Every one that is lost is 330 million bucks down the drain.
Hitting a few comments with one post:
“What happened to the F-22?”
The F-22 is a better airframe, with air-to-air capabilities far beyond the F-35. It’s the F-15 to the F-35’s F-16. Shutting down the production line was a mistake, and the AF is now admitting that 186 of them is too few. There is talk of reopening the production line, as well as upgrading a few components to the more modern F-35 level.
“Every one that is lost is 330 million bucks down the drain.”
No. See the next response. You are including sunk engineering costs which are not affected by a lost F-35.
“Any idea what the price per plane is up to?”
The flyaway cost of the F-35A (cost to manufacture a plane) is around $100 million as of now. The current F-16 is around $60 million without stealth or advanced sensors/electronics. What the F-35 provides over the F-16 is the ability to strike heavily defended targets with few or no losses, and to fire at enemy aircraft before the enemy knows they’re around.
“The joke of a gun goes operational in 2017!
180 rounds. 3 seconds of 25mm. And it cant be used yet.”
It was quite premature to declare the gun obsolete in the ‘60s. In 2016, if you’re fighting a modern adversary the gun is only there as an absolute last resort.
180 rounds of 25mm is probably enough to shoot down five enemy planes, if push comes to shove, given that the software assisted aiming should be extremely accurate.