“Surely you must have data on the Eurofighter that shows it supercruises or you must have corresponded with the singaporeans??
Was supercruise a requirment from the design?
Do you also have sources on the eurofighter mach 1.4 (6+4) claim?”

Depends what you count as ‘data’. Yes.
Don’t know.
No, only on the 6+2 claim. I’m unaware of a claim for supercruise with 6+4.

Mach 1.4 with 6+2 – Got proof? Yes thanks.

For how long can it supercruise? and at what altitude?? Tactically significant information is unlikely to be released. I do think that I know the altitude, but see no benefit in telling you.

And please provide actual links rather then some SAAB or gripen PDF’s Why would Saab or Gripen confirm Eurofighter supercruise capabilities?

Eurofighter have said that they can supercruise. They demonstrated it in Singapore when the other contenders couldn’t. If you don’t believe that the capability is significant, go talk to the Singaporeans.

JSF

I have never quoted one number for JSF. I always try to quote all the reputable numbers that I can. It does not surprise me that these estimates vary at this stage of the programme, before a single aircraft has even flown.

The number I personally find most credible is that used in the latest Department of Defense Selected Acquisition Report. This is an APUC for all 2,458 DoD aircraft. The number’s credibility is enhanced by the fact that it is close to other numbers used by the JPO, the USAF, etc. and those quoted by Av Week, Air Force Times, etc.

You make a great deal of the fact that it includes the 428 LRIP aircraft, but at an average cost of $113 m, these 424 aircraft do not distort the average by much. You can do the math easily enough yourself.

You go on and on about the “forecast used by Lockheed, JPO, Pentagon” of $50m and claim that this is the number “supplied to Congress to inform their debate on defense budgets.” Yet the US DoD’s LATEST Select Acquisition Report used a much higher figure for Congress.

And I can’t find ANY recent official documents that actually use or validate your figure, though I have ‘heard it used’ in briefings with my own two ears.

You fail to answer the questions as to what $50 m means if it doesn’t include inflation, isn’t in current year dollars, and if it takes no account at all of the cost increases which triggered the Nunn McCurdy warning. I take note of what you say about this applying to DEVELOPMENT cost increases – but is there no profit component in the UPC? Will Lockmart not be clawing some of this back? Won’t the problems that caused this increase have an impact on productionisation – or is this already reflected in what must be, to you, astonishingly high LRIP costs.

I find it entirely credible that the JSF, with its advanced HUDless cockpit, Distributed Aperture System, and an advanced AESA radar would cost far more than an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which has a high degree of avionics commonality with the Legacy Hornet. I do not believe that JSF is what I would call a flexible or versatile multi-role fighter, but it’s clearly a very capable A-G aircraft, and an unequalled ‘Day One’ precision attack platform, and I’d expect to pay far, far more for one of thse than I’d expect to pay for a Super Bug or a Typhoon.

The JSF’s increased use of titanium and advanced composites alone would tend to make it far more costly in raw material costs alone. Then you have the complexities inherent in internal weapons bays, and the costs of LO structure and coatings.

This link to the Super Hornet is a most unfortunate comparison, since Boeing have done an incredible job in driving cost out of Super Hornet production, and have been able to do so because it’s been a high priority, and they haven’t been distracted by problems, weight increases, last minute design changes, and political shilly shallying. They’ve also built god only knows how many heritage Hornets and some 200 Super Bugs before getting to this cost.

And you’d have a job equalling the efficiency of Boeing’s lean pulsed Hornet production line.

As to the USA’s expertise in fighter and military aircraft design and production giving it an edge over Europe, fair point, to an extent. But it didn’t stop Lockheed *******ing up in spades on the F-22’s titanium bulkheads, at a cost of billions of dollars. Nor on the C-130J’s displays (integrating AMLCDs on a C-130 is not rocket science). Nor did it stop the F-14A entering service with the wrong engine – leading many to call it the “worst engine/airframe mismatch in history.” So while I’d expect experience and economies of scale to have some effect, I would not expect them to allow US industry to build that much more cheaply than Europe’s top aircraft companies can.

Nor are any of the EF partners costly third world metal bashers, as you’d know if you’d heard Tom Burbage speaking in such glowing terms about Alenia, or about BAE, or if you considered how much UK and European technology is used to form the core of the F-35. If they were, BAE would hardly be building the back end of every JSF, as a best value supplier.

I am saying that you are definitely wrong on Typhoon cost, but I’m only saying that it seems likely that you might be wrong on JSF, and that there is a body of evidence to suggest that the DoD SAR may be right. Again, if most sources seem to be giving one price, and another price is given by just one source, and if that isolated price has more question marks hanging over it, I’d be inclined to believe a price within the ‘popular cluster.’

The one that’s Mach 1.4 with 6 + 2, and ‘about’ Mach 1.2 with tanks, you mean?

The one demonstrated to Singapore and confirmed by their evaluation pilots?

That supercruise capability?

CFTs would probably make it marginal, without more powerful EJ200s.

Oh for f*ck’s sake! Someone post a picture of the Wright flyer (yes it had a Canard) and perhaps this tedious willy measuring can come to an end.

Ron,

I’m very disappointed. Out goes the short-lived courtesy and back comes the lying about Typhoon prices. What’s worse is that you must now KNOW that you’re talking nonsense.

And after I went out of my way to provide accurate JSF figures and to demolish misguided claims that it’s going to cost $100m……

And after I said: “it is worth bearing in mind that Government accounting procedures can wreak havoc on the appearance of figures, while these can also be distorted to suit political aims. Want to cancel a programme? Want to cut short production and procure a competing option? Make the first programme look more expensive. Perhaps Ron and his like are right to trust the manufacturer. Perhaps they are not. Without full access to all of the figures – and a high degree of expertise in government accounting, all that can be said is that particular organisations give different JSF prices, that JSF costs have risen significantly, and that price estimates vary wildly.”

And when I talk about JSF prices I make sure that I mention that there is controversy, and take care to provide officially validated prices from several different sources.

On the other hand you’re still peddling Lockmart’s dodgy figures in FY2002 dollars, steadfastly ignoring the effect of inflation, and resoloutely failing to adequately explain why the GAO, the DoD and the JPO should favour so much higher figures than those you prefer. It simply isn’t credible that a $90.675 m F-35A average price (excluding SDD) is going to result in a $47 m price even at the very last batch, let alone for it to be a reality early enough to be used as a stable price on which the price paid by export customers will be based. (And $47 m differs from the USAF’s own estimate of that stable production price, which is again around the $90 m mark).

Are we really expected to believe Lockmart prices, not properly documented, referred to casually in briefings, over the figures in the DoD’s own SAR? Especially when we know that JSF costs have risen enough for Nunn-McCurdy to be invoked.

It’s not me that’s peddling “the usual mix of lies, half truths & distortions.”

I acknowledge that there are a range of prices given for JSF, and I try to reflect and report that range, though when so many credible sources all say $90 m (DoD SAR, GAO, USAF, AF Times, JPO, etc.) it becomes harder and harder to treat the $47 m number seriously – especially when you realise that it is in FY 2002 dollars, hasn’t suffered any appreciable inflation, and has been apparently unaffected by Nunn-McCurdy baiting cost growth.

(The DoD’s own Selected Acquisition Report gives an APUC (excluding R&D and sunk costs like production investment) of $94.8m. This tallies with the price reported by Air Force Times, is higher than the USAF’s last prediction, and is lower than price given by the GAO.

This is, however, an average across the entire DoD buy of 2,458 aircraft, which means that the F-35A price is lower (about $90.675 m) while the F-35B and F-35C prices are higher – somewhere in the region of $103 m. That’s £54.98 m, for UK readers.

The target in FY 1994 was $28 m for the F-35A, $35 m for the F-35B, and $38 m for the F-35C. By 2001 the prices were $40 m, $60 m and ??.

Lockheed now forecast $47 m ($ FY02) $60 m and $60 m. Add five years of compound inflation at Defence industry rates to those figures to get a realistic equivalent price in today’s money (about $60 m for the A, or $75 m for the B and C).

It’s simply not possible to “accept what the manufacturer & customer says”, because Lockheed says one thing, and the DoD says another.

On Typhoon:
If you’ve read previous responses to your previous inaccuracies, then you’ll know exactly why the £64.8 m figure that you keep pushing is wrong. You’ll know that it has been discredited, and you’ll know why it’s not comparable with the narrow UPCs quoted for US types. You’re being disingenuous and dishonest if you even try to use it as the high point in a range.

Typhoon doesn’t sell for $124m, nor $113 m nor even $100 m. It sells for about $80 m.

The £64.8 m figure in the last NAO Major Projects Report is not a Flyaway cost, nor even a proper unit production cost.

The MoD have acknowledged that it includes ‘fixed production costs’ (which the F-35, F-22 and other unit costs don’t) and it includes those costs from all three tranches, while averaging them over only two Tranches, making it simply bad maths and not an accurate average!

As if that were not enough, EF GmbH have challenged the figures, with the Programme Director saying: “This leads me to question whether the NAO price is really a Unit Production Cost” and pointing out that “Typically in Germany recovery of production investment and two years of support and operating costs have been included in what effectively becomes a unit system cost. My suspicion is that the UK MoD has moved towards a system cost while still calling it a Unit Production Cost. This £64.8 million figure is much higher than any unit cost, flyaway cost or purchase price that I would recognise. It’s something quite different.”

Francis Tusa, at Defence Analysis, suspects that the price is further distorted by RAB.

The one ‘export’ flyaway cost that we know for Eurofighter is the Typhoon cost to Austria. It was leaked, along with the Gripen price and we know that it was €62 m. That’s not a ‘rumour’ that ‘Jacko heard’. That’s a firm unit flyaway, though it included elements that in US programmes would contribute to a Unit Weapons System Cost. That’s $79.85 m at today’s exchange rate. £41.86 m.

We know that EF GmbH are legally obliged to charge more to export customers than to the partner nations, whose basic flyaway HAS TO BE LOWER. There is a legally defined minimum profit margin and a specific export levy. That’s going to be close to the high figure of any range.

There are other indications that this price is fairly accurate. Previous UK NAO prices have been closer to a genuine Unit Production Cost, though because they have included “those costs that are not part of the collaborative programme, such as the Austere A-G contract and the R1 and R2 retrofit, and other national contracts,” they are not directly comparable to the export price.

With that proviso, however, it is known that the UK paid £45.45 ($86.7 m) for each Tranche 1 jet, and that the ‘global’ unit flyaway for Tranche 2 averaged £40.5-million ($77.25 m).

No-one believes that £64.8 m reflects an accurate UPC – it includes costs that have no place in a UPC, and it includes fixed costs from Tranche 3, while using T1+T2 totals to produce an ‘average’. It’s been openly, publicly questioned by the manufacturer, and is privately laughed at by many in the IPT.

I’m encouraged that you’re no longer holding on to £64.8 as the definitive price for Typhoon, and that you’re acknowledging that there is evidence that the price is lower – though the fact that you acknowledge only the Austrian alternative, and not the previous UK prices, concerns me.

There is, of course, a range of prices for Typhoon – varying over time, customer, and what is and what isn’t included. But if you use £64.8 m as any form of UPC, you’re exaggerating the cost of Typhoon by AT LEAST £15 m and probably by more than £20 m.

If you continue to ignore these facts, I will be forced to conclude that you’re simply not an honest broker, and the way in which you continue plucking figures from the air, ignoring validated Typhoon figures, will only mark you out as a very dishonest JSF supporter.

Most would agree that Raptor offers most capability, but probably not the best capability/price ratio.