Originally Posted by
ORAC
msb, you think any of that would be cheap?
Far cheaper just to buy off the shelf F-18G Growlers and hang Brimstone off them. Then You'd also have a stand-off EW platform to improve the F-35Bs chances on Day-1 against a modern AD system.......
I started out with...
If we were to build a new aircraft,
If we were determined to build our own new design, doing it the way I outlined could be the cheapest. Particularly as an awful lot of the man power (training, etc) and systems costs (we'd be reusing the designs we've already got) would be tiny.
Obviously if we were not interested in owning the design then buying off the peg is going to be cheaper still. But then we'd have no control over it.