The Briefing Room
General Category => Military/Defense News => Topic started by: rangerrebew on February 13, 2019, 12:34:44 pm
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21,363 viewsFeb 11, 2019, 11:03am
F-35 Will Cost Less To Operate Than Older Fighters. Here's Why Some Policymakers Don't Get That.
Loren Thompson
By the end of this year, nearly 500 F-35 fighters will have been delivered to three U.S. military services and various allies. The plane is meeting all of its performance requirements, and the cost of each fighter is steadily declining. In fact, the most common variant of the fighter now costs no more to build than the latest version of the Cold War fighters it is replacing.
This is what success looks like in the aerospace business. And yet somehow, policymakers in the Pentagon manage to find new facets of the program to criticize. The latest issue is that the F-35 supposedly costs too much to operate and support once it is in service. In fact, some people are claiming the Air Force needs to keep operating Cold War planes in its fighter fleet, because it is too expensive to sustain a fleet consisting solely of “fifth-generation†fighters like F-35.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2019/02/11/f-35-will-cost-less-to-operate-than-older-fighters-heres-why-some-policymakers-dont-get-that/#3a5b12982c73 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2019/02/11/f-35-will-cost-less-to-operate-than-older-fighters-heres-why-some-policymakers-dont-get-that/#3a5b12982c73)