Tuesday, December 16, 2014

F-35 choice gives Dutch a shocking high cost per flight hour

F-35 cost-per-flying-hour as some of us have predicted will be outrageous. More people seem to be discovering this.

The Dutch have released a variety of documents in regard to their F-16 replacement. The one at the top of the page named: "D-brief_Vervanging_F-16.docx" leaves some interesting information on page 17 (Google Translation):




current estimate lifetime F-35

The expected lifetime costs consist of the initial investment (€ 3,868.1 million) plus the annual operating costs (€ 277.7 million) during the lifetime. The total lifetime cost for 30 years is therefore € 12,199.1 million (price level 2014). This amount excludes risk reservations totaling € 907.6 million. Annex 6 are already paid and still estimated investment and operating costs of the F-35 are presented for the next fifteen years.

So using some very rough math converting Euros to U.S. Dollars I get the following.

Average annual cost to run 37 F-35s: $344.46M per year.

Divide that by 37 aircraft and you get $9.3M to run each F-35 per year. So what is the cost per flying hour? Depends on how many hours you fly each airframe per year.


Flight hours per airframe per year / cost per flying hour
200 / $46,500
180 / $51,666
160 / $58,125

Now you know why the Dutch are getting 37 aircraft and not 85. The F-35 unit cost is way over-priced; and so is the cost to operate it. When the Dutch signed on to this program years ago, they were told the F-35 was affordable. This has no basis in fact.

What is worse? The aircraft is likely to get shot down if it has to face emerging and some existing ground-to-air and air-to-air threats.

The Dutch will be fielding an F-16 replacement that is no replacement but a significant downgrade.

This is a complete waste of taxpayer funds.


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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013 
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
-Congressional Research Service--Through to FY2013, F-35 has received $83.3B in funding


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