I don’t how that goes. Why will the cost reduction plateau because they’ve matched the SH’s peak production rate? Cost savings realized through efficiencies in the production process will eventually taper off but another 75% increase in the production rate should still squeeze costs further. Another 10-12% drop in the URFC seems quite feasible.

Basically IMO we’re seeing same pattern as in Super Hornet production run, where most of the cost savings were realized in LRIP batches. Also, it’s not given that projected production rates are realized – orders have been reduced and may be reduced further. That would drive unit cost up.

Not really that strange now. Its got all the political baggage of the F-35 without the stealth. All the sales of its peers (EF, Rafale, Gripen E) have been on entirely political grounds save for the (still in doldrums) Indian contract and the (corruption mired) Austrian one. The SH wasn’t in the running in Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman or UAE. And the NSA scandal torpedoed its chances in Brazil. If the Euros secure Malaysia, it’ll be its first bonafide loss to them IMO.

They didn’t even make it to the final in Indian competition, and declined to participate to Swiss bid. Latter particularly seemed strange as it should have suited SHornet well. Sure the Middle Eastern states favour European fighters because of politics and because they are not perhaps as cost-conscious as many other countries, but even then it is hard to put lack of export success entirely on bad luck. I’m starting to suspect that either it’s not as cheap or not as good as it ought to be.

Do you think those numbers will hold once US DoD orders run out and Boeing has a total of just 27 orders in hand (down from a peak of ~70/yr) to keep its production line running to 2027?

On the F-35, you’re twisting numbers to support your case. The F-35’s latest flyaway cost is about $96 mil, and the program is still a long way from peak production. There’s nothing to suggest that the program wouldn’t achieve the threshold price of $85 mil flyaway by 2019 (they’re targeting $80 mil through a bulk buy).

Cost reduction for F-35 lots seem to start to plateau: given that current ‘low’ rate production is already as high as full rate production of Super Hornet, I believe that they have made most of the available cost savings already.

Of course at present, there is not enough Super Hornet orders to keep the line open, much less cost-effective, for 2020’s. They need to score export orders quick and that doesn’t seem to be happening (or convince USMC to buy it – but that ain’t happening either). Strangely, SHornet seems to compete poorly against European fighters even though it should be cheaper than them. Well, of course political scandal destroyed Brazilian bid, but they didn’t even participate to Swiss fighter contest.

NASAM is not a long range SAM.

Do you have a source the Patriot, Stunner, H-9 and S-400 have these systems?

Patriot, probably not, S-400 likely yes, don’t know about the rest.

It’s irrelevant as such systems are widely available and integrating them to existing air defence networks is quite trivial.

Ground based IRSTs? Yeah……they don’t exist.

They do, in fact they are rather common in more modern AA systems. How useful they are for example in detecting stealth aircraft, well that’s another question.

Amm, yeah, what is up with russian bombs being so … non aerodynamic or .. so WW2 looking. Even in syria, they look like they are getting rid of WW2 stock!!

Different tradeoffs. Low drag bombs are less efficient in terms of explosive power. If you don’t need to haul bombs over long distances, cylinder shaped bombs are better for same weight.

I don’t think Metel will be dumped, the Uran bins do not require much space to be mounted on deck.

But is there any need for Metel anymore? Vyuga can be launched from torpedo tubes, and as an anti-ship missile, Metel is surely obsolete.

Not sure about that. US defence contractors are making a 6-8% profit on you compared to Apple making 60-70% profit on your iphone… The difference is Apple paid for the dev themselves…

Not really. They stole a lot and licensed most of the rest.