In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:
Are these in French service or exported? Very different accounting
systems used (one of the reasons people joke about "Shock Horror News
From France - GIAT Makes Profit!")

Those "very different accounting systems" are why the Rafale and
Eurofighter are *much* more expensive than the lowball numbers some
people have been expecting. $85 million each, for the British, and the
German version is about the same price.

How much of development cost is factored into each airframe, and exactly
what support is included?

(You might have noted I singled out the French for criticism for opaque
accounting)

Hey, how much do you get for the cost of a F-22? Not much in terms of
maintenance, crew training, or flying hours... you get the aircraft and
the rest is all extra, same as the competition.

Wrong.

When you see those sub-$30 million numbers for the European planes, it's
for airframe alone. Which is why the British version of the Eurofighter
is pricing out at $80 to $85 million a pop for the full buy.

So, how much support, training, infrastructure, et cetera comes with
each F-22? What is the "real cost" of one F-22?


I know this for a fact: for the price the US was willing to sell and
sustain, you could buy and fly two Eurofighters for one F-22. And while
the Raptor was certainly better one-for-one, it wasn't better enough
against the threat to overcome the fundamental problem: divide airframes
by two and Red raids are much less likely to be intercepted.

The F-22 (or is it really now the F/A-22?) shows every sign of being a
lethal aircraft; and an extraordinarily expensive one. Trouble is, to be
lethal you have to get into weapons range of the enemy.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk