If a UAE deal is signed this year, the production UAE improved Rafales could fly before the 1st production F35…

The first production F-35 (not test article) will fly late this year or next (LRIP1).

Or were you speaking of IOC? That is 2012 for the USMC.

Advertisement at its worst.

Every document, news release, and interview all support the 360 claim. While the engagements in the video are a bit simplified, the claims of the technology have been proven.

Just try to shoot a missile behind you at a Flanker and you ‘ll see the Flanker jamming and dodging the missile .

Your forgetting that the EODAS will be proving coordinates of the Flanker throughout it’s “jamming & dodging” maneuver via 2-way data links.

but tactically of rather limited use, limited for close combat only.

Let’s see:

1. Tracks all (up to 100 due to ICP limit) airborne targets (missiles, aircraft, and flak) with the WVR envelope (~10 nm). Missile launches are detected in the BVR rangeband.

2. Determine target and best path of escape for AAA and SAMs.

3. Detects moving ground targets via MTI.

4. Provides BDA (Bomb Damage Assessment) in real time.

5. Navigational aide (night vision)

6. Maintains target ID tracks regardless of maneuvering.

7. Detect camouflaged units (due to IIR functionality)

Geogen,
You are being incredibly disingenuous about the Total Proc Cost shown for LRIP 1&2 in the FY2011 budget. I have shown that the jump in cost came from two sources, and increase in initial spare and an increase in LRIP2’s Advance Proc Funds for future buys.

These two items have nothing do do with what it took to build LRIP 1 or 2. This is especially the case with the Adv Proc Funds in LRIP 2 as these funds are being set aside to accelerate the building of future LRIPs.

Spudman

I dont think it was a typo at all, look at the “Weapons Syspens Cost” for LRIP 1 & 2 (budget 2011 – 280,883 Million Us$) it´s VASTLY bigger than the same numbers in the previous budget (budget 2010 ((285,847 million $*2)+(235,350 million $ *6))/8= 247,694 million $). And that value wasn’t carried from an older document…
The unit weapons systems cost goes up by 33 million $ and somehow the Fly Away unit cost goes down?!
It was no typo.

Cheers

Let me break this out so you can see the USAF error that was made. Here is a side-by-side graph of FY08, FY10, and FY11 so we can track each line item. I rounded the numbers down to save space. L-1 and L-2 are LRIP-1 and LRIP-2

<br />
2008 2008 2008 2008 2010 2010 2010 2010 2011<br />
(L-1) (L-2) Total Avg (L-1) (L-2) Total Avg (L&12)<br />
Cost 477.8 1298.2 1776.0 222.0 478.1 1289.4 1767.5 220.9 1767.5<br />
Adv Proc Cost 93.7 123.5 217.2 27.1 93.6 122.7 216.3 27.0 333.8<br />
Wpn Sys Cost 571.5 1421.7 1993.2 249.1 571.7 1412.1 1983.8 248.0 2101.2<br />
Init Spares 77.0 40.0 117.0 14.6 76.1 69.8 145.8 18.2 145.8<br />
Tot Proc Cost 648.5 1461.7 2110.2 263.8 647.8 1481.9 2129.6 266.2 2247.1<br />
Flyaway U Cost 243.6 200.1 211.0 229.6 179.9 192.3 229.6<br />
Wpn Sys U Cost 285.7 237.0 249.1 285.8 235.4 248.0 280.9<br />


Things to notice.

1. Look at the totals for each year in the “Cost” column. They got lower from 2008 to 2011. The “Cost” column is the “Net P-1” cost which is the production, non-recurring equipment, and support costs minus previous year Adv Proc funds.

2. From FY2010 to FY2011 there was $117.5 million added to LRIP-2’s Adv Proc Cost. This increase will change Weapon Systems Cost and Total Proc Cost numbers. This will not change Flyaway Unit Cost (FUC). This increase caused the Weapon Sys Unit Cost to go from $248.0 to $262.65.

3. From FY2008 to FY2010 there was an increase in $28.8 mil in Initial Spares costs. This increase will change Total Proc Cost numbers. This will not change change Flyaway Unit Cost (FUC) or Weapon Systems Cost.

4. The FY2011 “Flyaway Unit Cost” is an obvious cut-n-paste error since it is wrong and matches the LRIP-1 numbers down to the nearest $1000. Since the “Cost” numbers did not change, we can use the FY2010 numbers to get an average for LRIP 1&2 which is $192.3 for Flyaway Unit Cost (FUC).

5. By dividing the FY2011 Weapon System Cost by 8, we can get an Weapon Sys Unit Cost of $262.65 million.

6. The only thing that increased from FY2008 to FY2011, in relation to LRIP 1&2, was in increase to Initial Spares and Adv Proc Funds. This is why Flyaway Unit Cost (FUC) went down while Weapon Sys Unit Cost went up. Neither of these items changes the Flyaway Unit Cost (FUC).

Thanks for docs, Spud.

OK, I for one make my errors and miscalculations like the rest of us – you’ve caught me a few times there I recall – but in response to this precise kind of statement, e.g.

…Based on the Feb07 (FY08) doc provided, we can in retrospect assess this true pricing data:

UPC estimated in Feb07 for combined FY07/FY08 (8 F-35A units total): $263.7m In Feb10 this revised UPC estimate for same 8 units = about $280m and change? Increase of about $15m+ per unit compared to Feb07’s estimate for same a/c. Would you concur?

Very simple answer, it’s a typo and easily proved so. What they did, and they are human after all, is put the LRIP 1 numbers in for the Flyaway Unit Cost and Weapon System Cost instead of averaging LRIP 1 & 2.

1. Look at the Flyaway Unit cost from the FY2009 budget, it is the exact same $229.600 as shown for the AVERAGE of LRIP 1&2 in the FY2010. A clear carry over and typo.

2. If you add up all the numbers from the FY2009 budget for LRIP 1&2, the numbers match those on the FY2010 docs… except the Weapon System Unit Cost… another probable carry over and typo from LRIP 1.

3. The only increase from FY2009 to FY2010 in relation to LRIP 1&2 is a $117.447 million increase in Advance Procurement Cost.

Feb07 estimate for Unit Flyaway Cost (same 8 a/c): $210.9m vs revised Feb10 estimate of $229.6m (for same 8 a/c). Increase of about $18.5m per unit Would you concur?

As above, this was a carry over of the LRIP 1 price by itself ans was a typo.

Feb07 estimate for these 8 units ‘URF’: $222m vs Feb10 revised URF for same 8 units: $220.9 URF. Feb07 URF estimates for these 8 a/c came in about $1m Less per unit compared to revised Feb10. Would you concur?

That “Cost” row is Net P-1 cost, not URF (Unit Recurring Flyaway).

So in just that example, my crunching would reflect an indeed $1m per a/c savings for URF price from Feb07’s estimate vs revised Feb10’s estimate…

While The Unit Flyaway Cost and the actual full price paid to procure the aircraft (UPC) came in revised higher in Feb10 compared to original estimates?

Could we therefore concur on that rough level of actual cost-increase vs cost-reduction data when continuing this aspect of discussion?

(p.s. If I goofed the math, then yeah I will make it up to you, no worries, lol). Regards-

Don’t worry about the mistakes, it took me a while to see where the USAF had goofed in the carrying over of the numbers.

Here are the true numbers (Flyaway Unit Cost) for the first two LRIPS.

<br />
1st Final Cost<br />
LRIP Estimate Cost Difference<br />
1 243.570 229.600 -13.97<br />
2 200.100 179.860 -20.24<br />


btw, I took a quick look at the USN early LRIPs in previous and FY2010 docs and they did not make the same error as the USAF. The USN numbers are the same from year to year.

The only way to explain this type of error is that they manually put these numbers into PDF form instead of having them computer generated from a database. This is inexcusable.

Dang, I leave for a week and you all have so much fun without me 🙂

We all know that one of the main drivers of increased production costs over the last few years is that they keep cutting the numbers from each year. If they would leave the numbers alone, the costs will stabilize.

What cannot be denied is that in EVERY LRIP buy so far, the final cost (2 years after FY Authorization) has always been lower than what was estimated at the time the F-35s were authorized.

Just to set the stage, the latest FY2011 budget shows that the USAF will need much less than 12 billion to hit the 80 airframes per month.

Take a look at the projected FY2015 (the last LRIP Cycle Year). It calls for 70 F-35As for a TOTAL procurement cost, including spares, of $7.4 billion. Extrapolate that to 80 airframes and it totals $8.47 billion (add %14.29 to go from 70 to 80). Even for LRIP prices this is well below $12 billion.

Development on the USAF F-15 IRST units has not even started yet. If it were just a pod change, they would not need the 4 years of development work that they have planned to start in 2010.