so what is the price of a SH ?
if we cant all agree on that, there is no hope to agree on the f-35 or any other plane

http://www.finance.hq.navy.mil/FMB/07pres/PROC/APN_BA1-4_BOOK.pdf
page 24, 25 for a start, its the 2007 budget when we got our fa-18

Read your link correctly. It says $3.1bil if all options were exercised – a theoretical value.

The figures I got are 24 SuperBugs for AU$2.9bil (roughly $2.23bn).

are you saying your link shows that the f-35 is cheaper ? 😀
SH au$120m
f-35 ~au$75m in 2008,
usg say ~us$60m in 2010
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/australia-working-on-jets-payments-20100330-r9oe.html
The federal government will purchase up to 100 of the aircraft – with the first entering service in 2018 – at a price tag of au$75 million each.

but the SH au$120m falls into the anywhere from 50-250m depending whats included, only its not 250m for 15yrs, its 250m for 10 yrs, my mistake

Not quite..

Canadian purchase
65x F-35As for $6.99bil + $6.93bil support = $15.92bil

Australia purchase
24x F/A-18F for $2.23bil + $2.37bil support = $4.6bil

F-35A is ca 15% more expensive to procure, but we got to count economy in scale effects where Canada orders almost three times as many aircraft. That would attribute to additional ca 20% difference (est.). I think it would not be far off to say that F-35A costs ca 30-35% more than F/A-18F.

gunna need a link to your prices and how you got apple for apple
first of all the one for 2.23bn when usa say 3.1bn
http://www.dsca.mil/pressreleases/36-b/2007/Australia_07-13.pdf

there are a dozen prices, it just depends which one is quoted and what it means
as i said i can say anything from 50-250m for our SH, as it depends whats included

that maybe what the true R&D costs are but australia paid $144m to R&D which is offset by production contracts
a statement that we arent paying our full share
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/australia-working-on-jets…
wiki
The United Kingdom is the sole “Level 1” partner, contributing US$2.5 billion, which was about 10% of the planned development costs[134] under the 1995 Memorandum of Understanding that brought the UK into the project.[135] Level 2 partners are Italy, which is contributing US$1 billion; and the Netherlands, US$800 million. Level 3 partners are Canada, US$475 million; Turkey, US$195 million; Australia, US$144 million; Norway, US$122 million and Denmark, US$110 million. Israel and Singapore have joined as Security Cooperative Participants (SCP).[136]

non partners pay FMS price

canada isnt paying $140m for flyaway the wording would run, all infrastructure
“Also included are system integration and testing, software development/integration, test sets and support equipment, spare and repair parts, maintenance and pilot training, software support, publications and technical documents, U.S. Government and contractor technical assistance, and other related elements of logistics and program support”

thats the big bit that gets mixed up, ‘whats included’
with our fa-18, you can say any price between $50 and $250m and you would be right, depending what you included

for the f-35a
the usa now say ~usd60m 2010 yr$
aussies allowed ~usd68M 2008 yr$
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/australia-working-on-jets-payments-20100330-r9oe.html

maus92,
i think canadas price is in 2017 yr dollars, so that may need to be adjusted and it would include the extra stuff on top of the flyaway of ~$60m in yr 2010$
as you said we got some extra fitout to convert to ea18’s
we paid the same as USN were paying for just the plane at the time + all the extra stuff that was included & pilot training etc
the USN have just entered a multiyear buy that has reduced the cost

the f-35a is about the cost of a fa-18 but this wont stop the naysayers saying the f-35 costs are too much,
gee they are funny