So? We signed up for 10%. Is it our fault the Pentagon’s so poor at maths it can’t tell the difference between $19 billion & $45 billion? :p

good one 😀

A

$45 billion sounds like the total program cost, development costs are in the region of $20 billion according to this

lol, 20 billion was the estimation 10 years ago.
Development costs have increased by 84% since then (and sould increase even more until the first aircraft is operational)

Official guestimation of the DoD dated december 2005 is 45.7 billion for the development only.

total program cost is given at 256.6 billion (until now)

source GAO (p.31)
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06356.pdf

The French are now paying the Brits to have access to the design of the CVF, when they have themselves recently built a brand new carrier. How come, then, the situation is not the opposite, ie the Brits seeking access to the French design?? To me, this seems to imply that from a conceptual point of view the CDG is so crappy that there is no point trying to rely on this project/ship to develop a new vessel !!! Or is there another rational explanation???

Very simple.

In 2002, Chirac said he wanted a 2nd aircraft carrier.

At some point a decision had to be made to choose if it will be a nuclear one… or not.

If the nuclear ship was chosen, it would have been a CdG derivative (same size)
If the conventional ship was chosen it would have been either a CVF derivative or a new french design by DCN/Thales.

– Chirac chose the conventional design because he wanted an european cooperation and a cheaper carrier.

– The navy wanted a bigger carrier than the CdG and the only way to get it was to drop the nuclear option (too expensive)

Eventually the desire of the french politicians to build the carrier at the european level was the decisive argument to choose the CVF design over the DCN/Thales one.

I personally would tend to agree with Sealordlawrence regarding the “competition”.

There have been no competition at all.
The Saudi could very well buy both planes if that suit theirs political agenda.

Anyway, the main reason for buying some typhoon is that they can get rid of their tornado F3 for a good price.

I say :

Uk should buy 60 rafale M + 2 catobar cvf + 4 E-2D + 30 more typhoon instead of 150 jsf.

Countries not buying the F35 will not be eligible for production workshare. Committing to buy the F35 doesn´t guarantee a share in production either. The Yanks have made this point time and time again.

So may be UK should buy 2 F-35C squadrons (to keep its workshare) completed with 3 or 4 rafale M squadrons

Just speculation but with the UK and France signing to jointly develop new carriers it may make sense for both nations to operate the same aircraft i.e. Rafael. This would reduce the development costs for both and the carrier would then be completly common. With this in mind it would perhaps be convienent for the UK to have a “reason” to pull out of JSF.

This is of course just one of several options. Any thoughts?

it is so obvious, so cleaver and so economical, that noboddy within the Mod will ever start to think about it 🙁