A ministerial panel headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak made a final decision Thursday to purchase 20 new F-35 fighter jets, despite opposition from a number of senior defense officials over the high cost of the deal.Read more here.
Barak gave his go-ahead last month to purchase the jets in a deal valued at around $2.75 billion. The first planes are expected to arrive in 2015.
I luv it! You know Sweetman is reaching into the back of his cabinet pulling out the real strong stuff after hearing this news.
2015, so we could see a strike against Iran sometime in the months following then? ;)
ReplyDeleteSol, isn't this purchase funded entirely by the US military?
ReplyDeletei think so but that really isn't the issue.
ReplyDeletethe Israeli's could have opted to buy Stealth Eagles...highly upgraded F-16 etc...it would have been so much easier to get their electronics into those aircraft too...but instead they chose to go with the F-35.
smart move and the F-35 haters are going crazy.
on a side note, you'll see development of stealth busting decrease somewhat because everyone won't want the secret to the kingdom escaping especially if their own pilots are flying stealth aircraft.
ReplyDeletestealth is going to be relevant for at least another few decades because of this.
How come this is not an issue Sol? This is not a cheap airplane, on the contrary. What is the reasoning behind this? This is not criticism of the project, i'm just trying to understand if i got this right.
ReplyDeleteIt's not cheap, but then no modern combat aircraft is. The French are paying €150m EACH per Rafale as an example. Singapore is paying more that $110m per F-15SG as another. This is not including ancillary, infrastructure or support costs either. By modern standards the F-35A is relatively affordable. You cannot judge aircraft package prices by the number of aircraft being acquired in a particular package.
ReplyDeleteThe package will include things such as engine test cells and other test and support equipment that are required no matter how many aircraft you acquire, but will be capable of supporting more than just the announced 20x aircraft...