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To: Yo-Yo

if they were exportable, the cost would be spread out over more than 187 aircraft. It’s definitely time to look at exporting the F22. I guarantee Russia and China will be exporting theirs.


9 posted on 01/17/2011 4:35:29 AM PST by RC one (What!!!!)
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To: RC one
If they were exportable, you would sell maybe a total of 100 more, lowering the per unit development costs by maybe $20 million.

People seem to forget how long and how much over budget the F-22 development process was. Had the US ordered another batch of F-22s instead of closing the line at 187, those aircraft were projected to have a unit flyaway cost of around $150 million. That's just the cost to build one, excluding any sunk development costs.

Japan, Australia, and Israel were all hoping to get the F-22 for just the unit flyaway costs, leaving the US to fully subsidize the development costs.

The main reason the F-22 was never sold to those countries is because the avionics would have to be made suitable for export, and those costs were projected to be in the tens of billions of dollars alone.

It's been my contention for a while now that if we're going to limit ourselves to 186 aircraft (after the loss last year in Alaska) then we should at least have 186 of the latest block aircraft.

We should sell off the 97 or so earlier block aircraft to those other countries, and replace them with the latest model.

Why, you may ask? Read this: The F-22 can't do what??? and also read the underlying article Sharpening the Raptor's talons.

11 posted on 01/17/2011 7:29:37 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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