[Ramius]

I cannot believe they can't get the costs below this. Wow.

Well, they probably don't cost that in actual variable costs. The F-22 is still carrying the cost load of a massive R&D effort in development. Not all of which is wasted, btw. The things learned in the F-22 program will support other future designs as well.

But this is not the time to shorten this program. The time to do that is when we have something even better on the drawing board.

[microgood]

Well, they probably don't cost that in actual variable costs. The F-22 is still carrying the cost load of a massive R&D effort in development. Not all of which is wasted, btw. The things learned in the F-22 program will support other future designs as well.

So the costs of the first ones were astronomical and this is the price based on mass production.

But this is not the time to shorten this program. The time to do that is when we have something even better on the drawing board.

I agree, now is when you are getting the payback.

I just am wowed by the numbers. I remember F14s were around $20 to $30 million back in the day. Of course, I looked recently at how much it cost to build the latest carrier, and it was over $6B. Yikes.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"The time to do that is when we have something even better on the drawing board."

From what I've read, they already have it. The F-35. Some version of this will be able to be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marines. In the long run that should make it cheaper for parts, training etc. with all major services using the same fighter plane. Our fighters and bombers will all have stealth technology and the STOVAL model that the Marines and Navy will use, gives it Harrier capability to take off and land vertically. I believe the Marine Corps was never even interested in the F-22 and only wanted the F-35.

In the article, the main defense they gave for keeping the F-22 is jobs. I'm sorry, but that's not a reason for keeping a fighter plane. I want to see it's pluses in regards to performance, not how many jobs depend on it.

[RFEngineer]

“Well, they probably don’t cost that in actual variable costs. The F-22 is still carrying the cost load of a massive R&D effort in development.”

I believe this does not include R&D, rather this is the most optimistic number - the “incremental cost of the next plane”.

It depends how you count the beans. If you want a low number, you use incremental cost for next plane, if you want a higher number, you add R&D, and if you want a really high number you add O&M for the lifespan of the platform.

[Stonewall Jackson]

A lot of that R&D effort went a long way towards helping get the F-35 Lightning into the air in a rather short time span. By this, I mean the conventional version of the F-35, not the carrier or jump-jet variants.

[cartoonistx]

Almost 1/3 of the cost of any millitary hardware system is production and warehousing of the estimated 25 years of spare parts that are produced concurrently with each unit. These costs, R&D and actual delivered unit price are bundled into the final tag.