Some people like to knock the Lockheed Martin F-22 for costing $140 million a piece, excluding all expenses for development and spares.
But not to worry! The next fighter coming along -- Lockheed's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter -- is supposed to be based on affordability, with a flyaway cost at roughly one-third of the F-22's price tag using 2001 dollars.
So, let's see how the F-35 measures up.
The US Navy and US Marine Corps plan to buy a total of 680 F-35Bs and F-35Cs over the next 15-20 years. The FY2009 budget contains budget projections for the remainder of the program. Note that this includes only procurement cost. Amortized development and spares costs are excluded.
Year Aircraft Average unit cost/aircraft
FY2008: 6 $184.2 million
FY2009: 8 $200.2 million
FY2010: 18 $172.3 million
FY2011: 19 $146.4 million
FY2012: 40 $124.4 million
FY2013: 42 $115.1 million
Remainder: 547 $109.3 million
Total: 680 $115 million
You think it's going to hit Nunn McCurdy? Again.
You use the $140 million cost on the F-22, how do you come up with that number when others use a higher $180 - $200 million number? I have been trying to get a read on the true cost, but it seems that everyone has their own number, and most of the time that number seems to be driven how much they like the F-22.
I ask t he question because IMO if the F-2 cost is in the $140 - 150 million range then it makes sense to build another 100 - 150 Raptors and 150 - 200 less F-35's. If the Raptor cost is much higher then it gets harder to justify buying 100 - 150 Raptors in place of 200 - 300 F-35's.
Never been a big fan of comparing fly-away costs of an aircraft. They can be awfully misleading. In your example, I would be real curious to see what learning curve factor went into the negotiations.
Problem with flyaway costs is simple. Say you want a weapons systems with that aircraft? Well they don't count as flyaway, but weapons systems cost. If it's not a legacy weapons system ... that entire cost usually gets counted in a different line, not the budget line for the aircraft.
As you know, the only real cost that really counts anyhow are the life cycle costs and the real humor is that few services have a clue what that means.