My uncle hates the F-22A!

Late to the party as always.


[B]I hate the F-35[/B], don't think it'll be produced in sufficient numbers to get the per plane costs anywhere near the estimates... and desperately wish the whole thing had been scrapped years ago in favor of a hand-full of heavy bombers, Superhornets and a functional number of F-22's.


Assuming zero production savings from an additional 2500 Superhornets, puts the cost at 138 billion.

I wonder how well the P-8A Poseidon would work if it were modified as a supplemental BUFF, given the range, endurance, and increased effectiveness of smaller munitions.... Especially @ 175 million per copy.

And my beloved F-22... vigilant knight of the sky... will be produced in such small numbers that we loose the right to talk smack to Ruskies over their vaporware Sukhois.

Originally posted by Deharg
Sending and recieving.

If you have the correct hardware onboard. F15 does F22 does not. F22 has a dedicated hardwarde installation that is NOT compatible with that onboard the f15. Airforce says so who am I to argue.

F22 talks data to F22 (was in original post by me),. what it can't do is download (read hear see etc) the netcentric data from the awacs or F15.

What they can do is recieve text messages ... ahh how useful will that be?

F22 is stupendous and absolutely unbeatable in BVR........ given... BUT it can't link data with the rest of the airforce and there are only planned to be 183 of them....

It can't act as a mini AWACS either (unless with another F22) also acknowledged by the Airforce.

[edit on 27-8-2008 by Deharg]

Have you not read how the F-22s were used in exercises sharing info with friendly F-15/16/18s? They were able to see what the Legacy fighters saw on their radars, ensure that there wasn't double targetting of foes, and even provide guidance to the weapon systems, so they didn't have to be emitting.

There's a new system coming out, that's going to let any datalink system talk to any other datalink system no matter what it is. It's called the Advanced Tactical Data Link(ATDL). It will let the F-35 and F-22 send data to everything else, including things that are outside the area, through satellites.

Originally posted by Canada_EH
A question I would pose is why the escalation in price in (I have my own opinion along with a thread following recent development hurdles etc.) Also why the reduction in airframes?

Well basically the US dollar is losing value at breakneck speed and while this is certainly part of the cost escalation i believe that it's largely being used to hide the lies about the development costs and future production costs.

To hazard my opinion first it would be directly tied to the program costs which are eating away at the planes much like the B-2 and its development cost minus the fact this project never had any black funding to appear better then it was for costs so far.

Yes, that's surely so. Thing is the B-2 could not have had much 'black funding' either as the program cost still managed to lead to twenty planes instead of 150 for a program cost of around 45 billion USD. Either way why did the F-22 end up being so massively expensive when it had the benefit of both the Nighthawk/Spirit and Lancer program costs? I think this has as much to do with outright theft of public funds than it has to do with technological challenges and Dollar devaluation.

Outside of all this why bring up the 35 into the argument about the 22? Are we talking the merits of each aircraft or focusing on operational capability which then other forces come into play that I've seen sprinkling of in this thread.

Because the JSF is going the same way as the B1/b2 F117 and the F-22 which will result in a USAF that deploys less than 1500 combat aircraft in twenty years time.

Stellar

Thanks for the links mister Cobbz. Here are some of what i found which includes a good deal of speculation that were already borne out in fact and a whole lot more than i am sure will be.

At an average cost of $30 million a plane, the Joint Strike Fighter is considered inexpensive, although the project could cost $223 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are competing for that contract.

The project was intended to show that the Pentagon could build a plane with cutting-edge technology at a low cost for three services. But that would require the Air Force to buy 1,763 planes, or more than half of the 2,752 Joint Strike Fighters scheduled to be produced. The Marines would buy 609 of their model, which can take off and land without a runway; the Navy would buy 380 planes that would be modified to operate off aircraft carriers.

query.nytimes.com...

dreadnaught.wordpress.com...

However, other sources, including the Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office, have estimated much higher unit production prices, of between $94.8 million (CRS) to $115 million (GAO) for each of the 424 planned F-35 Initial Low-Rate Production (LRIP) aircraft.

Adding Davis’ estimate of cost escalation (averaged at $14 million) to the more realistic range of prices quoted by the three financial watchdogs, prices would increase to between $106.8 million to $129 million for each LRIP aircraft.

Cong ressional Budget Office

Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is at a crossroads, the Government Accountability Office said yesterday, calling the original plan for the project "unexecutable."

The fighter was designed to be a low-cost replacement to the Air Force's F-16, with different versions being developed for the Navy, Marine Corps and British forces. But it is now expected to cost $244.8 billion to produce a planned 2,400 planes. Development will cost $44.8 billion, including a $10 billion increase identified last year, the report said.

Nearly half the increase, $4.9 billion, is needed to lower the aircraft's weight because being heavier hurt "the aircraft's key performance capabilities," the report said. The Pentagon said more money was also needed to add anti-tampering technology to keep sensitive technology safe.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Take the F-22 experience; it was in a similarly early stage of flight testing in 1998. Its programme unit cost was then USD 184 million per aircraft but it climbed to a breathtaking USD 355 million by 2008. Considering that the F-35 is even more complex (19 million lines of computer code compared to 4 million, and three separate service versions compared to one), the horrifying prospect of the F-35's unit cost doubling is not outlandish. The last tri-service, tri-mission 'fighter' the US built, the F-111, tripled in cost before being cut back to barely half the number originally contemplated.

Joint Strike Fighter: The Latest Hotspot in the U.S. Defense Meltdown

The cost of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter, already the most expensive weapons program ever, is projected to increase as much as $38 billion, congressional auditors said yesterday.That would bring the price of 2,458 F-35s to $337 billion, 45 percent more than estimated when the program began in October 2001.

"Midway through development, the program is over cost and behind schedule," Michael J. Sullivan, director of acquisition and sourcing management for the Government Accountability Office, told two panels of the House Armed Services Committee that oversee military spending.

The projected cost has been revised before. Sullivan said three new assessments, including one by the Pentagon's Cost Analysis Improvement Group, found that the current estimate of $299 billion "is not comprehensive, is not accurate, is not well-documented and is not credible."Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department's program office are preparing a new estimate that is "expected to be much larger than what is now budgeted," Sullivan said.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Although the flight was conducted in conventional flight mode – a Stovl flight is not planned until early next year – it was a milestone for the $300bn (£150bn) F-35 Lightning II or Joint Strike Fighter programme. The supersonic, stealthy F-35B will form the next generation of Navy and RAF jump jets and is one of three variants of the JSF project.

The programme, the Pentagon’s most expensive procurement project for a new generation of combat aircraft to the US and its allies, has faced a barrage of criticism in recent months for being over budget and behind schedule.

In March, congressional auditors warned that the procurement costs were up to $38bn over budget and that the development schedule was likely to slip from 12 to 27 months.

link

In its report (GAO-08-388), GAO found that Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter program is plagued by design changes and production line troubles that have caused costs to increase by more than $23 billion in the last year alone. JSF will place an "unprecedented demand" on future defense budgets, GAO concluded, with annual costs averaging $11 billion a year for the next two decades. That sum is comparable to what the Pentagon spends on a host of missile defense programs every year.

The Pentagon's planned purchase of 2,458 aircraft will cost $300 billion, with another $650 billion required for life-cycle operation and support.
JSF was intended to provide an affordable, common aircraft design with different variants for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. The production line is expected to run until at least 2034. Lockheed Martin won the JSF contract in 2001.

The Pentagon has said that replacing aging aircraft with the JSF will reduce overall operating costs because of reliability and maintainability features in the new planes. But support cost estimates have nearly doubled in recent years, from $346 billion in 2005 to $650 billion now. GAO said the operating cost per flying hour of the JSF will be higher than the F-16 it is designed to replace.

www.govexec.com...

GAO believes recent DOD decisions, while potentially reducing near-term funding needs, could have long-term cost implications. DOD’s recent plan to reduce test resources in order to pay for development cost overruns adds more risk to the overall JSF program. Midway through development, the program is over cost and behind schedule. Difficulties in stabilizing aircraft designs and the inefficient manufacturing of test aircraft have forced the program to spend management reserves much faster than anticipated. To replenish this reserve, DOD officials decided not to request additional funding and time for development at this time, but opted instead to reduce test resources. GAO believes this plan will hamper development testing while still not addressing the root causes of related cost increases. While DOD reports that total acquisition costs have increased by $55 billion since a major restructuring in 2004, GAO and others in DOD believe that the cost estimates are not reliable and that total costs will be much higher than currently advertised. Another restructuring appears likely—GAO expects DOD will need more money and time to complete development and operational testing, which will delay the full-rate production decision and the fielding of capabilities to the warfighter.


www.gao.gov...

Its costs have now jumped so much, it might not be that much cheaper than the F-22," said Nick Schwellenbach, an investigator for the Project for Government Oversight, a defense-watchdog group in Washington. "But the Joint Strike Fighter does much more. It has a bigger payload and fulfills close air-support missions. It would be hard to imagine the Pentagon cutting the F-35."

www.leatherneck.com...

The DCMA's report came as senators questioned government auditors and Pentagon officials about how 95 of the military's largest weapons programs are $295 billion over their original projected cost, bringing their total estimated cost to $1.6 trillion. The cost of the Joint Strike Fighter, for example, has risen from $203 billion in 2001 to $298.8 billion, according to a recent government report. Lockheed said part of the reason was an increase in the price of raw materials such as titanium, as well as changes in what the government wanted.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Thanks...

Stellar

[edit on 25-9-2008 by StellarX]

It is important to note the GAO $115 million figure is for the LRIP aircraft, not the then year costs throughout the entire program, which is $77 million according to Lockheed, $83 million according to USAF, & $104 million according to GAO.

We do not think the official JSF program cost estimate is reliable when judged against cost estimating standards used throughout the federal government and industry. Specifically, the program cost estimate: (1) is not comprehensive because it does not include all applicable costs, including $6.8 billion for the alternate engine program; (2) is not accurate because some of its assumptions are optimistic and not supportable—such as applying a weight growth factor only half as large as historical experience on similar aircraft—and because the data system relied upon to report and manage JSF costs and schedule is deficient; (3) is not well documented in that it does not sufficiently identify the primary methods, calculations, results, rationales and assumptions, and data sources used to generate cost estimates; and (4) is not credible according to individual estimates from OSD’s Cost Analysis Improvement Group, the Defense Contract Management Agency, and the Naval Air Systems Command.

www.gao.gov...

I'm now starting to lean towards the GAO estimate. However, data in the GAO report is from December 2006, so, IMO, it remains to be seen whether costs keep escalating, with the order count being reduced. Eitherway, there is TOO much false information and inconsistencies. From what I understand, Obama & Mccain have both 'promised' enquiries into defense spending - It will be interesting to see if this mess is sorted out. It wouldn't really surprise me if they limit the F-35 to a few hundred aircraft and leverage NGB technology onto a el-cheapo UCAV, while buying more F-22s.

Although I am usually optimistic about price, here's a quote I 100% agree with.

"I remain absolutely confident that if the JSF can produce the capability they have been promising, then we will have the right aircraft for Australia,'' he said.

"The outstanding questions then, of course, are when and at what cost.''

(Joel Fitzgibbon, Australian Minister for Defence)
www.news.com.au...

And that's the way the yanks should do it too.

Thanks for posting.

[edit on 26/9/2008 by C0bzz]