nocutstoRAFThat report has been criticised before for its methodology. The inclusion of VAT is very questionable, for example, as it is not charged on exports, has no net budget effect (the government pays the tax to itself!), & reduces comparability. The UK UPC it quotes from the NAO is also not a UPC, as it is known to include some fixed costs for all three tranches, allocated to T1 & T2 only.
Is there a better source of information for UPC, or is it case that the only way to get an accurate and true picture is when an aircraft is no longer being manufactured?
Slight quibble, the Government may pay VAT to itself, but the amount of VAT revenues paid to the Government does determine the amount of money they have to pay the EC (recently found this out when the tax accountant at work gave me and my team some training to make sure we charge VAT correctly on our research projects) – so some of the VAT they pay is top sliced for the EC.
nocutstoRAFLewis Page article dated 27th November 2008. So your real question is how is the F-35B testing schedule progressing and can it hit all the targets that have been set for it this year.
Have you heard anything about if the F-35B is preforming as expected in UK evaluation trials?
nocutstoRAFThe F-22 price is not programme unit cost. It’s per unit acquisition cost, not including R&D or tooling. Programme unit cost is about twice as much: R&D was very expensive. The Rafale prices look like flyaway. They’re similar to the basic aircraft prices given in the French Senat 2009 budget report, i.e. 50.3 & 57.9 mn Euros.
Ain’t that including VAT? To get the net price you need to divide by 1.196.
I am going by what’s in the report and I just repeated Table 1 – the figures include VAT on EC procurement and they asked all the parties to comment on the figures and the only party not to respond with LM. Still I have no idea what the authors agenda is and I have always certainly thought that the Rafale was more expensive than the figures in this report suggested.
nocutstoRAFAccording what the french guys have researched the currently expected total programme cost is close to 40 bln €, with a planned production run of at least 286 airframes (180 of which are contracted now). Do the math and you get the clue.
So you say it is around €140 million an airframe including R&D and ancillary costs – seems a big jump from the 2006 figures and if you read the report their methodology does seem realistic but obviously it does not take account developments between 2006 and now.
nocutstoRAFThe Goalkeeper system requires deck penetration, the docu clearly shows the plated over positions for Phalanx during the RAS bit. The deck markings are even there, the lack of Phalanx for Type 45 is all down to A-stan and requirement for base defence. One thing to note is the UK gov made no fanfare of using Phalanx in A-stan for base defence, probably due to them not want to talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul to provide the capability at the cost of the navy. With the final retirement of the remaining type 42 and the upcoming draw down in A-stan we should see Phalanx on Type 45 from 2011. Considering the primary weapon system in the form of Sea Viper is still bedding in its not a big issue at the moment.
Thanks – I should research more carefully and made less assumptions – still if they pay off the Type 22’s they have Harpoon and torpedoes – any chance they will be fitted to the Type 45’s (I assume possibly for Harpoon and no for the torpedoes)
nocutstoRAFwithout opening the link yet, it was said at the time the phoon was about 250 mil
The important bit of the report is:
Program Unit Cost, obtained by dividing the total program cost by the number of aircraft produced. This is possibly the most significant benchmark, as it includes research and development costs as well as all related ancillary costs (support equipment, spare parts, documentation etc.) for the various 4th generation fighters are (converted to US$ by the authors in 2006):
Rafale C $ 62.1, Rafale M $ 67.9, JAS-39C Gripen $ 68.9, F-18E Super Hornet $ 78.4, Eurofighter (Germany) $ 102.8, F-15E Strike Eagle $ 108.2, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter $ 115.0, Eurofighter Typhoon (UK) $ 118.6 (GBP 78.6), F-22A Raptor $ 177.6
nocutstoRAFi got the number here, that someone posted, 8-10 billion R&D plus the number to be brought [for eelighting], it may be wrong, but thats what was said
what is the total cost of the rafale program then in todays euro’s
Not sure how accurate this report is but it suggests that the cost per plane including the R&D for the Rafale was actually one of the lowest of the current generation of fighters (certainly when compared to Typhoon) – Look at Unit Procurement Costs.
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/dae/articles/communiques/FighterCostFinalJuly06.pdf
Of course the report is four years old, and likely made a number of assumptions which are now inaccurate.
nocutstoRAFit wont be goalkeepers it will be Phalanx. They should have bought more to cover this overlap and used the ones coming of the type 42 as surplus ready for a new class.
Shrug – I simply looked at the fit out for the Block 3 Type 22’s (which I assume the SDSR will recommend that they should be paid off) and thought the stories of them fitting inner layer defences to the Type 45 in 2011 referred to them stripping Goal Keeper of the Type 22’s – but Phalanx does make more sense
nocutstoRAFthis should be the only sentence the euro partners care about, as their R&D costs are fully paid in the original agreement
none are getting the f-35c, 35b and italy’s 35a costs should be broken down from the group price
i read the f-35a is about $65 mil, i dont know what the f-35b is going to be“The production cost alone of each plane is estimated at $92.4 million, almost 85 percent higher than the $50 million projected when the program began in 2002, the Pentagon will tell Congress.”
I agree that the bottom line is fly away costs (though if the various stories are believed access to source code and F136 engine are important too for the UK) I would like to chip in with a slight aside – it is by no means assured that the UK will go for the F-35B – see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/27/defence_committee_jumpjets/
Obviously the author of the article above quoted General O’Donoghue (http://www.mod.uk/defenceinternet/aboutdefence/people/seniorofficials/chiefofdefencemateriel.htm) so his comment could be taken out of context, but it does seem that UK will only decide which version it will buy if the performance of the F-35B evaluation planes it has purchased are up to scratch.
nocutstoRAFWell the smaller calibre weapons mounted about would have been sufficient as well, such as the one shown in the program (7.62?). The problem appeared to be waiting too long to actually engage the boat. But then the exercise may just have been about practising the procedures before firing.
Looking at various pictures of the Daring, including a BAE brochure, they appear to have two remote operated 30 mm automatic cannons and 1 crew served machine gun on the bridge. Since we are always being told by think tanks and talking heads that the days of traditional naval combat is over and that we need to be thinking about small boat attacks or light rocket attacks from the shore I would have thought the would have twice the number of 30 mm automatic cannons, and made sure that Goal Keeper was fitted (though the rumours are that they will fit Goal Keeper early next year – if I had guess by taking them off decommissioned frigates).
nocutstoRAFnoticed the guys with the RPG took out the bridge. bit scary when the computers failed, sitting duck????
Makes you wonder why the T 45 does not have more than the currently fitted two 30 mm cannons to deal with small boat attacks in littoral waters if a single RPG would take out the bridge.
nocutstoRAF.
How is the F-35 going to attack ground targets without compromising stealth?
It seems there are options:
– or the enemy is such that stealth is not needed. in that case there is no role for an expensive stealth craft
– or f-35 has to stick to its poor two bombs an attack (would it not be simpler and cheaper to keep the f-117 then?
Franckly, i don’t see the point of stealth when it means that the plane can’t fight anymore
I suspect that the RAF is more interested in the supersonic STOL capabilities rather than its stealth, and I would imagine it will be stealth enough to get in and out and only have to worry about being shot down when makes its attack run. I would hazard a guess that this is not to dissimilar to the Tornado being expected in the cold war to run in under the USSR radars then pop up to drop its munitions, where it would run the risk of being shot down by SAM’s and triple A as it made its attack.
nocutstoRAFWe seem to be at the moment that decision makers start publishing alternatives to the JSF (see recent CBO report). I have no doubts that these plans have already been thoroughly discussed for years behind closed doors.
I am going to jump in here (I have lurked on this thread but have kept clear from posting as the discourse seems rather polarised between pro- and anti- F-35 lobbies).
All the various claims and counter claims in from officials in the public domain does not necessarily mean that the F-35 is (or is not) in trouble. It seems to me for example that the USAF is going to down play problems as they do not want to see another promising project close down and have a huge shortfall in fighter numbers while the USN is happy that they have stop gap measure and would prefer Boeing’s F/A-XX platform so they are going to exaggerate the problems.
The only real bench mark will be to see what the non-US customers do in the next two years (which is a Brit is what I am waiting to see) and see if they end up deserting the uncertainties of the F-35 for a less capable but know solutions.
nocutstoRAFAs for C1 and C2, well yes they are both in the design stage and that cost pennies inthe scheme of things but look to C2 being introduced far earlier than C1 and being used to replace those FFG due to retire inthe next 10 years or so with the C1 coming online in 2025.
Do you think it likely they will pay off the last batch 3 Type 22 frigates in the next year or so? If so will they sell them or will the scrap them and strip out the weapons to use them to equip three of the Type 45’s with Goal Keeper, and possibly Harpoon and/or torpedoes?
nocutstoRAFTo my knowledge the Typhoon is/has replaced the Jaguar and in the process of replacing the Tornado F3, the F-35 as I understand is just to replace the Harrier and there is nothing replacing the Tornado GR4, as of now or the not too distant future that is. Most probably be an unmanned aircraft such as Taranis or possibly a few Typhoon FGR4-XX’s.
Never heard anything official other than the Harrier F-35 is replacing and to some RAF officials I’ve heard say & read on various articles, news clips and documentaries the Typhoon will be the backbone of the RAF for years to come. I.e their main asset.
I understood from various blogs that RAF viewed the Typhoon as primarily an air superiority fighter with secondary ground strike abilities while the F-35 is ground strike fighter with secondary air to air capabilities, and that between the two they would replace Harrier, Jaguar, the F3’s and around 2025 the GR4, and the Typhoon and F-35 would be operated along side a new generation of UAV’s. The number of F-35’s originally proposed (150), even if you set aside 70 for the carriers seems to be a lot higher than a 1:1 replacement for the Harrier.
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