F-15X Redux -- Buying Boings won't affect F-35

[steve2267]

Since the new and improved F-15 thread got locked (why? inquiring minds want to know so as to avoid the five finger death knell of other threads!)... I plonk this here.

Lockheed CEO: Boeing’s F-15X won’t disrupt F-35 program
Defense News By: Valerie Insinna 1-29-2019


WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin has been given assurances by top Pentagon leaders that the F-35 program will not be negatively impacted by a potential U.S. Air Force buy of Boeing’s F-15X, Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson said Tuesday.

“If they choose to have an order of the F-15, it won’t be at the expense of F-35 quantities,” she told investors during an earnings call.

“I'm hearing that directly from leadership in the Pentagon, and I think that's an important point for me to make. It's not just our suspicion, but I've been told that directly.”

The U.S. Air Force is expected to roll out a plan to begin buying new F-15s in its upcoming fiscal 2020 budget release. In December, Bloomberg reported the service intends to purchase 12 new F-15X aircraft in 2020 for $1.2 billion.

On Friday, Gen. Dave Goldfein, the Air Force’s chief of staff, confirmed to Defense News that the service will procure new F-15s if the budget grows enough to allow it, but that the F-35 program of record would remain the same with no slowdown to the buy rate.

“I’m not backing an inch off of the F-35” Goldfein said. “The F-35 buy that we’re on continues to remain on track. And I’m not interested in taking a nickel out of it when it comes to buying anything else in the fighter portfolio.”

Goldfein added that the Air Force wants to increase fighter procurement to 72 aircraft a year.

...

If the service maintained a rate of one F-15X a month, it would be free to boost its F-35 production rate to 60 aircraft a year — a number that Air Force officials had cited as key for production ramp up. However, the FY19 budget forecast showed that the service would likely be unable to procure the F-35 in those quantities before FY23.

“If we had the money, those would be 72 F-35s. But we’ve gotta look at this from a cost/business case.” Goldfein said. “An F-15 will never be an F-35. Never. But I need capacity.”

... [ and read the rest at the jump ]

https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/01/29/lockheed-ceo-boeings-f-15x-wont-disrupt-f-35-program

Ummm... so let me see if I have this correct... Air Force wants to increase fighter purchases to 72 aircraft per year. And if they "had the money, those would be 72 F-35s." So their plan is to purchase 12 F-15X's for $1.2B, or $100M per F-15X, when the F-35A has dropped below $90M in the last LRIP.

"If we had the money, those would be 72 F-35s..." So let's go buy $100M F-15X's. What am I missing here?