Lockheed To Build 130 F-35s For $1.38 Billion – IOTW Report

Lockheed To Build 130 F-35s For $1.38 Billion

 

A little division and one can estimate that we are paying a little more than $100 million per F-35 Lightening II. This is supposedly a deal, given that production was originally slated to cost $130 million a piece (on an aircraft that was suppose to cost under $50 million per plane).

An old firewall of Bill Whittle’s take on the F-35 Here

Popular Mechanics providing another comparison with the designs of the 70s, given on a per hour to fly basis Here

I suspect that so much money has been poured into the development of this aircraft of the future that our leaders have concluded that the nation can’t just abandon it now without producing some.

23 Comments on Lockheed To Build 130 F-35s For $1.38 Billion

  1. Turkey is not to be trusted !
    Cancel the sale to Turkey or have a backdoor to disable the electronics and computer systems on demand.

    Why sell to an islamic dictator that shuts down freedom of speech and the press, imprisons and kills without a trial those who oppose Erdogan who desire freedom.

    Cancel the F-35 to Turkey or have a built in backdoor to disable them when Turkey uses the F-35 to kill the national opposition to Erdogan’s dictatorship.

    More than 60,000 government officials, soldiers, police officers, teachers, Christians, Kurds and journalists have been arrested and jailed.

  2. F-4 Phantoms and A-6 Intruders with upgraded electronics and weapons.

    We could have 1000+ of them for that $.

    It’s a racket – how, other than some stealth, are these new platforms that much better – especially in situations when we have air supremacy…

  3. Two Legged Blue Eyed Cracker

    It’s not just the Airframe. A lot of it is advanced avionics stuff. What I find a little disturbing is there are a lot of critics out there that say the F18 and the F16 kick this things ass in a dog fight.

  4. Two legged blue eyed cracker, as a former F-4 Plane Capt. (crew chief) on F-4’s back in the 70’s when I was in the Navy, I second you on F-4 and A-6 upgrades. I loved F-4’s, they’re still one of the best fighter planes ever (along with P-51 Mustangs) even when F-14’s were brand new. But I’m also biased since I never worked on F-14’s, F-4’s were wicked cool. And what else can you say about B-52’s except that the darned things will be around forever sort of like old DC-3’s.

  5. Brad….the Smithsonian channel had a segment about the F-16. It’s getting old and many are nearing the 8000 hour retirement age. They had the F-16 flying with weapons and the F-35 flying clean and the F-16 won the dog fight. I know nothing about any of this, but it was pure enjoyment to watch.

    I believe that there have been some improvements to the F-35. Maybe, some of the military people here can improve all of our knowledge….

  6. @ Bad_Brad
    Thanks for the info…I’m somewhat relieved…I still hope they’ve got a remote kill switch.
    Of course I had hoped every islamic terrorist that Obama released from Gitmo had a GPS chip in his ass, too. Kinda like a homing chip for a JDAM or GPS-guided GBU-10.

  7. willysgoatgruff,

    The F22 was the plane they should have gone with. It performed. That decision smelled extremely political. Over all though I think the trend is a very Stealthy plane that is nothing more than a weapons platform.

  8. Aardvark dude. I too LOVED the F-4. NOTHING more challenging. As a hydro guy, I almost learned every mechanical trick there was. Then onto F-15s. Those are still awesome. A dream to work on. For a fraction of the price the Service could buy Silent Eagles and upgrade with some of the F-35 Gee Whiz electronics.

  9. That’s great. I understand it can’t out-fly or out-fight the aircraft of our probable rivals. I’d like the names and bank account info on EVERY govt. employee involved in this decision, to include campaign finance records

  10. Brad…Thanks for the post. I’ve heard of the improvement of the F-35 and obviously the technology has improved exponentially. Same with when the F-16 was first developed….what I’d really like to know is that which they won’t let us sod kickers know about what they know now….LOL…

  11. What this Country needs is a stealthy, supersonic VTOL air superiority, close attack, carrier-based fighter bomber that can also hover. It should be inexpensive, durable and reliable, easily serviced and upgraded, impervious to SAMs and air-to-air missiles.
    Almost forgot: it must have a low carbon footprint.

    Oh wait…

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