F-35 Cancelled, then what ?

[LowObservable]

Mk 1...

I don't really understand what you are getting at.

My comment was: "Unit production cost of the B (under discussion here) is by any definition about three-quarters of what RAND estimated the F-22 would have cost in continued production, if everything goes to plan and at triple-digit total F-35 production rates."

I may have to be more detailed. I was not talking about the total number of aircraft built because it does not matter as much as production rate per year - not at any rate in defense economics, where everything is paid year-by-year, so a manufacturer can't take a loss in prospect of big profits down the road. F-35s to be bought in 2030 have no effect on 2018 costs.

All F-35 projections currently assume total all-variant rates well above 150/year, from 2018 buy year forward.

Even so, the average procurement unit cost of the F-35B in 2018 (in BY12 dollars) is $138 million. RAND's 2010 calculation was that building 75 more F-22s over about six years (on top of the 187 already funded) would result in an APUC of $173 million, at a far lower production rate.

So all the factors you're talking about have already been washed out of the comparison.

ORAC - O'Bryan's comments about the Marines not replacing the EA-6B and its implications for the F-35 EA capability are... interesting. There has never been any mention of an active EW system on the F-35 aside from functions built into the radar (X-band and front sector only). Indeed, the JSF requirement was written only a few years after the chief engineer at LM-Sanders, now BAE Systems Nashua, described active EW as "going the way of the buggy whip industry".

Also, it's hard to see why an LO aircraft would need high-powered jamming of the kind needed by an escort or stand-off EW aircraft. Certainly not for self-protection. And integrating such a thing into an aircraft that's already short of space and cooling, given the difficulty of adding large apertures to an LO airframe, would be challenging.