Robin Laird has an article that everyone should read...go to his place but check out this part....
Recently, we have seen yet again, a US government report on the life cycle costs of the F-35 fleet from a 55 year perspective!
One could ask a simple question: what has mandated this question and why are they not fired?
There are many questions one can ask in life but wondering about the lifecycle costs of combat systems 55 years in the future is not one of them.
There can only be one purpose of posing this question: to come up with a PR number to club the program.
But analytically, we should laugh this effort off of the stage. Simply to pose the question should be met with ridicule, disdain or perhaps sorrow.
To give perspective, let us imagine that our predecessors had been so stupid or irrelevant. Let us go back in time – 55 years ago – and pretend that we are GAO analysts being tasked to look at the life cycle costs of weapon systems by the year 2012. (Hard to imagine President Eisenhower not calling such folks up to the White House for a barbecue, and not to eat ribs).
Some MORON at the GAO is trying to ESTIMATE costs of the F-35 fifty five years into the future!
Say it out loud. 55 fucking years!
And yet certain aviation websites and defense sites are publishing this GUESS and obvious HIT PIECE and running with it like its news.
I only wish that this was an April Fool's joke and not something that our government actually put out.
I'd be amazed if it wasn't par for the course. Pathetic.
UPDATE:
Darren hit me with the numbers that we should be looking at (journalist too)...
Production fly away cost
F-35A = $83.4 million ((£52 million))
F-35B = $108.1 million ((£67 million))
F-35C = $93.3 million ((£58 million))
Guess what bat fans...this makes the F-35, a stealth airplane and probably the most technologically advanced airplane flying known to the general public, cheaper than its rivals...Typhoon, Rafale and the F-15E/S/K. Kinda puts things into perspective doesn't it?