IYO, what would it cost to keep 3000+ 4th gen fighters flying (plus the associated increased pressure on IFR, escort, etc assets) for the 8-10 added years that it would take to complete SDD?
Now compare that cost to increased concurrency costs. Which one is higher?
By the look of things with barely 20% of testing done, and continuous (even if not catastrophic ) problems , and the continual push of the IOC towards the 2020s, it seems that not only they end up paying for concurrency , but also for the 8 -10 years as you say to keep the legacy fighters online!
Logically, goven the history of the programme , it is very unlikley that they are NOT going to find more problems which will lead to more delays , more money to be spend to fix them, in the 80% of flight testing left, and even more than that for structural testing.
I’d be surprised if they won’t push the IOC again at least one more time in the next few years.
Btw the rising cost of concurrency and the delays suffered by the programme must be considered against the potential cost of keeping those legacy fighter up and running since the first time the IOC was pushed forward and the delays started ( ie SWAT). Actually, i’m not familiar with the initial planned IOC for the 3 variants when the F-35 was selected in 2001 , was it something like 2010? Recently the B has been delayed from 2012 to 2014/2015 , and the other two pushed up to 2018 for F-35A( from 2016), correct? (can’t remember for the C right now).
In this context , it will be intersting to see what the japanese will get and when (most likely the initial aircraft will be at an austere standard, and maybe even not up to full spec re avionics, fatigue life, etc .)
Anyway, we’ll see.:)
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