You mean like more $250 million super hornets?
How about comparing things sensibly. That price must be including maintenance and training through the life of the aircraft, and with the complete weapons fitout. The fly away cost of a super hornet is around $60 million, considerably less than an F-35.
Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet | Info, Forecast, Budget/Costs says $65M in 2013, so probably more like $70M today with inflation, but the production line is winding down, so if you want some, better get them now.
Also considerably less capability. Keep in mind that the procurement cost of the aircraft is only a tiny fraction of what it costs to have air power in the modern world.
The last two lots of F-18s purchased by the Navy cost between $75m and $80m each.
Sure, the $250 million/ea figure above for F-18’s was including support. To compare apples to apples, a similar deal for the Australian purchase of 58 F-35A’s (including support) was for $198 million each.
These figures mean nothing until planes are delivered. When we have delivered combat ready planes we can compare fly away costs, until then you have “estimates” for F-35’s.
Well, that’s sort of true and not true at the same time. The flyaway cost literally does not change one cent for an aircraft that is mature and fully tested as compared to an aircraft that is having developmental problems.
So, in the case of the F-35, we know for a fact that the airplane will need to have a significant upgrade to reach its full operational capability. Block 3i will include hardware upgrades that include faster microprocessors, etc. Awful, right?
Well, how about the F-22, which is still flying with quite a few late 1990s-type microprocessors. So are we to still consider the F-22 a better investment because the Air Force has decided not to upgrade this computer hardware from nearly twenty years ago, thus limiting its capability for future software upgrades? And are we not to count the several billion dollars in software development done on that program since it was declared operational, since those upgrades to fewer than 200 aircraft are not counted in the flyaway cost?
Right now a Super Hornet is a hell of a lot more capable than the current block F-35’s. So far the capabilities of the F-35 are simply marketing promises. Nothing as complicated as the sensor fusion helmet has ever been achieved in a battle environment, there is no guarantee they will actually deliver software that works as promised and is reliable without having to be rebooted constantly. They might end up having to go back to eyeballs with a conventional projected heads up.
Then there is the problem that the F-35 only has a single engine, a genuine issue for a country as big as Australia with a sparse population. If an engine fails over the middle of the northern territory we don’t exactly have a huge choice in nearby emergency landing sites. And last, the F35A is crippled in its performance by the requirements of having a wide body to fit the lift fan of the F35B. These are not things that can be fixed with a block update.
Seriously why should anyone believe anything Lockheed Martin says about the future capabilities of the F-35 at this stage? They’ll say whatever they need to get the contract.
Again, not glossing over the F-35’s current performance, but let’s remember that the Israelis are buying significant numbers of them. The Israeli military isn’t exactly known to be a bunch of rubes who fell off the back of a turnip truck and are suckers for anything a defense contractor tells them.
What makes you so sure that you’re better informed about the F-35 than the Israeli military?
What makes sense for Israel which is a tiny country where an F-35 can glide to an airport if it has an engine failure doesn’t make sense for Australia. We are a very different nation with different requirements.
Australia can buy whatever it wants, but “only small countries should buy single engine military aircraft” is a ridiculous criteria. F-16s have been flying in Red Flag Alaska for decades, and that’s a training range of 67,000 square miles, or eight and a half times larger than Israel.
Much fewer F-16s have been lost to engine failure than F-15 & F-22s. Two engines means twice as much stuff to go wrong.
Body width is dictated by the internal weapons bay+single engine, not the lift fan requirement. Here’s a width comparison diagram between the F-35 and the F-18.
Probably that same knowledge that Coremelt has that tells him that stealth technology is a total waste of time.
Stealth is not a total waste of time, its useful for the next 10-20 years. I’ve said in other threads that its ridiculous to think that Stealth in its current form will still be useful in 2070, which is when they are now saying we’ll be using F-35’s until.
Various Russian military members have claimed that the A-400 can already target the F-35. Anyone who says 100 percent that they can’t is simply spouting jingoistic platitudes. The US simply doesn’t know what state of the art Russian / Chinese systems are capable of.
If the enemy has long wave radar / lidar / infrared / optical fusion sensed systems that can target your stealth fighter then the F-35 is inferior in every way to the F-16. They will never build 2000+ F-35’s. Once it becomes apparent that they can be targeted by newer technology the program will be scrapped, probably replaced with cheaper disposable drones. I’d be surprised if even 1000 F-35’s get built.
Ok, let’s bet.
Lockheed Martin has scaled back it’s estimated full rate production to just 13 (or 17 depending on who you believe) per month by mid 2020’s. At that rate its going to be 2030 before they build the 1000th F-35 (remember they have to refit the existing ones to later block specs as well).
Yeah sorry I don’t think the F-35’s Stealth is going to be worth very much in 2030:
What you continue to not understand is that nobody is claiming that stealth makes aircraft invulnerable, similar to how F-117s were basically untouchable during the 1991 Gulf War. You’ve constructed a huge pile of straw men in calling people wrong for saying that the F-35’s LO characteristics will still be “useful” in 2070, implying that “useful” equals “invisible.”
What sophisticated commentators are saying is that stealth isn’t a guarantee of mission success, but non-stealth is becoming a guarantee of mission failure. Because sensors and missile technology is becoming better and better, the basic premise is that whomever can see the opponent first and shoot first, will win. (Not literally every engagement, but will win over a series of engagements.) A suite of low-observable technologies erodes that advantage of see first, shoot first.
And the idea of air combat capable drones that are cheap, have long range, and survivable remains the science fiction idea of those who just don’t understand the state of technology. We are just on the verge of having autonomous cars being capable of handling city traffic in which the vast majority of objects in traffic follow a clearly delineated set of rules, and there is no aggressor on the streets that is actively trying to kill other vehicles.
Building autonomy into unmanned combat air vehicles is an enormously more complex task, because there are no rules of the road, and things are always looking to sneak up on you and kill you. The sophistication of the sensors required to survive in such an environment is very considerable, to say nothing of the complexity of the intelligence needed.
Tell me more. What makes you think a TACAIR drone is going to cost less than $100M in 2030 / 2050 / 2070?
You clearly don’t understand. In the future, there will be smart drones that can carry 15,000 pounds of payload, loiter for 24 hours at a time, be so small as to be nearly invisible on radar (even the VHF SUPER-DUPER RADARS that can see the F-35 from a bajillion miles away), and they’d each cost about two-fiddy so we could buy tens of thousands of them. That is all that coremelt is saying!
Is that clear now?