a reply to:
EasyPleaseMe
Based on the F35 dev costs, which were around half of the UKs GDP,
If I hear this myth one more time my head is going to explode. I blame clickbait and bad journalism.
UK GDP was 2.619 trillion USD in 2016.
The 1.5 trillion dollar figure for the F-35 is in then-year dollars and includes mass production out to around 2040 but the majority of this cost is
operations out to around 2070, for the US Air Force, US Marines, and US Navy.
Applying inflation to get 2018 dollars (all prices 2018 dollars) from the 2018 F-35 SAR and the 2010 F-22 SAR:
$65.64 billion for F-35 development out of a total acquisition cost of $356.3 billion. Total Program Cost is $1.025 trillion (Total program cost is
derived from 2015 SAR, other figures are from 2018 SAR).
$45.91 billion for F-22 development out of a total acquisition cost of $76.2 billion. Regarding the F-22 total cost, well, the SAR would require me to
manually add up a bunch of numbers (not going to happen) and it only goes to 2033 for some reason, not when the F-22 will actually be retired. I would
expect total program cost in the $150-$175 billion range.
I think the total amount spent
so far by the US Government on the F-22 and F-35 are pretty similar at this point, in the $100 billion range
(2018 dollars) with the F-35 being maybe 10-20% higher.
Typically 2/3rd the cost of a weapon system is in operations and maintenance. 1/3rd is acquisition including R&D. In the case of the F-35 about 18% of
the acquisition cost is R&D. In the case of the F-22 about 51% of the acquisition cost was R&D.
What will be spent on the Tempest depends on how aggressive they are and how efficient they are. Since they are not going to build something that
needs to takeoff and land from two different types of carriers, I doubt it will come out to as expensive as the F-35 to develop. The RAF also operates
136 Typhoons, I doubt they will replace them 1:1 with the Tempest. But yes you are quiet right that the UK most likely cannot go it alone unless they
massively increase spending.
edit on 17/7/18 by C0bzz because: (no reason given)
edit on 17/7/18 by C0bzz because: (no reason
given)