F/A-22 vs. FB-22

Henry J Cobb wrote:
Scott Ferrin wrote:

The huge F/A-22 cost increase suggested by the GAO has many in the
Pentagon searching for its origins. "

The origins are in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, not the
GAO.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04391.pdf Page 8.
The Air Force has a modernization program to improve the
capabilities of the F/A-22 focused largely on a new robust
air-to-ground capability. It has five developmental spirals
planned over more than a 10-year period, with the initial spiral
started in 2003. Table 2 shows each spiral as currently planned.
In March 2003, the Office of Secretary of Defense’s Cost Analysis
Improvement Group (CAIG) estimated that the Air Force would need
$11.7 billion for the planned modernization program.

Note that this cost is for all five "spirals" which include a lot more than
just air-to-ground modifications and run well past the current budget cycle.
It's not clear that this is an increase per se, since life-cycle
modernization is always planned and seldom part of the initial budget.


--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872

Thomas Schoene wrote:
Note that this cost is for all five "spirals" which include a lot more than
just air-to-ground modifications and run well past the current budget cycle.
It's not clear that this is an increase per se, since life-cycle
modernization is always planned and seldom part of the initial budget.

Which is why The Force should sell this as an additional feature set
with a new designation (is F/A-22C already taken still?) and then make
the case for the three versions of the F/A-22 separately.

Air to Air dominator.
Close Air Support expert.
and Super Weasel.

And then they can lay out the development cost for each and the refit
costs to bump each plane up to the new versions.

-HJC