http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/awx/2012/03/23/awx_03_23_2012_p0-440247.xml&headline=Norway

The Norwegian government notes that “despite changes made by other partner nations, Norway finds that its previous and robust real-cost estimates remain accurate.”

So much for SAAB’s costs being overestimated by 300%.

The Dev costs of the F-35 are spent (ie sunk) and do not affect the production cost of the F-35 (which is what we are talking about). For example, Japan is not going to be paying directly for dev costs (the partners will make some money back by building the parts for FMS sales).

There are a lot of fixed, yearly costs involved in fighter programs that add a lot to their costs. These include (but are not limited to) rent & upkeep on factory space, ongoing development of maintenance procedures as problems appear, development of upgrades, integration of new weapons & equipment, development of pilot & maintainer training programs, Component Improvement Programs, etc, etc.

With a lifetime program as small as the NG vs a program as large as the F-35, each F-35’s share of those costs could be about 5-10% the cost shared by each NG built. That is just fixed cost allotment and does not even begin to touch economy of scale savings.

If building more than 20 a year has no benefit, than why has the estimates (FY2012 to FY2013) changed so much when the rate was cut to 20?

FY2013 went from 24 jets at $131 to 19 at $153
FY2014 went from 40 jets at $107 to 19 at $147

Right… building 10X more a year will not make it cheaper. 😉

The only part of the F-35 that has gone over “by a wide margin” is the SDD phase. Procurement numbers have not changed much.

And yes, the F-35 only truly becomes relatively cheap in large numbers, but that is why they built up the Partner nations in order to achieve what none could do on their own.

Or

A survivable 13+ fighter being produced in HUGE annual build numbers is cheaper to acquire and operate than a 7.5 ton conventional fighter which is likely to be produced in very small annual numbers.

Did you mean that the C would have the advantage over the A because of more fuel ?

Currently the C has a range advantage over the A. But, if the USAF were to have bought the C instead of the A, then they would have asked for an internal gun which would have meant a loss of some of that range advantage and an in increase in price over the baseline C.

Does not have a gun IIRC

Correct, forgot that one.