Forum: General F-35 Forum

1997-2001 was pure guesswork for the DoD.

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I always get a kick out of these reports. I would like for someone to tell me what the total life cycle cost of the B52 program would be if we went back to the 1950s and looked at a 50+ year program. Anyone with any common sense would have thought you were mad to even attempt to estimate the costs for something that many years into the future.

The 1.45t number is that 2012 dollars or cumulative then year dollars? It sounds like cumulative then year dollars, because they say that the figure includes inflation....

Then year dollars.

Really, a more meaningful discussion would be to compare the F-35 program with an alternative fleet of legacy jets, UCAVs, etc. that could approximate the effectiveness of the former over it's projected lifetime. Unfortunately, I don't see any of the detractors coming up with realistic alternatives with the comparable numbers to back them up. The government supposedly arrived at these estimated lifetime costs,which are highly suspect in terms of accuracy given the timeframe involved, for planning purposes. The program's detractors have simply seized on them for their shock value to push their respective agendas, unable or unwilling to discuss the figures in a meaningful context.

SpudmanWP wrote:

Then year dollars.

Thank you, that is what I thought.

So basically we spend 1.45T on this fighter program over 55 years. Doing some very dirty and quick math if we have a defence budget of 550b and increase it by only inflation. We get about 105T total defence spending over the next 55 years.

The latest SAR put the ENTIRE program cost, including R&D, Procurement, MILCON, Spares, Support, Upgrade, and O&S costs at $947 billion in FY2012 dollars or $1508 billion in Then Year (inflation Adjusted) dollars.

This covers the ENTIRE F-35 SDD through last F-35 retired lifetime from 2001 through 2066 (30 years after last F-35 deployed).

In 1997-2001, the F-35 program was sold to Congress as an efficient way to recapitalize the tactical fighter fleet, at the flyaway cost estimated to be $ 28M (2012$ 35.7M) according to the SARs for that period. The 2002 SAR was the first report to provide data to calculate an URF of BY02$ 38.0M (2012$ 48.45M) The 2006 SAR was the first report to include Total Flyaway data - BY02$ 50.05M (2012$ 63.82M) - the URF was BY02$ 47.7M (2012$ 60.82M) The latest 2011 SAR data indicates an URF as BY12$ 78.39M, and the Total Flyaway as BY12$ 87.26M. These data are for the F-35A CTOL version, but assumes that all planned aircraft - including partners and other nations - are eventually built.

There is little doubt F-35 costs have increased substantially. In terms of total flyaway, the cost has increased by a factor of 2.4 - more than double - between 1997 and 2011, after allowing for inflation. Using data first available in 2002, the URF rose 61% by 2011, using 2012 dollars. Total flyaway cost, using the data first made available in 2006, increased 37% by 2011, again in 2012 dollars.

m wrote:

Sounds ridiculous, but when inflation included, as with the F35, what will a car or a house will cost in 2067 (55 years)?

Or, in comparison, costs of jets in 1957 > 2012.

Late sixties, one could buy a hundred light weight jetfighters for roughly half a million dollars … All in!!
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Sorry, mistake ... did type "million" in stead of "billion"

1997-2001 represented the cost based on what they thought would be needed to meet the requirement.

It was not until the bids came back that the real estimating could begin. Remember too that the requirements changed (how shocking) before the X planes were even finished being built.

So, has anyone compared the F-35 to the costs of the F-16 and F-18 at the time they were first produced to the F-35 now in terms of fraction of nominal GDP?
All I can find is that, in 1975, US GDP was very close to 10% of current US GDP. At that time, the F-16 was offered for a $5 million fly-away cost. Proportionally, that would be $50 million or so today.

Forum: General F-35 Forum

Not $1T, not $1.4T: Pentagon revises F-35 costs to $1.45T