French planes are crap

In article ,
"killfile" wrote:

How is one F/A-22 going to kill six Rafales?

By calling on his two wingmen, of course.

Unless the Rafales are selling for less than $30 million each, of course.

Parts, support, and training included.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
"killfile" wrote:
How is one F/A-22 going to kill six Rafales?
By calling on his two wingmen, of course.

Unless the Rafales are selling for less than $30 million each, of course.

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!")

Parts, support, and training included.

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.

--
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

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
"killfile" wrote:
How is one F/A-22 going to kill six Rafales?
By calling on his two wingmen, of course.

Unless the Rafales are selling for less than $30 million each, of course.

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.

Parts, support, and training included.

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.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

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

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

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.

Which is pretty much exactly what I was claiming.

....as opposed to the insane "six to one" cost ratio claimed by someone
earlier in the thread.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

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.

Which is pretty much exactly what I was claiming.

...as opposed to the insane "six to one" cost ratio claimed by someone
earlier in the thread.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

A GAO report put the price of a single F-22 at $200m with no parts, weapons
or servicing, if production is capped at the current rate, for a total of 70
aircraft. Which, if they do want the F-35, it might well be.

Weirder things have happened ... they did scrap Crusader, after all.

Matt

In article ,
"killfile" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

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.

Which is pretty much exactly what I was claiming.

...as opposed to the insane "six to one" cost ratio claimed by someone
earlier in the thread.

A GAO report put the price of a single F-22 at $200m with no parts, weapons
or servicing, if production is capped at the current rate, for a total of 70
aircraft. Which, if they do want the F-35, it might well be.

Nope. The $200 million is the "limited buy, full program" number.

Parts and service included.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
"killfile" wrote:
How is one F/A-22 going to kill six Rafales?
By calling on his two wingmen, of course.

Unless the Rafales are selling for less than $30 million each, of course.

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!")

Parts, support, and training included.

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.

Irby is misrepresenting the airframe costs either way. The $170 million a
copy F-22 price is for 336 pieces. For 70 pieces the F-22 will be over $300
million a copy. That of course assumes the program woks out their problems
during FY2004, otherwise there will be only about a dozen production copys
ever.

In article ,
"Tarver Engineering" wrote:

Irby is misrepresenting the airframe costs either way. The $170 million a
copy F-22 price is for 336 pieces.

Nope. For 336 pieces, the price would be $90 million each. At the
current buy rate, it's $170 million.

For 70 pieces the F-22 will be over $300
million a copy.

Nope. Look it up for once.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...
In article ,
"Tarver Engineering" wrote:

Irby is misrepresenting the airframe costs either way. The $170 million
a
copy F-22 price is for 336 pieces.

Nope. For 336 pieces, the price would be $90 million each. At the
current buy rate, it's $170 million.

You are looking at way old data. All these delays have driven up costs for
the F-22 program markedly. The smart thing to do would have been to kill
this luster **** in FY99, the first time congress realized they were being
taken for a ride. I am glad they didn't, for the sake of keeping edwards
running, but the program has been a monumental waste of money.