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Home » Money Money Money » Stealth Fighter’s Costs Soar

Stealth Fighter’s Costs Soar

jsf_logo.jpgThe Pentagon has a motto for its next-​​generation attack jet, the Joint Strike Fighter: “Lethal, Survivable, Supportable, Affordable.” But the mil­i­tary may want to think about mod­i­fy­ing that a bit, now that each JSF is going to cost $82.1 mil­lion, accord­ing to Defense News. Just a few months ago, the head of the JSF pro­gram, Rear Admiral Steven Enewold, told me that the most expen­sive vari­ant of the plane would come in at about $60 mil­lion.
The JSF is designed to replace every­thing from Harrier jump jets to F-​​16s to Super Hornets with a sin­gle class of fighter. At a pro­jected $256 bil­lion, it’s already the most expen­sive weapons pro­gram in Pentagon his­tory.
But the fighter makes sense in today’s increasingly-​​tight bud­gets, RADM Enewold said, because the stealthy JSF not only could beat the air defenses of the future — it could knock out guerilla hide­outs, too.
But that fis­cal logic, he acknowl­edged, hinged on keep­ing the cost per plane down. Otherwise, send­ing this high-​​performance jet after insur­gents would be like putting out a fire with Dom Perignon. Even before the lat­est price jump, the Government Accountability Office, Congress inves­ti­ga­tional arm, called the JSFs orig­i­nal busi­ness plan “unex­e­cutable.” Wonder what they’ll say about the pro­gram now?

UPDATE 9:10 AM
: Here’s some more bud­get news, all cour­tesy of Inside Defense:

* Army com­mit­ted to troop cuts
* Operating costs could ground laser jet
* Rail gun not ready ’til 2020
* 2008 dead­line for Future Combat Systems?

UPDATE 2:05 PM: This is huge, if it holds up. I’m guess­ing it won’t. A House sub­com­mit­tee has passed leg­is­la­tion to limit the DD(X) destroyer pro­gram “to just two ships,” Defense News says.

Rising DD(X) costs have prompted Congress to cut the pro­gram repeat­edly, from as many as 30 ships planned in the late 1990s to just seven this year. Originally, the ships were sup­posed to cost about $1 bil­lion each. Last year, the Navy said it could build them for $3.3 bil­lion apiece, but inde­pen­dent esti­mates put the price at $4 bil­lion or more per ship.
The plan to halt the DD(X) buy at two would leave the Navy with a pair of ships that would serve mainly as demon­stra­tion mod­els for a new gen­er­a­tion of guided mis­sile cruis­ers that would be built using the same hull.

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May 2nd, 2006 | Money Money Money, Planes, Copters, Blimps | 318948 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/05/02/stealth-fighters-costs-soar/Stealth+Fighter%27s+Costs+Soar2006-05-02+13%3A19%3A07david_axe You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  1. DS says:
    May 2, 2006 at 8:33 am

    I don’t under­stand the logic behind the F-​​22, when we have the F-​​35 com­ing up in 3 dif­fer­ent variations.

    Reply
  2. sglover says:
    May 2, 2006 at 11:02 am

    I don’t under­stand the logic behind either of these white ele­phants, when robotic air­craft are becom­ing cheaper and more capa­ble all the time.
    Of course, I keep get­ting hung up on seman­tics, and actu­ally take the ‘defense’ estab­lish­ment at its word when they say it’s all for secu­rity. That’s when crap like the F-​​22 and the JSF and mis­sile defense seem hard to jus­tify. If only I could learn to appre­ci­ate their *real* mis­sions — fun­nel­ing money into var­i­ous well-​​connected pock­ets. Then I could give a heart­felt, “Huzzah! Well done, boys!”

    Reply
  3. Moose says:
    May 2, 2006 at 1:15 pm

    The F-​​35 is your grunt, your ground-​​pounder. it’ll spend 90% of its time loaded with bombs and pro­vid­ing medium strike or close-​​air-​​support. It’s stealthy enough to make it harder to kill. It comes in 3 vari­ants becuase the AF uses Big Runways at longer-​​range, the Navy uses smaller run­ways as close far from the shit­storm as they can get away with, and Marines use a postage stamp from about 10 feet away.
    The F-​​22 is your sniper. He goes in and zaps the bad guy’s air­force, cruise mis­siles, and what­ever else gets in their crosshairs while never being seen him­self. He’s there to pave the way so that the F-​​35 can do the slog-​​work.
    Does all that mean alot invad­ing Iraq? hell no, Iraq’s air­force was less men­ac­ing than the Civil Air patrol. But against some­one with SU-​​33s, or Rafales, or god-​​forbid Typhoons, and an air-​​defense net designed to soak up HARMs while still blot­ting our toys out of the sky, we’ll be damned glad to have them.

    Reply
  4. ROBERT VICK says:
    May 2, 2006 at 5:33 pm

    ONE OF THE BIG REASON’S SOME OF THESE AIRCRAFT,
    SHIPS, AND OTHER HARDWARE KEEPS ESCALATING IN
    PRICE. EVERY CONGRESSCRITTER WHOSE DISTRICT HAS
    A COMPETITOR MANUFACTURER SAYS “THAT PLANE ISN’T
    NEEDED LETS STUDY & SEE IF WE CAN GET IT CHEAPER?
    “HOPEFULLY FROM MY CONSTITUENT” THEN THEY KEEP
    CUTTING QUANTITY. THE RESEARCH & INFRASTRUCTURE
    OR TOOLING TO BUILD MUCH OF THIS DOES NOT CHANGE.
    SO MUCH OF THE COST IS FIXED. WHEN YOU REDUCE NUMBERS. THE COST FOR EACH ITEM RISES. ADD IN THE
    SKYROCKETING FUEL COSTS & IT JUST GETS BIGGER.
    AT LEAST THE F22 IS FLYING IN OPERATIONAL FORM.
    THE F35 MAY NEVER DO SO. I AM AFRAID IT IS BEING
    ASKED TO MEET TOO MANY TASKS. ALSO YOU NEVER GET
    AN AIRCRAFT TO PERFORM PERFECTLY UNTIL YOU BUILD
    A FEW. IN WW2 THE P51 HAD TO GO TO THE D MODEL TO
    REALLY BECOME THE EFFECTIVE WEAPONS SYSTEM IT BECAME. AND THERE WERE A COUPLE OF LATER MODELS
    THAT TRULY REALIZED ITS POTENTIAL. SAME FOR P47,
    P38, ETC. ITS THE SAME FOR SHIPS, TANKS, ETC.
    THE COMANCHE HELICOPTER WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SO
    EXPENSIVE IF IT WASN’T STUDIED TO DEATH. THE
    ARGUMENT THAT ROBOT AIRCRAFT, ETC. ARE FULLY CAPABLE AT THIS POINT. I THINK THERE WILL NEVER
    TOTALLY BE A TIME WHEN A HUMAN EYE/​BRAIN WILL
    NOT BE CRITICALLY NECESSARY IN MANY COMBAT
    SITUATIONS. AS A LAST DITCH SAFEGUARD ANYWAY.

    Reply
  5. Moose says:
    May 3, 2006 at 1:08 am

    Good news on the DD(X), if it holds up. I’ve said in the past that DD(x) is to the point where it should be made into a tech run like the SeaWolf-​​class subs and have its tech car­ried over into CG(x) and a more cost-​​effective DD pro­gram. I still think SPY-​​3 and AGS on a Burke hull would work, espe­cially with man­ning reduc­tions, etc.
    Easy on the caps lock, Vick.

    Reply
  6. Alex says:
    May 3, 2006 at 5:18 am

    I’m begin­ning to sus­pect the UK will never get its F-​​35s. Oh well, back to draw­ing board..

    Reply
  7. HP Bradish says:
    May 24, 2006 at 7:42 pm

    I find it hard to believe the F-​​22 is just going to go in, zap what­ever and return unseen. That no radar or com­bi­na­tion of radars will remain inca­pable of find­ing the F-​​22, if in fact this isn’t already true. And don’t we wish it costs a wimpy 80 or 90 mil­lion, instead of the 200 mil­lion it does?
    Like the billion(s) dol­lar bal­lis­tic mis­sile inter­cep­tor which hasn’t inter­cepeted a mis­sile, in tests, in four years! Don’t the Russians have a short and medium bal­lis­tic defense right now? One that really does work?
    Sincerely,
    HP Bradish,
    Austin, Tx.

    Reply
  8. Steve says:
    May 24, 2006 at 9:08 pm

    1. I do agree that the costs are way high, but I won­der if the com­pa­nies might be get­ting what they can now in case of a major change in the lead­er­ship of the US, ie, Democrats takeover includ­ing the White House.
    2. I do not believe that UAV’s are to the point that they can do the bulk of com­bat air sor­ties.
    3. I doubt that enough F-​​22 & JSF would ever be built to com­pletely replace all the F-​​16/​AV-​​8/​A-​​10 and what­ever else. Some of those air­frames will be over­hauled to con­tinue on in ser­vice.
    Disclaimer: I retired from the Navy and work for a large, US defense contractor

    Reply
  9. sferrin says:
    May 25, 2006 at 12:03 am

    Actually “doing it the Seawolf way” was a BAD idea. The Virginias are less capa­ble a MORE expen­sive per unit than the Seawolfs. Nobody seems to “get” that the way you keep cost down is to do large runs of a few types. Three Seawolfs, a half dozen or so Virginias and who knows how many el chea­pos the next design in line (which are sup­pose to be cheaper than the Virginias but will end up cost­ing more)is going to be WAY more expen­sive in the end than if we’d just stuck with the Seawolfs. Every time you do a new design you get to spend another big chunk of R&D money. It’s all there in black and white but can you get a politi­cian to under­stand that? Hell no because they’re not inter­ested in buy­ing weapon sys­tems eco­nom­i­cally they’re inter­ested in buy­ing votes.

    Reply
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    I don’t under­stand the logic behind the F-​​22, when we have the F-​​35 com­ing up in 3 dif­fer­ent variations

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