I googled S-92 and price....took the highest of the prices shown.
OK. Defense News suggests that the price paid by Canada is very high due to them being the first buyer and basically paying for the first/initial mil version. But aren't you comparing civ S-92 to an unknown Mil Spec cost package?
I am not a 92 Salesman....just a guy who took exception to the
ridiculous price Tcabot threw out for the 92.
Concur, that price made no sense to me.
When the
53K is far cheaper than the MV-22....it seems logical the 92 was also be far cheaper. Or....do I miss something here?
The only fact I see you missing is a problem with using current tenst. The CH-53K is at least 3 years away from IOC, if not more, so you cannot pretend that you have a price that compares to what is settling down as the V-22 price ... which is quite steep, as we've discussed before.
As to S-92 version, I think your logic (if you actually had a price on CH-53K that meant anything) would be sound, given the Stallion's greater complexity and payload. If we posit a 53K @ about 60 million per copy -- I am not sure if that's a realistic high ball or low ball, given how cost creep infests every aircraft program that I am aware of -- we might have a useful basis for cost comparison ... which would put the "30 million per" for the Canadian S-92 variant at least in the ballpark, and be supportive of your reasoning.
According to wikipedia, cost for CH-53K is about $128 million each, but I am not sure what they base that on, nor what program production run it assumes. (I heard 200 or so, but numbers like that vary wildly in reality, see also C-17 numbers and the roller coaster that went on ...)
Consider this: the CH-53K's rotor hub and transmission weigh 15,000 pounds – about the empty weight of a UH-60 Black Hawk.
EDIT: SAS, you seem to be using 2009 mission readiness figures. In the last year we seem to have seen some figures that are an improvement ... but take them all with a grain of salt.
I've seen numbers massaged a variety of ways in the past, and am aware of some of the moonshine pedalled here and there.
EDIT 2: SAS, you also have, within a couple of posts of each other, an older reference to the IAF not buying V-22's coupled with the newer info that IAF is looking into V-22 again. Won't those people make up their minds?
