What is up with the F-35? Part II

**Zinja** · 03 Oct 11,, 23:40

I thought the B version was the more expensive one with all the new fan lift tech

**Zinja** · 03 Oct 11,, 23:47

What is so significantly different with the Carrier variant that it is almost 1.4 the price of the other variants?

**Phoenix10** · 04 Oct 11,, 00:18

Zinja, I thought the exact same thing as you stated in your last 2 comments. BTW- the F-35 made it's first vertical landing at sea today:

F-35B Makes First Vertical Landing at Sea - Defense News

"An F-35B has made its first vertical landing on an amphibious assault ship on Oct. 3, Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program officials confirmed.

The aircraft, called BF-2, made the landing at 3:20 p.m. Eastern time over the Atlantic onboard the USS Wasp

Over the next two-weeks, the JSF program hopes to conduct 67 landing while Wasp is underway, according to Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin's F-35 program manager. The U.S. Marine Corps' deputy commandant for aviation, Lt. Gen. Terry Robling, said recently that Wasp is available for six weeks should there be any anomalies in testing.

BF-2 is the second short take-off vertical landing variant test aircraft."

**Phoenix10** · 04 Oct 11,, 00:28

Video (gotta love the music):

News Releases - F-35 Lightning II Website

Pics:

JSF.mil > Gallery

**Jimmy** · 04 Oct 11,, 00:45

^ Damn, look at that deck.

Originally Posted by Zinja

What is so significantly different with the Carrier variant that it is almost 1.4 the price of the other variants?

Larger wings, beefier airframe/landing gear/tailhook. I'm surprised at the price of the B-variant though. I don't understand how it's cheaper than the conventional A-variant.

Originally Posted by Phoenix10

So if this is right and the F-35As and Bs cost about $110 million, that is a lot more than the $60 million that they were originally supposed to cost. However, is this number really so shocking or terrible? From what I've gathered online late model F-15s cost around $100 million and the EF-2000 and Rafale are over $100 million. If this is all true then the F-35 sounds like a bargain.

Except it's the replacement for the F-16 C/D, which cost about $25M apiece in today's dollars. Even the Block 60 "only" runs about $80M.

**Zinja** · 04 Oct 11,, 00:49

Beautiful! Now the more difficult bit - taking off vertically.

**Phoenix10** · 04 Oct 11,, 00:53

I sincerely hope the B gets fully funded and bought in numbers. The idea of being able to turn every amphibious assault ship into an aircraft carrier with stealthy, mutli-role aircraft is game changing.

**surfgun** · 04 Oct 11,, 00:55

At the reported prices, it may be a hard sell for congress to pay 3X more for an F-35C versus a Super Hornet. I'm sure the F-35C may be twice the jet, but three times?
They need the F-35B for all of the flat top gators, as a force multiplier.

**Zinja** · 04 Oct 11,, 00:57

Originally Posted by Jimmy

Larger wings, beefier airframe/landing gear/tailhook. I'm surprised at the price of the B-variant though. I don't understand how it's cheaper than the conventional A-variant.

I hear you but i find it astonishing that to beef up landing gear and using slightly more 'raw material' for wing surfaces is worth more than the entire technology and raw materials of an apache, shocking!

**Zinja** · 04 Oct 11,, 01:01

Originally Posted by surfgun

At the reported prices, it may be a hard sell for congress to pay 3X more for an F-35C versus a Super Hornet. I'm sure the F-35C may be twice the jet, but three times?
They need the F-35B for all of the flat top gators, as a force multiplier.

Come to think about it honestly, is the F-35C comparable to the raptor?

**Phoenix10** · 04 Oct 11,, 01:20

Originally Posted by Zinja

Come to think about it honestly, is the F-35C comparable to the raptor?

Good point. For fleet defense and A2A I'm sure the Navy would love an aircraft with the F-22's resume flying off their decks! That being said, for a lot of other roles I think there's a good chance they'd go with the F-35 (unless they adapted a lot of the F-35s tech to the F-22, but how much would that cost?). Still, $140 mil for the C seems way to much.

**highsea** · 04 Oct 11,, 02:30

Originally Posted by Zinja

What is so significantly different with the Carrier variant that it is almost 1.4 the price of the other variants?

What is so significantly different is that there are only 4 CV frames being built in this lot. There are 10 CTOL and 17 STOVL frames in the order.

The unit price reflects the lot size.

**Jimmy** · 04 Oct 11,, 03:44

Originally Posted by Zinja

I hear you but i find it astonishing that to beef up landing gear and using slightly more 'raw material' for wing surfaces is worth more than the entire technology and raw materials of an apache, shocking!

Designing a wing is a lot more in depth than just scaling it up a bit. The lot purchase point makes a lot of sense, I didn't think about that.

**Zinja** · 04 Oct 11,, 14:23

Originally Posted by Jimmy

^ Damn, look at that deck.

What about it Jimmy? Are you looking at the stain? I don't think its a result of the F-35, do you?

**Zinja** · 04 Oct 11,, 14:25

Originally Posted by highsea

What is so significantly different is that there are only 4 CV frames being built in this lot. There are 10 CTOL and 17 STOVL frames in the order.

The unit price reflects the lot size.

Ahhhhhh, that answers everything! So its not the AC itself here, its just a numbers thing.

Come to think of it then, we can then expect the price to drop significantly once the full production rates kick in.......probably below $100m?