F-35s cost more than $100M each: U.S. official

[CHIMO]

New fighter jets Canada plans to buy will be more than $100 million each — at least $25 million more per plane than government estimates — according to a top U.S. budget watchdog.

Conservative government officials have said 65 new joint strike fighters being built to replace Canada's F-18 jets will cost about $75 million each, about $9 billion with training and an additional $200-$300 million a year in maintenance.

But Mike Sullivan, director of acquisition management at the US General Accountability Office, said he doesn't know where that estimate comes from.

Sullivan said the estimated cost of the F-35A model that Canada is buying is "in the low 100 millions."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/03/29/cv-f35-costs.html

Seems to have disappeared from the mainstream news. Must be true because it comes from the US. Let's see Harper skate around this.

[JohnyCanuck]

1. And this article says 400 million per plane (including spare parts and maintenance)

That does seem like a big jump from the latest 100 million per plane estimate in the CBC report to the 400 million per plane quoted in this recent rabble.ca article, even if the estimate in rabble.ca says it includes parts and maintenance. Parts and maintenance could be 3 times the cost of the plane itself?

Last June, I wrote an article for the Georgia Straight in B.C. about the skyrocketing costs of purchasing new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets from U.S. munitions giant Lockheed Martin.

At the time, the news had just broken that the price tag had jumped from $3.8 billion for 80 F-35s when the deal was first proposed back in 2008, up to $9 billion for just 65 jets, plus another $7 billion on "ancillary costs" such as future parts and maintenance. The total price tag had more than quadrupled within just two years! Now we understand from Pentagon figures that the total cost of this purchase over a 30-year period is expected to hit $29 billion, a staggering sum for a country with serious social and economic problems.

Just three years ago, the individual jets were priced at $47.4 million each. Now the price for each jet, plus parts and maintenance, has jumped over $400 million, at a time when the Harper Conservatives are slashing social program spending.

http://rabble.ca/news/2011/03/escalating-f-35-fighter-jet-price-tag-future-defence-plan-costs-election-issue

Check out this Youtube video explaining the inherent and systemic corruption in the Pentagon's arms procurement process. Right at the start of the video a commentator says the standard operating procedure for these "defense" contractors trying to sell, for example, a new fighter jet is to intentionally low ball the estimated cost while exaggerating the planes capabilities just to win the contract. After that, I guess the sky is the limit as to how much the tax payers will eventually get stuck with paying for the fly boys new toys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z4zUDZCgfc&feature=player_embedded

One thing that would be interesting to find out is how often the twin engine CF 18s experience an engine failure in flight and have to land on one engine. The F35s are single engine planes so if that engine conks out for whatever reason, the pilot under most circumstances has little choice but to hit the silk. Knowing how many times the CF 18s experience an engine failure might give us an idea as to how often our pilots will have to bail out and leave our 100 million dollar (or is it 400 million dollar) investment to bore a hole in the ground.