You are right, the whole cost issue is a big bag of swirling numbers and I
used license to steal,
yet the USAF pays much less for its Block 50 F-16's then FMS customers pay
but that difference is not desired to be spread all around however it is
significant and your new F-16 at a good production rate (say 10 / month)
would be around $30 million each and the JSF started at a fixed $28 million
a decade ago projected. The F-15E would also be around $50 million to the
USAF with a production rate (say 8 / month) going (that's important). For
instance the UAE paid over $4 billion to develop the AESA radar, Israel and
Greece paid over $2 billion for the same work - not bad a deal for the USA,
but if the USAF or another customer buys or sells the Block 60 it must pay
the UAE a hefty royalty - that's why you are not seeing the Block 60 in the
Guard or Reserves or anywhere and why the newer Block 50/52's are so
advanced.

The JSF gets the shaft (as all new aircraft do) because the loaded
development costs start off the price tag so if a two billion program nets
one aircraft it is a 2 billion machine - not fair of course, but the cost
projections for a production set would drop things radicaly - however the
problems with the JSF in weight and strength are causing design changes and
that's millions in man hours and millions in delay of schedule. So the unit
cost rises and if the production numbers shrink the numbers go out of sight.
It seems past $80 million each now and we have to complete the aircraft and
finish testing. But it still comes down to "what does it do better" - not
much and what it should do better is not proven yet.

I am saying give it a breather - pursue the development longer, but drop the
STOVL and focus on a CTOL that has more meat down stream. Air Force
Magazine (AFA) has an article this month "UAV's with a Bite" - a look at the
X-47 concept that is looking to far - to me merge that with JSF and start
with a set of manned and unmanned platforms so we can see how unmanned earns
its way into the force structure and mission sets.

It is possible to say to Lockheed for instance - how many F-16's would I
need to produce to get a $25 million aircraft off the production line and
there would be an answer - probably around 1000 at 50 / month, but it would
be possible. This is the benefit of having a "line" and "tooling" and
"venders" and "work force" etc... as the production lines dry up these small
essentials fade away and hurt. Many of the original F-16's were produced
with parts that are non-existent today, hence the great upgrade program for
the F-16A that brought C model avionics and more to the European A and B
models essentially died a natural death as the guts of the aircarft ran out
of spares. On the other had, the A/B market "used" has continued so
strongly (Portugal, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand and C users
for training machines etc.) commercial suppliers have stepped up and filled
again the needs of the components - so you never know.

Building 2000 F-35's would again bring the $28 million figure back to it -
but still - what would it do better in the present wars at this time and
down road for bigger nastier enemies, it does not have the performance or
legs which brings on the F-22 growth













"eponymous cowherd" wrote in message
...
In article C22ih.954$Eo.367@trnddc08,
"Ski" wrote:

f the JSF did not cost three times an F-16 or twice a F-15E then you
might
say lets press with the F-35 and let the maturity build up fix all this,
but
with the F-35 is dragging dozens of billions of dollars in investment
that
goes into its employment - money i think we can not afford now.

Where are you getting these numbers? The -35 will likely cost less than
either
the -16 or the -15.

Anti-military types in the press and government like to quote the costs of
the
-16 and the -15 based on the last time the USA bought one. The price keeps
going
up since then. I think the last time the USA bought a -15 the cost was $50
million each, when Korea bought them in 01 the cost was $81 million each.
A
quick googling shows that the -16s bought by the UAE will cost an
estimated $80
million each. If you use the cost of recent purchases of the -16 and
the -15 you
will see that the -35 will be competitive on cost alone. Since the -15 has
two
engines the chances of it being cheaper than any single engine plane are
extremely low.


http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/facts-...apon-costs.php