I don’t think there will be a war now. Pax America ensures global peace.

However as the US power starts to shrink and China, Russia, India and Brazil grow, the US hegemon effect will decrease in efficiency.

War is always far more likely in a multi-polar world than a unipolar or bipolar one. Look at the near absolute collapse of conventional warfare after fall of USSR when world went from bipolar to unipolar world.

WWI, WWII, War of Austrian Seccession, Naploeonic Wars, Russo-Japanese Wars etc – all were made more likely by multi-polar environment in which there was no clear “super” power. Britain became a super power after French defeat in 1815 and conventional war in Europe decreased significantly right up to the point where the world was becoming more multi-polar i.e. emergence of Germany, shift of industrial power from UK to USA, increased Russian and Japanese power.

And the values of the new powers aren’t necessarily the same as as the values of USA and Western Europe.

Also assisting hegemon was that the goals of various Western European countries were very similar. These are slowly starting to diverge – look at growing issues of EU integration even prior to 2008 GFC.

Germany is becoming more Eastern focused while France and Britain play colonial games they can’t afford. South of Europe is getting poorer once again.

Even in Asia we’re seeing differences emerge – South Korea was aiming at developing blue water capability, there are grumblings about Japanese rearmament and there’s no real movements towards integration of economic and security needs other than usual liaisons with USA.

US hegemon keeps it all together. As the US loses influence and the others (especially China) regains it, the hegemon effect declines.

I don’t think China will ever be as powerful as USA is now militarily. What is more likely is US continues to draw down it’s military to match funding, thus leading to reductions in capability.

As for war on terror, it’s a side show and one they’ve never been willing to deal with in a fundamental way: stop Pakistan and Saudi Arabian influence whilst improving lives of Muslims through better economic opportunities.

Definitely not good for FAA due to catapult launch.

The Brazillian carrier airwing is an amazing look back into the 1960/1970s – C-1 Traders and A-4 Skyhawks. I think they also operated SH-3 Sea Kings but they seem to have been retired.

For international operators, it would appear that it would be far wiser to wait until 2020-25 to order F-35s in order to take advantage of economies of scale.

This of course means deliveries in 2022-2030 range (assuming 2 years for first delivery from 2020).

This probably isn’t acceptable to most F-35 partners when their newest jets were delivered in 1990 or earlier for Canadian F/A-18s and Japanese F-4s and a few of the F-16AM/BM’s in service and who as such need more rapid aircraft replacement.

The Peace Dividend in some way crippled future Western capability – no new jets were ordered in 20 years, leaving older airframes in service.

Now that the jets delivered in 1980s are starting to fall apart, Western AFs are scrambling to replace them and don’t have the option of waiting.

It’s amazing to think by the time say Norwegian or Danish F-16s are retired by 2025 they will be 40 years old or older.

What you are doing is dividing most of the costs of modernizing your air force by the number of jets you are buying and trying to claim that that is what they cost.

Though technically that is what they cost that country and that country’s bean counters will be concerned with this overall figure. They probably also add costs of upgrading legacy fighters to make up for F-35 delay.

It’s not attributable as a generic figure though.

Someone buying F-35s in 2025 will pay a lot less than someone buying F-35s in 2015.

In the end, for each country their concern is what they paid, not what some nebulous average figure is.

41(R) Sqn gets first Typhoons

This is a Test and Evaluation Squadron and not an operational unit.

$90m is 20% more than $75m. Money doesn’t grow on trees and printing more of it just debases its value.

They reason people (the4 JPO, LM, etc) use Flyaway when talking about an order in any given year is because it’s the only constant that can be used. You cannot compare APUC from one year to the next let alone from one customer to the next.

The issue is all those other costs need to be accounted somehow. You can’t plan a major capital investment without taking into account these costs.

Aircraft pricing as whole probably needs to be looked at. Flyaway cost was fine with an F-86 Sabre with limited avionics and infrequent upgrades that often emphasised mechanical components.

With an F-35 or even F-16, simulators, software upgrades/development, plane specific logistics systems etc etc are all part of the package and the jets are unusable without a lot of these items.

Hence maybe a new way of costing aircraft needs to be designed. I’m sure private aerospace or even mining/shipping has costing models that would be appropriate.