Mystery $55 billion Air Force Program Sparks Debate on Cost

Fox News ^ | March 3, 2015 | Staff

[lbryce]

The U.S. Air Force's secret program to develop as many as 100 next-generation bombers that can stealthily strike any target in the world has some experts calling the $550 million per plane price tag laughable.

*SNIP*

Another critic compared the initiative to the costly B-2 program, which was eventually slashed, and said the cost estimate is "as close to meaningless numbers can be."

*SNIP*

The Post reported that the Air Force intends on the plane taking its first stealth flight in the mid-2020s. .

"I think the long-range strike bomber is absolutely essential to keep our deterrent edge as we go into the next 25 years," Hagel told reporters after addressing a group of several hundred airmen at this B-2 stealth bomber base in western Missouri.

The Pentagon says it also needs to modernize the two other elements of the strategic nuclear force: the Navy's fleet of Ohio-class strategic submarines and the Air Force's Minuteman 3 land-based nuclear missiles. The combined cost would exceed $300 billion, by current estimates.

[Caipirabob]

The cost was creating gender specific bathrooms on board each aircraft for all of the new genders they made up.

[AceMineral]

The equipment to handle nuclear weapons was removed from the B-1.

[Kenny Bunk]

We don't need a lot of F-22s.

Each of the 6 F-22s we bought can shoot down 4,311 MiGs. Anything left alive on the planet can be wiped out by the F-35, which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, landing on a public tennis court, or a carrier, and can easily be operated by Single Moms, members of the LGBTG Community, Minority groups including Latinos and Negroes. It's later models will come with lunch and X-box remote controls. It is so stealthy that pilots and ground crews can sometimes not find it.

If a country has to ask how much an airplane costs, it shouldn't have one.

[Mr. Blond]

B1-B is getting retired.