Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
From the wiki link above (and I have no idea how accurate that is), Boeing claims the Super Hornet would cost $4 billion (compared to $9-16 billion for the F-35s). I'm not sure if that figure is referring to initial purchase price or total cost of ownership including maintenance, but that's a pretty significant difference.
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Looking at the article it references, it says $6 billion for the F-35's, and mentions a per unit price of $100 million for the F-35, and doesn't mention that the $4 billion is for the whole package (which it would since it's an article critical of the purchase it seems) so I'm going to assume that the $4 vs. $6 billion is just the cost of the aircraft.
So $4 vs. $6 billion, which is huge, but considering we just spent $2.6 billion upgrading the CF-18 just to get us a few more years until the replacement, it's easy to see the other costs could easily justify the difference.. if the F-35 lasted a few more years vs the Super Hornet that's probably your $2 billion right there (assuming the rest of the costs are equal, which they probably aren't).
So I don't disagree that it's possible the Super Hornet is a better choice, but given the difference
The article also mentions that Lockheed Martin would have a fixed price, so the price wouldn't go up even if the final price of the F-35 does go up.
Plus the F-35 gives you one thing the Super Hornet can't ever; stealth.