Ultralights: You obviously know more about the particular aircraft and the particular technical issues than I do, so I won’t argue with your point. However, I note that there’s a difference between airworthiness and fightworthiness. The Australian taxpayer was paying for both, not just the first.
PAF: I only referred to ‘sunk costs’ because you did.
But let us never refer to ‘sunk costs’ again, if that is now your wont.
So you’d commit to the extra $150 million and, presumably, the extra 2 years.
How much more and how much longer after that, PAF?
The flaw in your logic is that you compare the costs of a fact with the costs of an assumption that may
never be valid.
Fact: an-off-the shelf Cessna 152 can do the things described in the POH, and can be maintained in accordance with, and at the costs arising from the procedures described in, the maintenance and pilot’s operating manual
Assumption: we can build a Super Cessna 152, that will detect and kill submarines, at X price in Z years.
If you were a Project Manager and applied your logic Creampuff you'd probably cancel everything and we'd have no Defence Force.
Errmmm, no, not quite. I’m hoping there are lots of contracts in which Defence sets time and cost limits and is smart enough to stick to them, and has contingency plans in the event that they aren't.