If you know anything about DOD procurement, the figures from a recent GAO report don’t mean much.
If you don’t know much about DOD procurement the chart could mean something. If you are locked in to unit prices when comparing these high profile weapons programs, the F-35 doesn’t appear all that expensive. As you can see, aircraft are killing our budget. The sticker price is what warships used to cost. And a buck doesn’t buy as much today. At any rate, it is hard to be in the game if your high-end aircraft costs less than $100 million each (no matter which procurement price method you use).
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CH-53K 100 mill a pop? I guess US-101 doesn’t seem like that bad of a deal after all.
Global Hawk $183… Wow!!! NG were quoting bare airframes at around $40m just a couple of years ago, so that’s a lot of sensors and comms in there!
Perhaps it’s more a reflection of the USAF/USN’s reluctance to commit to full rate production!?
Program unit cost figures are always bogus…as they throw in amortized development cost.
Which is worse with something like Global Hawk, as it’s easy to throw in the entire ACTD program (which produced combat assets) as a development cost. Maybe even toss in the whole Navy BAMS program (a totally separate effort) as well.
F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter) – The PAUC increased 57.2% and the APUC increased 57.2% to the original APB to reflect the average unit price for the restructured JSF program, as
estimated by the OSD Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE)-led independent Joint Estimate Team (JET). Specifically, in 2001, the average procurement unit cost for the
JSF was estimated at $50 million base year 2002 dollars or $59 million in base year 2010 dollars. This is now estimated to fall within a range of $79 million to $95 million in base year
2002 dollars or $93 million to $112 million in base year 2010 dollars. This is a 57% to 89% increase from the original baseline. The reasons for the Unit Cost Growth included largerthan-
planned development costs driven by Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant weight growth and a longer forecasted development schedule; increase in labor and
overhead rates; degradation of airframe commonality; lower production quantities; increases in commodity prices (particularly titanium); major subcontractor cost growth; and the impact
of revised inflation indices. In addition, factors that were driven by substantially higher contractor change traffic (i.e., changes in design not resulting from changes in requirements or
capability), which led to increased engineering and software staffing; extended manufacturing span times; and delayed delivery of aircraft to flight test, led to a further slip of the
development and flight test program. The Independent Manufacturing Review Team (IMRT) recommended that the program adopt a somewhat flatter and smoother ramp. The JET II
accepted this revised ramp and then moved it later in time in accordance with the delayed progress of the development program to balance manufacturing, schedule, and cost
risk. Overall, no JSF reviews to-date (JET I from 2008, JET II , or the IMRT) have discovered any fundamental technological or manufacturing problems with the JSF program, or any
change in the aircraft’s projected military capabilities.
The above is from the SAR. Of course with only 3 percent of flight testing complete there is plenty of risk in finding major problems and for major cost increases. Still we are going to buy 308 mistake jets built before cmpleting flight test for$58B. Meanwhile we are going to band aide the old jets and hope they last. This is a very very risky plan thatneeds fixing.