There is no plan to cap the per-year build number (or overall numbers) like the did to the F-22 program (still too low at 187 IMHO).

There’s no plan yet. For my part I’m skeptical as to whether declining budgets will allow either the United States or the partner nations to buy aircraft at such a rate as to maximise production efficiencies.

If I just looked at the total cost comparison I would have concerns too. But, I would also want to know WHY the cost increased.

1. The biggest cause in price increase is slashing of the number of aircraft built. The FY2012 estimate in Feb 2008 was for 42 F-35A units (out of a total 82 F-35A/B/C builds). FY2012 has been reduced to 19 F-35As (out of a total of 32 F-35A/B/C builds).

This is a drop of 55% in the F-35As and a 61% reduction in overall F-35 builds. Anyone who thinks that when you slash a build year by that amount and STILL expect the price not to change dramatically is a fool.

Thats why it’s called a death spiral.

If one’s 120km SAM is on a destroyer which is 40km up threat from the flat top then threat is engaged 160km from flat top.

And maybe the attacking force pinpoints the radiating destroyer via ESM and comes around on different axis reducing engagement range to <120km.

Apparently the example I chose wasn’t ridiculous enough to make clear that it was a joke. 😮

I enjoy slinging **** at the F-35 as much as anyone else with an appreciation for the absurd, but sometimes it just gets a bit much y’know? No, the -B is not going to murder your family in your sleep. :p

if PPP is factored in Chinese central government budget and tax revenue as a whole is already on par with that of US federal government out lays.

So far as I understand it PPP is most useful for making basic ‘cost of living’ comparisons for your average citizen and is less useful when applied to those areas traditionally used as indicators of national power. Obviously the cost of labour is an input into everything and USD $1 goes further in the Chinese military establishment than in the American, but when considering such things I think it’s more accurate to use the nominal figure (with an added fudge factor if suitable) than the PPP figure. China’s middle class at the moment is no larger than America’s, whereas by 2030 it’ll be more than twice as large.

and they are not running a huge deficit.

Which is one of the reasons why folks thinking that America can Reagan its way out of these changes in the global order (which of course extend well beyond China) are dreaming. Barring a major revolution in the way the nation functions or the election of The Joker to the Presidency, the current fiscal climate is here to stay … for the next several decades.

Rii, well yes we can have a very broad view of what the major themes will be in the next 20 years (and we’d still probably be wrong). But not in the type of discussion that some people insist on taking this into. (ie they’re interested in you-know-what measuring)

The PLAAF/PLAN/PLANAF are almost certain to continue to close the gap with USAF/USN capabilities over the next twenty years, as they’ve done over the last twenty. In 1990, China was 35 years behind the US in terms of quality of quantity and quantity of quality. Today, it’s more like 20. By 2030 it’ll be 10, if that. All of this of course is largely tied to the economy: by 2030 China’s will be larger than the United States’, and its military spending may well be higher also.

The US will undoubtedly retain both a qualitative edge over China, and significant advantages in the realm of power projection for the forseeable future – the latter in large part because China’s ambitions in that regard appear far more limited than the United States’ – but so far as the South China Sea is concerned, not only will those edges be blunted, but the blades they edge will be ground into dust by China’s home field advantage.

cancelling the “B” wouldnt “kill” Marine air. They would just operate “C”s and maybe the SH.

Sorry, I meant “kill Marine air” as in “in the only sense by which it is discernible from USAF/USN capabilities.” :rolleyes:

My bad I should’ve been clearer: I meant ‘go through’ as in ‘be brought to service’. I just can’t imagine them pulling the plug at this point, not when there are no alternative prospects beyond abandoning Marine fixed air and the extra decks that come with that. I think F-35B was a mistake, but it’s a little too late for that now.