Given its an air to air only fighter, we’ve got enough of them. Even if another country decided to build a fighter with greater capability than F-22, we would know and could counter (We’d have like 10 years). The JSF can perform ground missions and compares favorably with all other modern aircraft.

The plane hasn’t been used in Iraq or Afghanistan, and there is no clear opponent. It’s just time for this program to end.

assuming you work for Lockheed, in the real world we have to cut cost every year but that is not the case in a cost+ contract. Inflation should run about $60 million of the $290 million cost increase. So you have another $230 million more to account for. Like I said I am going to sell my business and hire some Generals for lobbyist, do you have any money to invest with me?

Back to the original article – be very, very, careful reading financial information provided in the media. Whoever wrote the original article failed to mention the impact of inflation over the life of a 25+ year program. Perhaps ignorance, perhaps a little bias. Who knows…

kyle … Check my numbers, I don’t see how your numbers add up.

Say it takes ten billion dollars to design, test, and build the prototype F-22. If you stop production after that one, the cost is ten billion dollars one airplane.

Now, let’s use the same development cost of ten billion dollars, plus $100 million per additional airplane and do some math.

If you build a hundred airplanes, the cost is $10 billion in development divided by 100 airplanes = $100 million in development per airplane plus $100 million in production cost per airplane. That ends up being $200 million per airplane.

Using the same math and dividing the $10 billion development cost by a thousand airplanes (development = $10 million/airplane), the per plane cost = $10 million in development + $100 million in production = $110 million/airplane.

There are many more factors which have driven program costs up on the F-22. Congress deciding to spread the production out over many, many years drives costs up. Repeated changes in equipment and performance requirements drove a need for huge amounts of additional engineering.

FYI… Inflation alone would have more than doubled the price of the F-22 over its 25+ year program life.

Why should we be concerned about software from 1983? Well, every time the DoD or Lockheed Martin or whomever adds a new feature to the aircraft, the software has to accommodate it. Any time the radar or navigation systems are updated, the software has to accommodate it. It’s not that easy a task to do, so it’s admirable that the programmers can make it work. But, that extra work adds to the cost of the aircraft.

July 19th, 2009
12:08 pm

I don’t understand your “government” accounting but it looks like we have paid for over 600 f22’s but have only got about 180. Has the union over there offered to take a pay cut like the auto unions? How much do the lobbyist make on this deal?