This is going to take a bit. Lot of stuff in this article and I have a few errand to run but I'll start
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The price tag —currently an estimated $1 trillion to design, build and operate 2,400 copies—is steadily going down. Production of dozens of the planes a year for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps is getting easier. Daily flight tests increasingly are hitting all the right marks.
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Author doesn't mention its just an estimate and thats its based on development, purchase orders and operations costs over
55 fucking years of expected service of an entire fleet of aircraft.
Here is a more recent ESTIMATE (which can go up or down)
2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...82S03L20120329
2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...99F0Q320131016
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Owing to heavy design compromises foisted on the plane mostly by the Marine Corps, the F-35 is an inferior combatant, seriously outclassed by even older Russian and Chinese jets that can fly faster and farther and maneuver better. In a fast-moving aerial battle, the JSF “is a dog … overweight and underpowered,” according to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, D.C.
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Thats based on a bullshit, flawed RAND study from 2008. I'll get to this later.
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Among the pathologies inherent in the F-35's design, by far the most damaging is the result of a peculiar institutional obsession by one of the new plane’s three main customers. Early on, the Marine Corps contrived to equip the JSF as a “jump jet,” able to take off and land vertically like a helicopter — a gimmick that the Marines have long insisted would make its fighters more flexible, but which has rarely worked in combat.
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Who is going to tell the Marine Corp that the amphibious warfare ships that carried their old jump jets are part of the gimmicky scheme. I'm not a Marine nor do I really read up on their current doctrine but having the ability to carry fast attack aircraft that can...I don't know, drop heavy things that go boom fron a small aws is a good thing to have and not a gimmick.
HOWEVER its that reason why costs have balloned so much. The F35B is a cock sucking money whore.
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Where once mighty American warplanes soared over all others, giving Washington a distinct strategic advantage against any foe, in coming decades the U.S. air arsenal will likely be totally outclassed on a plane-by-plane basis by any country possessing the latest Russian and Chinese models — one of which, ironically, appears to be an improved copy of the JSF … minus all its worst design elements.
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If this asshole tries to claim that Chinese stealth wannabe POS is actually....I'll come back to this. I have to go see if China finally figured out how to design and build a aircraft engine thats not a pos. Last time I checked. They couldn't even with Russians holding them by the hand. Lets just set aside Chinese military doctrine and pretend that they are going...wait.Let me stop before I go on a tangent.
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At the time the Navy was working with the Air Force on the F-111, an early attempt at a one-size-fits-all jet that the Pentagon believed would replace nearly all older planes with a single, multipurpose model.
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Oh..I see he is trying to name drop the F-111. One of the best low level bombers and electronic warefare platforms of the 20th century. Australia was just recently bitching about having to retire their fleet.
wonder where he is going with that one?
There is a lot more here where he bitches about the F35B which is going to Marines and The Royal Navy. Yeah it has problems. Yup its pricey. Yup stupid militaries with requirements for jets on small ships.
What about the F35A which will be built in greater number? You know...the cheap one. The one with better range and capabilty?
What about F35C which has 50% more range than F35B.
I'm a little lost here because I'm skimming and I got run out real quick
Cost per plane...coming down
http://www.defensenews.com/article/2...G02/309280007/
I'll be back