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Overall fleet-wide monthly availability rates remain around 50 percent, a condition that has existed with no significant improvement since October 2014, despite the increasing number of new aircraft. One notable trend is an increase in the percentage of the fleet that cannot fly while awaiting replacement parts – indicated by the Not Mission Capable due to Supply rate.
[...] Total acquisition costs for Lockheed Martin Corp.'s next-generation fighter may rise about 7 percent to $406.5 billion, according to figures in a document known as a Selected Acquisition Report. That's a reversal after several years of estimates that had declined to $379 billion recently from a previous high of $398.5 billion in early 2014.
FY17 DOD PROGRAMS: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)
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Lockheed Martin Negotiating $37 Billion F-35 Deal
Does China's J-20 Rival Other Stealth Fighters?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 30 2018, @01:34AM (1 child)
Interesting attitude...
The F-22 was designed for a dogfighting war that's not about to happen. It's the best thing by so much margin it hasn't had anything to do. Dropping a few bombs on Syria doesn't count, an F-15 or 16 could have done the same job cheaper. Now, the Chinese and Russians are developing new fighters which the F-22 will never fight directly, but against which it is a deterrent. If the F22 was exported to other countries, it would potentially get to stretch its legs one day. As a US fighter, it serves the same purpose as a nuke: don't mess with the place which has one. But hey, would you mess with the US without it? Their range, price, and maintenance logistics means they just don't fit in an offensive scenario.
The F-35 is needed, because the F16/15/18 have their limits, being airframes designed before computers became central to the job.
The two main design flaws of the F35 are known (besides the cost/procurement):
- Stealth requirement, which may not be useful, added serious design constraints. Big opponents can likely see through stealth, while little guys are not a threat. In most deployments for the lifespan of that plane, stealth will be irrelevant.
- USMC STOVL requirement hurt the overall performance, even in non-STOVL variants
It's a decent bird, but a 21st century version of the F16 (or F15/18, if forced by carriers, but they now seem ok with single engine), not burdened by those two requirements, would be equally as useful, have better overall specs, and likely a much better price and availability.
Look at Eurofighter and Rafale, both designed a while back without those two constraints (they are only moderately stealthy). Try to imagine what the US could have come up with given the budget gap.
> then despite your protest you clearly are uninterested in America.
> You'd rather have Russia and China running the world unchallenged. You'd rather not be able
> to do anything about stuff like ISIS or the invasion of Kuwait. You don't even want to defend our territory.
How many F35 in Kuwait? How many F22 against ISIS? Are you going Poe's Law?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @03:49AM
We often fail at secrecy. Consider what the Soviets did with tanks. Crews trained with older tanks. The newer ones were secret. When it came time for combat, the crews were given the new tanks and a day to familiarize themselves with the differences.
The F-22 wasn't sold outside the USA. That needs to be the standard for our best equipment.
It is foolish to risk losing our best equipment over enemy territory. In the conflict in the remains of Yugoslavia, we lost an F-117. It was promptly sold to China. The same happened with a stealth helicopter in the Osama raid.
Stealth is not a boolean. Everybody can see through stealth if they have a huge high-power antenna running at a relatively low frequency, but that kind of equipment doesn't fit in a small-diameter missile seeker. Getting a brief detection is not the same as continuous tracking.
Kuwait was done with the high-end technology of the day. The F-16 and F-15 used in that war can be considered equal to the F-35 and F-22 in a war that happens within the next decade or two. We didn't fight Kuwait with the P-51. We need to prepare for wars of the future. If we stick with the F-16 and F-15, it'd be like bringing a P-51 to the fight in Iraq.
You say "The F-22 was designed for a dogfighting war that's not about to happen." Why? Is such a war unthinkable, maybe like WWII was unthinkable in the 1930s? (it being so terrible that we can't consider the possibility) Failure to prepare for wars of the future means you lose. Note that you can sometimes win or lose without fighting; the behavior of nations is affected by perceived ability to fight a war.