[Newsbot]

Title: Air force chief defends $9B F-35 jetfighter purchase
Category: Military
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2010-09-01 16:14:38
Canadian

[saturn_656]

$1:

He understands that Canadians are suffering "sticker shock" over the hefty pricetag, but points out the early-1980s purchase of the country's current fleet of CF-18s was almost as expensive in relative terms.

He leaves out the fact we are only getting half as many aircraft.

[raydan]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

$1:

He understands that Canadians are suffering "sticker shock" over the hefty pricetag, but points out the early-1980s purchase of the country's current fleet of CF-18s was almost as expensive in relative terms.

He leaves out the fact we are only getting half as many aircraft.

But don't they go twice as fast?

[ASLplease]

at one time. didn't these jets cost almost a billion each?

[saturn_656]

raydan raydan:

saturn_656 saturn_656:

$1:

He understands that Canadians are suffering "sticker shock" over the hefty pricetag, but points out the early-1980s purchase of the country's current fleet of CF-18s was almost as expensive in relative terms.

He leaves out the fact we are only getting half as many aircraft.

But don't they go twice as fast?

As a matter of fact, if you look at both aircraft (F-35, CF-188), in a clean configuration the F-35 would likely be slower.

With the CF-188 all stores are carried externally, external stores slow the aircraft down. The F-35 can carry weapons internally, so it won't pay the same price the CF-188 does airspeed wise.

[Dragom]

ASLplease ASLplease:

at one time. didn't these jets cost almost a billion each?

That is what the guy at the used fighter jet lot said.

[ASLplease]

Dragom Dragom:

ASLplease ASLplease:

at one time. didn't these jets cost almost a billion each?

That is what the guy at the used fighter jet lot said.

but I'll be they got a good deal on the undercoating.

[bootlegga]

The biggest problem with 'sticker shock' is the government is also signing a 20 year maintenance on top of the purchase. Get rid of that 6-8 billion and the price drops to $9 billion, which is still expensive, but not ridiculously so.