Here’s the context of the price.

http://f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-14116-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-15.html

By JOHN T. BENNETT

DefenseNews
Published: 1 Jun 2010

Senior Pentagon officials on June 1 announced the F-35 fighter and five other major weapon systems have surpassed a legal cost threshold, while also criticizing the review process that triggers the “Nunn-McCurdy breaches.”

The Defense Department told lawmakers that each F-35 Lightning II model could end up with a $92.4 million price tag. (Judson Brohmer / Defense Department) The Defense Department told lawmakers the F-35 fighter program could cost as much as $382.4 billion, with each Lightning II model coming with a $92.4 million price tag, according to DoD budget documents.

Those cost estimates assume the program continues down the current path, which officials told reporters they are working to avoid. One senior Pentagon official – who declined to point to a specific cost target – said efforts already are under way to move the overall cost of the F-35 program “as close as possible” back toward substantially smaller estimates crafted in 2002.

The Defense Department sent the new estimates to Congress after determining the program had breached the so-called Nunn-McCurdy statute, which requires the Pentagon to notify Congress when major defense programs experience substantial cost growth.

The $92.4 million per-model estimate is what defense officials refer to as a “cradle-to-grave” projection, meaning spanning each fighter jet’s entire life, the senior official said.

The problem i have with the assertation of greatly exaggerated figures is that those figures i believe you are refering to come from the US government.

If you think they have an agenda then you are alleging a pretty big conspiracy within the US government…

Now with all due respect i don’t have you down as a conspiracy theorist. 🙂

So something doesn’t add up here. Perchance you also have an agenda? 😉

I don’t think that the US Government per se has an anti-F-35 agenda, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t employees of the US Government that don’t have agendas. Now that agenda may be to try and keep LM on their toes, or it might be a pro-Boeing lobby, or it may be a smaller defense budget lobby, etc..
Time will tell, but when the builder of the plane says the costs are considerably less, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to at least entertain that notion. As the planes are purchased, it’ll be far more evident as to whose numbers are more accurate. I think the real number will be somewhere in between.

Oh I get the fact that the cost has gone up. I don’t think that the cost has gone up as much as many are trying to assert.

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/index/display/article-display.articles.military-aerospace-electronics.exclusive-content.2010.04.f-35-avionics-an-interview-with-the-joint-strike-fighters-director-of-mission-systems-and-software.QP129867.dcmp=rss.page=1.html

With a full internal weapons payload (5500+ pounds), the F-35 can fly at Mach 1.6, launch air-to-air weapons at maximum speed, and even launch 2000-pound JDAMS supersonically.

Here’s the confirmation of supersonic A2G weapons release for the nattering nabobs of negativity out there.

Electric Politics recorded an hour-long podcast last month with with the Center for Defense Information’s Winslow Wheeler about his views on the F-35, which you can expect to be pretty much the polar opposite of The Lexington Institute’s Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D. Not a whole lot of new information, but interesting – something to listen to in the car or working out.

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2010/05/the_f35_boondoggle.html

Winslow Wheeler, Pierre Sprey, Carlo Kopp, etc… are certainly not going to provide objective reporting with regard to the F-35.

The problem with this is that it’s a strawman argument until we know more about what the F-35 can’t do performance wise. So far it’s been said that it’s more agile than the planes it replaces, and that it can do high subsonic at 40% throttle(so it’s not inconceivable that it can exceed M1 in dry thrust). Combine this with superior situational awareness, stealth, and HOBS weapons.
I don’t see it being nearly the dog some would have us believe.

It should have been canned in the early 90s! The Marines could have had EH101s for over 10 years now!

MV-22

Performance

Maximum speed: 250 knots (460 km/h, 290 mph) at sea level / 305 kn (565 km/h; 351 mph) at 15,000 ft (4,600 m)[111]
Cruise speed: 241 knots (277 mph, 446 km/h) at sea level
Range: 879 nmi (1,011 mi, 1,627 km)
Combat radius: 370 nmi (426 mi, 685 km)
Ferry range: 1,940 nmi (with auxiliary internal fuel tanks)
Service ceiling: 26,000 ft (7,925 m)
Rate of climb: 2,320 ft/min (11.8 m/s)

Capacity: 24 troops (seated), 32 troops (floor loaded) or up to 15,000 lb (6,800 kg) of cargo (dual hook)

vs.

Performance

Never exceed speed: 309 km/h (167 knots, 192 mph)
Range: 1,389 km (750 nm, 863 mi)
Service ceiling: 4,575 m (15,000ft)
Rate of climb: 10.2 m/s (2,000 ft/min)

Useful load: 5,443 kg (12,000 lb)

How would the EH-101 be superior again? It’s slower, has a shorter range, lower altitude, and smaller payload.

“The Pentagon’s cost-analysis office reports that the price per plane — including research, development and construction costs — is now $112.4 million, the official said. That’s about 81 percent over the original estimate of $62 million.

http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/f-35-review-shows-how-best-intentions-of-reformers-often-backfire?a=1&c=1171

The rationale for conducting the review rested on inflated official cost estimates that the contractor has had little difficulty beating in early production runs.

the government’s cost estimates for F-35 and other major weapons programs threaten to drive up costs if negotiators take them seriously, rather than holding them down. Further evidence of this fact will become available in June, when the government reveals that F-35s in the next production lot are priced about 25% below what Pentagon estimators predicted. Needless to say, the estimators aren’t answering questions about how they came up with their ridiculous guess-timates.

I think if we just wait till the facts are in, we’ll see that perhaps Chicken Little was perhaps premature in cost predictions.