The Saudi deal was reported in pounds, not Euros. Reuters (not exactly an American friendly media outlet) reported the deal to be worth 4.43 Billion Pounds for 72 aircraft. So that there is absolutely no doubt as to what has been reported the exact quote is below.

"the Saudi Arabian defence ministry earlier in the day said a deal for the aircraft had been signed for the jets -- excluding weapons and maintenance -- worth 4.43 billion pounds ($8.84 billion)."
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyN ... 1420070917

For our European friends who may have a bit of trouble with the English language that means they paid 4.43 billion pounds for 72 aircraft and 72 owners manuals. They did not get fuel, they did not get weapons, they did not get maintenance.

Now as for math, the universal language it's simple.

4.43/.072 = 61.527 Billion pounds. At current exchange rates thats 126.08 million dollars a copy.

Now lets keep in mind. This is not for pre-production aircraft but for production models. For the money they don't get stealth, and they don't get an AESA. Must be nice to have money to burn and Uncle Sam to bail you out if you get in serious trouble.

Completly autonomous unmanned aircraft will be available WAAAY before that.

IMO the problem with the F-35 is that it will be available too late. Unmanned aircraft will render it useless well before half are produced. Think about it a fighter stays in service for 30-40 years, and with the projected production rate it will take 30-40 years to produce 1700 of them. This means that he last ones will be put in service in 2040-2050 and will stay in service until 2075-2090. That obviously doesn't make sense. Completly autonomous unmanned aircraft will be available WAAAY before that.

IMO the problem with the F-35 is that it will be available too late. Unmanned aircraft will render it useless well before half are produced. Think about it a fighter stays in service for 30-40 years, and with the projected production rate it will take 30-40 years to produce 1700 of them. This means that he last ones will be put in service in 2040-2050 and will stay in service until 2075-2090. That obviously doesn't make sense. Completly autonomous unmanned aircraft will be available WAAAY before that.

Instead of going for the F-35, the USAF could have:
- upgraded its legacy fighters as much as possible to keep a suffiently large and lethal force until UCAVs can replace them. F-16CCIPs and F-15Cs ( golden Eagles ) are expected to stay in service until 2025 and F-15Es until 2035. It gives quite a long time to work on UCAVs.
- given the F-15Cs golden Eagle basic a/g capabilities with CFTs etc..
- put CFTs on all the F-16s that can carry them ( around 240 ), to double the payload. That plus the a/g capabilities of the F-15Cs would have compensated for the loss of many F-16s.
- bought as many F-22s as possible until the AF is confident that UCAVs can replace them.
- given the F-22s the best a/g capabilities possible, including the ability to control UCAVs. Many a/g capabilities are already projected anyways.
- continued the R&D of UCAVs with basic strike and SEAD capabilities at IOC. Later upgrades would have given them more capabilities, including the ability to be more autonomous.

Once the AF would have decided to stop producing F-22s, the last ones would have remained in service for another 30-40 years. Manned aircraft would not have disappeared suddenly.

Yes, you make a very sound case as to *why* the F-35 will not be bought by the USA in quantities af ~1700 airframes.

Anyone would have to be a fool to believe that in the early 2030's, or even the 2020's for that matter, that the science of aerial warfare will still rely on what is essentially 30 year old tactics and airframe capabilites.

To put it into perspective, imagine the US building F-86's until the 1980's. I'll give you a clue: the F-117 isn't being retired because it can no longer perform its mission and that we're going to reduce our 182 fleet of Raptors by a couple dozen by making them dedicated mud moving bunker busters. If you study history and the past strategies of the DoD then the ovious conclusion, which by the way is giant elephant that no one speaks of, is that F-117 has been retired because something better has taken over it's old nesting area and that the F-22 as the replacement is a cover story much in the same way that the A-7 was used as the F-117 cover story. It doesn't take a genius to figure these things out. Especially given that the USAF has been starved of new airframes for such a very long time, 'they' would be idiots to take perfectly fine airframes which are even 'stealthier' today then back in the 80's and churn them into aluminum cans and static displays.

Back to the point: the F-35 will be obsolete long, long, before ever approaching 1700 airframes. The idea of forecasting that the F-35 will be the greatest fighter in the air for the next 30 years is laughable. No one can even see what will be available in 5 years let alone three decades. This idea that the F-35 will be an adept adversary 15 years from now is foolish.

Technology is a very fluid 'thing' and to predict that this subsonic fat-a$$ will be the do-all and end-all is... its just old fashioned stupidity. Why do you think that merely a handfull of years after the F-15 started replacing Phantoms that the USAF initiated the ATF program? They certainly had their heads intact when they noticed the advancements being made in sustainable supersonic flight by fighter-sized aircraft and realized that the F-15 was going to be, possibly, surpassed by the then new Migs and Sukhois on Ivan's drafting boards. Why we want to buy an airframe with reduced capabilites from what is currently be stamped out is dumb, let alone claiming it'll be the best thing the world will ever see since the radar guided aam.

But what else could you expect to originate from the Clinton administration? It simply goes to show that once a program, no matter how defunct, once begun is all but impossible to kill, even with the 'all lets hold hangs across the world' idiots in office.

Anyone would have to be a fool to believe that in the early 2030's, or even the 2020's for that matter, that the science of aerial warfare will still rely on what is essentially 30 year old tactics and airframe capabilites.

You mean that

1) shoot the other guy before he shoots you
2) get behind the other guy and turn tighter than he does

won't work anymore in 2020 or 2030?

Best Regards,