"DC" wrote in message
. au...
Michael Kelly said the following on 10/06/2004 12:04 PM:

Doubt you'd only want a fleet of 4 of any aircraft. I've had the
experience of trying to support 3 customers with a squadron of only 6
Bones (6 + 1 in depot), and it wasn't pretty. This is at a base with
two other squadrons flying another 24 planes, 4 would be unworkable.
Furthermore, there aren't enough Bones left to lease four unless
congress backs off from bringing the 23 out of retirement (7 are gone
for good). Even at that not sure you'd want the ones at DM, pretty
picked over.

That said, it could be workable with a fleet size of 10 or 11 if the US
follows through with the plans to stand up a squadron in Guam. Although
that would depend on us only bringing back 11-12.

How would the B1B and B2 compare? Would a force consisting of F-22
fighters and B-1B or B-2 bombers be feasible for the RAAF (as
compared to the F-35) or would it be way too expensive?

So expensive as to be complete and utter fantasy; the B-2, which is not in
production any longer, came it at around $1 billion per copy IIRC, and the
F/A-22 is a pricey item too, depending on how the pricing is worked out (the
$100 million per figure has been tossed around IIRC, but if you take the
total program cost and divide it out by the currently planned total number
of airframes you get something closer to the $150 million plus figure). The
RAAF is not going to be looking at either of those platforms, that is for
sure.

Brooks