Officials: Fighter gap could reach 800 planes

[unhappycamper]

Officials: Fighter gap could reach 800 planes
By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Apr 9, 2008 18:31:11 EDT

The Air Force will begin facing a shortage of fighter aircraft by 2017, and the shortage will balloon to 800 aircraft by 2024, senior Air Force officials said Wednesday.

That fighter gap could force the Air Force to keep aging F-15s and F-16s flying beyond their anticipated retirement dates by sinking billions into additional service-life extension programs.

The projected gap is the result of the F-22 program being capped far short of the 381 aircraft the Air Force says it needs and Joint Strike Fighters, or F-35s, being purchased at a rate of 48 per year for more than three decades, said Lt. Gen. Donald J. Hoffman, military deputy to the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition.

“The size of the F-22 force is certainly a contributor, but the real contributor to is ... the Joint Strike Fighter production rate,” Hoffman said. “We still stand by 1,763 as our final number, it’s just when do we get there and how do the legacy aircraft age until that last one is delivered? JSF replaces all our F-16s and all our A-10s, but they may not live long enough until the last JSF comes along.”

Air Force leaders have pushed for more F-22s and larger annual purchases of the JSF, but they appear to have made little headway on either front. Congress and the Pentagon have committed to buy only 187 F-22s so far, and JSF procurement maxes out at 48 aircraft per year beginning in 2013.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/04/airforce_fighter_gap_040908w/



uhc comment: Lest we forget, the F-22 costs $355,000,000 a pop and the F-35 costs $239,000,000 a pop. I wonder where these guys are getting the $$$ from??

[Sinistrous]

1. uhc: Your posts on veteran-related topics are very valuable.

However, your continued use of those prices for the F-35 and the F-22 is spreading and perpetuating misinformation. Those costs DO NOT represent the cost of additional production aircraft. The actual cost is significantly lower.

In one of your recent threads where you used these numbers, I tried to explain a bit about how cost data for aircraft is arrived at. See here and here.

I know the subject is complicated and counterintuitive, but I believe my explanations, though incomplete, are accurate as far as they go. If I can help clear this up further, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Sinistrous

[unhappycamper]

2. I recall seeing those posts when you made them.

The problem I've been having is that nothing (budget, Defense Tech articles, wikipedia, military rags) matches up. I suspect that is by design. The $$$ quoted is documented in this forum.

Another complicating factor is cost + procurement v. fixed cost procurement. I understand someone should pay the cost of design and prototyping; I just disagree it should be the taxpayer.

Here's the article quoting $330,000,000 a pop for the F-22 --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=259&topic_id=6808

The article claims: But with a price tag of $130 million per plane — $330 million if you take into account research and development costs — critics wonder why millions more will have to be spent to fix corrosion problems and design flaws on some of the 104 stealth fighters delivered so far by the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.

What is the true cost to the American taxpayer of an F-22 on June 1, 2007? How about on March 1, 2008? Since we're paying x amount of dollars for an F-22, what is the delivered cost for one plane? Are there economies of scale for multiple delivered aircraft?

Which leads to my next question. How much does and LCS or T-AKE ship cost? I've been trying to put the runaway costs in perspective.

Any help would be appreciated.