Real cost cost per flying hour.
Another Installment of ... F-35 Cost Per Flying Hour
The plot thickens on the F-35 cost-per-flying-hour discussion.
Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall says the cost-per-flying-hour figure for the F-35A recently provided by the stealthy fighter’s program executive officer to The Netherlands is more aggressive than the official figure that will go next month to Congress.
USAF Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan told Dutch lawmakers that the flying hour cost for the F-35A would be about 10% higher than the F-16, a sharp reduction from earlier assessments.
“It is with a certain set of assumptions,” Kendall told reporters during a roundtable April 24 at the Pentagon, that Bogdan arrived at that figure. “I’m not sure we want to use that set of assumptions.”
The figure forthcoming to Congress next month, however, will be lower than that provided in last year’s selected acquisition report (SAR) to Capitol Hill, he says. That report cited the F-35A flying hour cost at $31.9 thousand versus $22.5 for the F-16 C/D.
Article goes on theorizing on lower total cost of ownership by using the new Flightsims more iso actual flying.
This offcourse is a bogus argument as this new simtech is potentially available for all platforms.
Let's be serious here, subsystems can be implemented just as easy on almost any older fighter, flightsim use only goes so far and the idea that you can achieve the same level of combat effectiveness vs less stealthy fighters remains to be seen and proven, AEW, AAR and all other support is just as much needed by the F35 generation as it is and was with the more conventional fighters.
A 70,000lbs fighter with a big 43,000lbs thrust engine is never going to be as cheap to operate as a fighter which wheighs much less.
I suspect the 31.9 vs 22 (45%) number is even very optimistic, it could very well be considerably more from the moment this thing is IOC and its shortcommings and other structural problems come to surface once it is being put through the paces of everyday operational use.
Lord knows the F16 had its fair share of problems at its conception, there are few examples of new fighters that operated without their fair share of glitches , further adding to the cost of sustaing this weapon.
edit, not to have to start a new message;
Also, what's happening on the software front;
SRN News : Pentagon sees some risk of delay in F-35 software
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program on Wednesday said there was "some risk" that software being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp for the Air Force version of the new fighter plane would be delayed beyond late 2017