Posted on 02/26/2012 2:31:38 PM PST by lbryce
The Pentagon estimates that it will still cost about $1 trillion to operate a fleet of 2,443 F-35 fighter jets over the next 50 years, but is continuing to analyze how to drive that staggering sum down, a top U.S. Marine Corps official told Reuters.
Lieutenant General Terry Robling, deputy Marine Corps commandant for aviation, said top defense officials agreed last week to continue low-rate production of the new radar-evading warplane built by Lockheed Martin Corp, while keeping a close eye on the cost of maintaining and operating the new jets.
"Everybody was on board with ... the program," Robling told Reuters aboard a military aircraft on Saturday after a ceremony involving three F-35B jets at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. "We understand the costs are high. We understand that we need to do something, we need to make decisions down the road."
Robling said the cost estimate would likely decline in coming years as more jets were built and flown, reducing the reliance on comparison data from other aircraft programs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The Pentagon will only get half that number of planes. What counts is the amount of orders they get overseas. many countries are already slashing their orders.
2443 planes, the cost would be 2 trillion not on. Probably more than that.
The only number of countries fufilling their orders are four by my count:
1.Japan
2.Israel
3.Turkey
4.Britain-that is a maybe
The acquisition cost of F-35s for the international partners is bound to be affected by the slowdown in U.S. production
2,443??
Somehow I doubt we get close to that number
I remember reading about the Pentagon cutting an order for aircraft in half... the price remained the same.
Wow, what savings. They should have just bought the planes.
I think you are right, but everything rests on the overseas orders.
No worries. A trillion dollars isn’t nearly what it was three years ago.
A Trillion dollars over 50 years?
That’s the cost of operating the Parasite-Industrial Complex for six months.
$1 Trillion ANNUAL deficits by O'Bastard gets us what exactly? More sloth, welfare, food stamps, dependency and loss of our freedoms and liberties.
I know which one I choose.
Let’s add up the cost of not having air superiority during the next US involved conflict.
Neither, unless you want to be owned 100% by china.
I totally agree.
If these planes were made by a so-called “green” manufacturer, it wouldn't even be an issue.
(Except everyone would be laid off, nothing would get produced, the principals would have full bank accounts, and they could contribute to Ubama’s PAC’s!)
Oldplayer
Agreed. Any computation over 50 years is so pointless, only to enrage the zombies as to the big number cost.
Which works out to about 8 millin per year per aircraft; that doesn’t really seem to be staggeringly overpriced to me.
I’m all for defending the nation. One son has already served, and the other is serving at this time. So, the wife and I are also all for having the best equipment in our defense.
50 yrs? I have to wonder how long before shoulder fired lasers would be able to reshape the whole air superiorty picture, or even tracking systems that can take out high altitude smart bombs enroute to the ground, with laser. Things have changed immensely in just the last few years.
It would have been better to spend that same money on half the number of F-22s.
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