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To: USNBandit

Can you tell me the cost to buy and maintain both platforms?


45 posted on 01/31/2011 11:01:02 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Southack
The F-22 was over $200 million a copy. When you develop a brand new fighter and buy less than 200 of them, the proportional cost of R&D is really high.

My guess would be the F-35 is going to be somewhat less than $100 million. Again DOD was shooting for $65 million a copy, but we have cut the buy, so that the R&D costs are spread over fewer aircraft.

It still doesn't change the fact that the two aircraft are not interchangeable. If you came up with some super air to air weapon you might be able to get away with using JSF for the fighter role, but there is no way in all Christendom that you are going to get a useable bomb load on an F-22.

Since you don't know the answer to my question I will answer it for you. F-22 has a small weapons bay, meant to hold air to air weapons, AMRAAM and AIM-9X. A small diameter bomb, only 250 lb. was developed that can fit in that weapons bay. The cool thing is that it has been tested in supersonic deliveries so you can huck that weapon a long way and go so fast it will be almost impossible for a SAM to get you. So what can you do with that 250 lb. bomb? Attack SAM sites.

JSF was built around carrying two 2000 lb. bombs internally. That is a first few nights of the war ability to hit well defended targets with the standard heavy ordnance. After that, you can throw bomb racks on the wings and go from stealth to a low observable bomb truck when air superiority has been established.

Cost to maintain will be cheaper on the JSF for several reasons. Single engine, more airframes which makes spares cheaper, and a diagnostic computer that is supposed to predict failures before they occur.

55 posted on 02/01/2011 1:01:31 AM PST by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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