Why don’t you back up your insults with data, Spud? Show (with citations) where WW

– mixes up REC, Flyaway, and total cost numbers (rather than pointing out that a URF is not what the customer pays for a flyable jet on the ramp)

1. The quotes about price coming down have ALWAYS referred to the jet itself, so the reference to URF is completely valid.

2. The “Procurement Unit Cost” or PUC he keeps quoting INCLUDES development and will change from year to year and get higher as the flight hours get higher. Btw, when dev ends so do the dev costs. Funny how he does not take that into account.

3. The PUC INCLUDES items that are only bought early in the program like simulators and new base stand-up costs. Again, he thinks these will go on forever.

mixes in Concurrency and upgrade costs into the annual mix (for bonus credibility, explain why those are not to be counted in the procurement cost)

1. It is a separate line item in any budget for any fighter. Funny how the much touted F/A-18 never includes these costs.

2. Concurrency costs are offset by the savings of retiring fighters sooner.

– “pretends” that LRIP costs are what the costs will be going forwards (rather than observing that the cost has been somewhat flat since LRIP 2).

1. Here is his exact quote “It is not unreasonable to expect the cost of future F-35s to be about where they are today, averaging more than $200 million per aircraft. It is also reasonable to doubt that F-35 unit costs—for a complete, operable F-35 force—will decline significantly, especially to a point anywhere close to the amounts currently projected for 2018 and beyond, pegged by Bogdan at $85 million.” WW is talking PUC and Bogdan is talking Flyaway, apples and oranges. But hey, anything to make the F-35 look bad is ok when it comes to WW.

2. He makes several bad assumptions including dev costs going on forever, no economy of scale beyond today’s 19 airframes, buying the same amount of tools and simulators (we bought 4 in FY2014) forever, etc, etc.

3. If you actually look at the URF (not for the purposes of gauging what you will pay in total but to see how the plane cost in trending) then there is no denying that the plane is getting cheaper to produce and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We are in the development and base stand-up stage now and while they will cause a temporary increase in total expenditures, they are no way indicative of long term pricing.

Are any of the pylon points in the bomb bays wet?

No, only the inner wing pylons are wet.

They were denied the F-15 due to it being the US’s Top-of-the-Line A2A fighter, just like they are denied the F-22 today.

It’s not about weight but technology level.

It’s just a vapor cone and is not a sign of a plane breaking the sound barrier.

I have seen pics of jumbo jets, B2s, and other subsonic aircraft do the same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_cone

The moister the air, the lower the speed at which it is formed. That is why you see them a lot at USN airshows which typically take place near a body of water.

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FRP F-35As should be cheaper than both the Rafale and Eurofighter, but that price is at least 5 years away.

Wing area alone is not indicative of performance

Neither is T/W

This is what I meant by body lift, ie parts other than the wings that produce lift.

Whatever helps you sleep at night 😉

Now that I think about it, 2B is flying now and recently launched a live AMRAAM, JDAM, and GBU. If they wanted to they could use it today.