and a longtime G.A.O. official, argue the opposite: “The true cost of the airplane—when you cast aside all the bullshit—is $219 million or more a copy, and that number is likely to go up.”
Wow! $120 million vs $219 million per unit, that’s a heck of a spread in cost estimates.
Just for perspective, a Boeing 787-8 costs $218.7 million a copy. http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/prices/
Here’s a link to what you would get for the money:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Boeing/Boeing-787-8-Dreamliner/1240280/
An apples to oranges comparison to be sure but, at some level, you’ve got to wonder just exactly what is in the F-35 that makes it so pricey?
According to information at this link, the F-35 airframe is the major cost component of the aircraft and ranges in cost between $77 and $101 million a copy depending on variant:
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?121667-F35-News-only-thread-for-2013/page18
(Note: This table has the unit cost for an F-35 falling toward the lower end of that estimated $120-$219 million unit cost range mentioned at the beginning of this post.)
The plane in the video is not a bomber. RA5C had a highly classified reconnaissance mission.
Thanks for the correction..
Yeah once I found the vid it was all clear.
Great stuff
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