F-35 Costs Set to Soar, Says Pentagon

[unhappycamper]

F-35 Costs Set to Soar, Says Pentagon
April 07, 2010
Fort Worth Star-Telegram|by Bob Cox

Defense Department officials have told Congress that the already ballooning costs of the F-35 joint strike fighter are likely to soar much higher when new estimates are completed in the summer.

In the Selected Acquisition Report for the F-35, a detailed document sent to Congress on Thursday, the Pentagon said it expects that cost studies now under way will produce estimates dramatically higher than those used in recent months to prepare the 2011 defense budget request.

Based on figures in the document, the average cost of one F-35 -- $62 million when the program was launched in 2002 -- could rise to $115.5 million, not counting inflation, by the time all 2,457 planes that the U.S. plans to buy are built.

Including inflation, the government now expects each F-35 to cost an average of $133.6 million. But even that figure could swell to more than $150 million when revised estimates are completed in June.

~snip~

It shows that Pentagon officials now estimate that the average cost of one F-35 has risen 57 percent before accounting for inflation. It predicts that the next round of estimates could show an increase of up to 87 percent, again before inflation.


Rest of article about this $239 million dollar wonder at: http://www.military.com/news/article/f35-costs-set-to-soar-says-pentagon.html?wh=wh

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I don't remember giving them the go-ahead to throw money around like that.

[Echo In Light]

4. +1

[laststeamtrain]

2. K & R - n/t.

[Richard Steele]

3. Is anyone surprised to hear this? Par for the military-industrial course. K&R

[Turbineguy]

5. Defense costs bear no relation to reality

If Matson Navigation spent on a container ship what the Navy spends on a Carrier, the containership would be 18 miles long and 2 miles wide.

[unhappycamper]

6. And if it were a Ford-class container ship, it would cost $11.5 billion. n/t

[Turbineguy]

18. $11.5 billion?

I exaggerated. I based my numbers on 11.7 billion.

At that rate $11.5 billion is good for 104 container ships with plenty left over for nice launching parties.

[unhappycamper]

19. ROFL!11!

:rofl:

[Canuckistanian]

7. Boondoggle. From the get-go.

Contractors KNEW that once they won a bid to work on this thing, it was like they hit an oil well.

Cost overruns? Technical glitches? No problem! There's no such thing as bad news to a contractor.

[Vinnie From Indy]

8. The time honored way for M/I Complex to STEAL taxpayer dollars

[MadHound]

9. Let's see here,

That could be 3,983 teachers' jobs saved, 18,384 miles of road repaired, 239,000 houses hooked up with fiber optics, etc. etc. Projects that would provide good jobs to people who need them. What does this plane project provide, oh, yeah, big money for the MIC.

[RB TexLa]

10. Was AirBus allowed to bid on this?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. I don't know where they get those prices from? $64 million.

look how the aircraft companies are raking in loads of money from the taxpayers? :evilgrin:

[unhappycamper]

12. $64 milion dollars is slightly more than one fouth the cost of these things.

You think this one is expensive? The F-22 costs $355 million a pop.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

20. shocking and that's not the price of flying it?

[FarCenter]

13. $115.5 x 2,457 = $283 billion

How is $283 billion possibly affordable?

We need to talk about Defense budget items the way that we do health care and other social programs.

We need to use the projected totals over 10 years, not the unit costs or the annual expenditures.

[Political Heretic]

15. Pentagon #1 waster of taxpayer dollars. #1 source of all govt. waste.

That's my opinion.

[Political Heretic]

14. The F-22 was 10x as cool, but it was supposedly "too expensive"

The JSF was to be a "cheaper" alternative. :rofl:

[MrScorpio]

16. SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

[eppur_se_muova]

17. A weapons system contract is just a permit to mine the taxpayers. nt