F-35 restructuring saves $6.9 bln over 5 years

Reuters ^ | 1/25/2011 | Reuters

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The Pentagon's decision to delay buying 124 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighters until after fiscal year 2016 saved $6.9 billion over the coming five years, a Defense Department spokesman said on Tuesday.

On Jan. 6, Defense Secretary Robert Gates overhauled the Pentagon's largest weapons program for the second time in a year, slowing a planned ramp-up in production and adding $4.6 billion to the program's development phase.

At the time, Gates said the move would result in net savings of about $4 billion over the next five years -- after subtracting the money needed to buy 41 additional Boeing Co F/A-18 warplanes to offset slower F-35 production.

The Pentagon's biggest arms program, the new fighter is being developed with eight international partner countries at a total cost of $382 billion, but the program has run into schedule delays and massive cost overruns in recent years.

Joe DellaVedova, the Pentagon's F-35 spokesman, provided additional details, including the $6.9 billion savings figure on Tuesday.

[buccaneer81]

They look at lot more formidable than the J-20.

[tdscpa]

That will go a long way toward covering obama’s trillion and a half $/year budgeted deficits.

[Kenny Bunk]

..... 168 F-22 planes as of October 2010. The projected plan is 187 planes....

Thanks for the reassuring info. I am not so reassured about the B-2 numbers.

I am old enough to always recall that thousands of crude T-34 tanks overwhelmed hundreds of super-high quality, high-performance, high firepower NAZI tanks. So I always fear an aerial version of same when going up against the CHICOM, or Russkis.

As far as close support aircraft are concerned, do we want 1 F-35 an hour away, or 25 A-10s on instant call ... or 50 helicopters?

[tanknetter]

Nothing. The F22 could do the F35 mission and then shoot the F35 down. All while the F22 pilot is still in the shower.

I know there's a lot of talk about how the laws of physics don't apply to the F-22 (usually by the Aggressor pilots at Nellis), but I believe it's incapable of operating from CVNs and LHA/LHDs ... which the F-35C and F-35B (respectively) can do.

I also believe that the F-22 is incapable of carrying 2000lb class weapons internally. Nor does it have any sort of integrated IR/Laser sensor/targeting suite.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

If you have at least three B-52s”cells” and filled to the brim with nuclear ALCM missiles you can wreak a lot of damage. That many B-2s can turn the entire nations of Russia and Iran into dust. The nuclear AGMs the B-2 carries over 300 kilotons per cruise missile