good to see you here ! i followed your posts on
defencetalk (or was it defence news ? forums)
but the article did mention this :
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U.S. and Israeli sources say government liaisons are meeting or
speaking almost daily in attempts to finalize a configuration for a
program management review scheduled for mid-December. Once
the two sides agree on an F-35I configuration, the U.S.
government and prime contractor Lockheed Martin will be in a
position to come up with a more reliable
price.
"The Israelis were very aggressive in their demands, and their LoR
was extremely extensive," the U.S. government source said. "The
price estimate sent up to Congress was based on an educated guess
of the total package. ... Now, they need to pick through the menu
of options and separate the nice-to-have from the
need-to-have."
Meanwhile, Lockheed executives have been doing their best to ease
Israeli concerns while supporting government-to-government talks
toward a JSF contract commitment.
In interviews here, company sources insist that Pentagon estimates
to Congress unfairly misrepresented actual costs and that
the flyaway price tag is not far removed from initial
estimates. In a meeting last month with reporters here,
Tom Burbage, Lockheed's vice president and general manager of the
JSF program, estimated flyaway costs at $47 million in 2002 dollars
or about $80 million in projected 2014 dollars.
"Remember, there are three distinct elements to this
program," a company representative here said. "There's the baseline
aircraft, there's infrastructure, and then you have to factor in
all the nonrecurring development and integration costs associated
with Israeli-unique systems."
He said of Pentagon cost estimates: "It doesn't mean it will cost
that much, but just that it could cost that much."
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i dont think the price is really that much. let me use an
analogy :
the RFP is asking for how much to buy a entire f1 garage. cars,
nuts, bolts , refueling crew and mechanics and engineers and all
the other whatnot. inclusive of all the frills unnecessary
stuff and whatnot. the unit cost per f1 car, is something
altogether different.
could be the same issue here, total program costs vs unit
flyaway costs. hints of media bias.
Guess there isnt much data out avaliable yet to reach a possible
conclusion. it might be an orchestrated Israeli attempt at
bargaining down the prices. Make enough noise and gather enough
political attention and support and the Pro-Israel Lobby could have
more ammunition to fight for more trade-offs
The price could be Inflated because the Israelis are probably
intending to install a EW suite/custom specs for deep strike
missions. (my speculation)
