Basically IMO we’re seeing same pattern as in Super Hornet production run, where most of the cost savings were realized in LRIP batches. Also, it’s not given that projected production rates are realized – orders have been reduced and may be reduced further. That would drive unit cost up.

The LRIP batches in the F-35’s case will carry on till 2019, so that works out just fine for it as far as hitting the $85 mil mark goes.

Orders haven’t been reduced since the numbers were reinstated by the Congress (and it was a marginal cutback to begin with). And even if they were reduced, at worst, the cost would only stagnate.

They didn’t even make it to the final in Indian competition, and declined to participate to Swiss bid. Latter particularly seemed strange as it should have suited SHornet well. Sure the Middle Eastern states favour European fighters because of politics and because they are not perhaps as cost-conscious as many other countries, but even then it is hard to put lack of export success entirely on bad luck. I’m starting to suspect that either it’s not as cheap or not as good as it ought to be.

The Indian competition devolved when the real costs of the Rafale became evident. And while the SH isn’t as good as the European aircraft, it offered better value for money. At least it did back when it had sufficient domestic orders to maintain healthy economies of scale.

FY2009 flyaway of a Super Hornet was $57 million, FY2013 flyaway was $65 million. Weapon system cost was ~$80 million (airframe $33 million, two F414-GE-400 $4.8 million ea, avionics $9.3 million, the rest is support and ancilliary equipment). In the meanwhile, the F-35 is approaching ~$90 million flyaway in FY2020+ from above and even these numbers require one to make a lot of assumptions..

Do you think those numbers will hold once US DoD orders run out and Boeing has a total of just 27 orders in hand (down from a peak of ~70/yr) to keep its production line running to 2027?

On the F-35, you’re twisting numbers to support your case. The F-35’s latest flyaway cost is about $96 mil, and the program is still a long way from peak production. There’s nothing to suggest that the program wouldn’t achieve the threshold price of $85 mil flyaway by 2019 (they’re targeting $80 mil through a bulk buy).

Why would I care about things which were solved years ago?? OTOH, F-35 problems are right here right now.. And that beautiful thing called concurrency basically says that you’re buying the aircraft with these flaws inherently built in.

How many aircraft are being delivered to Denmark ‘right here right now’? How the hell does concurrency affect the Danish order?

So what basis do you have for “very overweight” and “tiny fuel capacity”?

Asking JSR for a citation?! Odd question from someone who’s been on the forum since 2007.

Tsk tsk.. don’t be an enabler.

What’s the gospel about F/A-18 price? Is it $125 million as stated in the Danish assessment? Have Boeing duped the US Congress by quoting a little over $80 million?

For 35 odd aircraft delivered between 2021 and 2027, $125 million could well be an accurate estimate. No USN orders will be around to depress the production costs.

Well, Denmark and Norway have already been operating the same platform, haven’t they? So what were the obvious advantages? Did they share parts, training, syllabus or anything else?

Danish, Norwegian & Dutch F-16 detachments deployed as a combined tri-national unit to Afghanistan. Is that not an obvious example of the advantages of commonality?

Learning from the F-16

When Denmark chose to acquire a fleet of 58 F-16 combat aircraft in 1975, it received substantial and disproportionate benefits given the way that investment was made and managed. Buying a common aircraft type together with allies deepened Denmark’s ties to its Alliance partners, including deploying in multinational formations with those partners. It enabled multinational cooperation to modernize the aircraft at greatly reduced costs over its lifetime. Common aircraft also enabled improved training opportunities for Danish pilots and substantial assistance from the United States when pilot shortages threatened to idle 25 percent of Danish F-16s. Common aircraft did not guarantee that Denmark would be as effective as others in coalition air campaigns, however. This required substantial modernization of the aircraft, acquisition of advanced systems and munitions, reorganization of the Royal Danish Air Force, a change in its organizational culture, and sufficient numbers of pilots. Once these adaptations occurred, Danish performance in expeditionary air operations garnered Denmark praise from its coalition and Alliance partners. Danish leaders should cooperate with its allies in a similar way to replicate this experience when they choose a replacement aircraft in 2015.

While the mantras of interoperability and standardization have only gone so far in NATO as a whole, the common configuration of the F-16 fleet across the members of the Multinational
Fighter Program (MNFP) has enabled multiple forms of cooperation and efficiencies that derive from economies of scale. First, a common aircraft enables the cooperative procurement of spare parts by the consortium members. Second, this has allowed a division of labor in maintenance between the European Partner Air Forces (EPAF) members of the MNFP. The Norwegians, Dutch, and Danes in particular decided to cooperate in maintenance tasks by engaging in a division of labor. The Norwegians focused on microwave equipment, for example, while the Dutch have handled analog components, and the Danes have specialized in repairing and replacing all digital circuit boards.

This specialization allowed each partner to develop deeper competencies and expertise in the maintenance of their share of subsystems and permitted efficiencies to be had from economies of scale. Furthermore, the MNFP countries agreed to maintain a common knowledge base of their experiences in operating and maintaining their portion of the F-16 fleet. Sharing information derived from the use of a large number of aircraft has allowed users to anticipate maintenance issues based upon the experiences of others, analyze the effects of different use patterns, and therefore engage in better fleet management—including extending the life expectancy of the fleet as a whole. Finally, common configurations enabled the MNFP partners to share spare parts and even munitions when necessary.

Thus, for instance, when the Europeans ran low on precision-attack munitions, the U.S. quietly resupplied them. (That explains why European air forces flying F-16s—those of Norway, Denmark, Belgium—carried out a disproportionate share of the strikes in the early phase of the campaign. The U.S. had stocks of the munitions to resupply them. When Britain and France, which fly European-built strike aircraft, also ran short, they couldn’t use U.S.-made bombs until they had made hurried modifications to their aircraft.)

The 2001–2002 C-130 mission in Afghanistan was followed immediately in September 2002 by the requested F-16s. The experience gained through the deployment of the C-130 in conjunction with the Dutch and Norwegians was used to facilitate another multinational squadron. “Six F-16s were deployed along with six aircraft from Norway and six from the Netherlands, forming a multi-national F-16 contingent,” that was originally authorized for 6 months but extended to a full year on 31 January 2003. 139 Danish personnel accompanied them.

Operating 5000 kilometers from Danish territory posed challenges to be surmounted—and they were surmounted given the cooperation that Denmark received from the partners with which it deployed, none of whom could have sustained such a deployment on their own. The European Partner Air Forces (EPAF) squadron primarily flew reconnaissance missions for the first 4 months of its year-long deployment.

That is only one side of the coin. My primary “problem” with the F-35 is that it’s an overhyped POS.

In the collective opinion of a dozen air forces, its an ‘overhyped POS’ that’s still head-and-shoulders superior to its American and European peers.

As for the politics.. yes, I think European AFs should primarily buy European, just like USAF buy American and VKS buy Russian.. But that’s logical, ain’t it?

It would have been if Europe were a country. Then again, if Europe were a country it would have been running only one fighter program instead of three.

There are few problems with your statement..

#1 Rafale is not my favorite aircraft (although I like it)
#2 My personal dislike for the F-35 is unimportant here.. the myriad of sources, articles and reports showing the aircraft as P.O.S./disaster, etc. is important, though
#3 If were were to judge the F-35 solely on its actual capabilities, then it would hardly beat even a MiG-29..

There were numerous sources showing the F-16, M1, C-17 etc to be impending failures. Fortunately, their operators understood the pitfalls of judging an aircraft’s capability by the issues faced during its development.

Judging every aircraft only on its ‘actual capabilities’ you’d probably kill off every aircraft program in the prototype stage itself. And yet I don’t hear the same degree of vehemence from you when it comes to the Eurofighter, A-400M or the NH-90.

I agree that public opposition to new fighter procurement does not help Boeing or EF. If it becomes obvious to parliament that the figures have been falsified, who knows, parliament might do what happened in Canada – ask for another assessment that is not falsified and excludes F-35*.

Government is proposing F-35. Might not get enough representatives to support an F-35 purchase. Or might duck the issue by postponing a decision (like UK governments do with Heathrow reaching saturation).

* Denmark was rated as the least corrupt country in the world on a table I saw in connection with the anti-corruption forum taking place in London. Could just be that their parliamentarians will react against the F-35 due to its supporters trying to dupe them with misleading, dishonest figures.

I imagine the parliament isn’t the only clean institution in the ‘least corrupt country’ in the world. If the MoD & RDAF have made a statement, they’ll probably have the figures to support it as well. Other factors that go unsaid in the report (esp. wrt to the F-35’s future as the de facto NATO fighter) will be understood by the Parliament.

And give it time, the Canadians may take a long circuitous route to arrive at the decision but the RCAF is eventually going to be operating the F-35A as well.