So what are we doing now, Dan? You posted this last piece of hit-garbage by David-Axe-to-grind the same day it was published back on december 2nd. Now you went back and deleted your old post to re-post the same article to keep it at the front of the thread? Why?
Oh and this is interesting...
The CH-53K was to cost about $27 million each, compared to about three times that for an MV-22. However, delaying the introduction of the CH-53K will cost over a billion dollars, and add about $5 million to the cost of each CH-53K.
So an article on "the strategy page" website with no sources and
no listed author is being used in a cost/budgetargument, which flies in the face of the cost stated by
the marine H53 program manager of
$55 to $65 million each...and we all know
your opinion of military program managers
Publicity on ANY government aircraft will ALWAYS find the users (government employees) and manufacturers saying what a fantastic machine it is (if they value their jobs and/or ever want to get promoted) which is why PPRuNe is such a valuable tool in trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff (BS from the facts).
Take the V-22 for example....
...you cant trust them at all, can you!!
So, according to you, since Col Pridgen is a US military program manager he must be CLEARLY biased when hes claiming $55-65 million, what do you suppose the REAL costs are?