{"id":187512,"date":"2011-06-04T05:16:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-04T10:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/06\/04\/meow\/"},"modified":"2011-06-04T05:16:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-04T10:16:00","slug":"meow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/06\/04\/meow\/","title":{"rendered":"Meow!!!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pass the Popcorn<\/span><\/div>\n

So, Lockheed-Martin, on a plane that is not really in production yet, and one for whom the cost numbers are very<\/b> fluid, decided to call out the McDonnell Douglas<\/strike> Boeing F\/A-18 E\/F by name on operating costs<\/a>, and Boeing’s response was, “Oh no you didn’t bitch!”.<\/p>\n

We now have a contractor cat fight:<\/p>\n

Lockheed Martin is peddling untruths about the relative cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Super Hornet, according to Boeing Military Aircraft president Chris Chadwick.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a Tuesday morning teleconference, Chadwick not only called Lockheed Martin’s claims “fundamentally untrue” but named business development vice-president Steve O’Bryan as the source, and the fact that the claims were denied formally also points to a developing war between the two programs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The offending statement, quoted in Air Force Magazine’s Daily Report last week (here, search for May 26), claimed that a fully operational F-16E or F\/A-18E would be “the same cost” as an F-35 at maturity, around $65 million in 2010 dollars. Not so, Chadwick says, claiming a comparable (recurring flyaway) cost of $53 million for a Super Hornet — including a set of external tanks, an ATFLIR targeting pod and “working<\/b>” helmet mounted displays.<\/span><\/p>\n

Any F-35 cost figure, Chadwick pointed out, “is an estimate based on numbers of unsold aircraft<\/b>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, Chadwick added, current figures show that the JSF — even in its F-35A variant — will cost more to operate than the Super Hornet<\/b>. Citing a $16,400 cost-per-hour F-35A estimate (in 2002 dollars) in the latest Selected Acquisition Report, Chadwick says that a comparable number for the Super Hornet is $12,200 — less than either the F\/A-18C\/D or the F-16C\/D.<\/span> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cat fight!<\/p>\n

Though I would note that the F-16, should be cheaper than both to operate, and it should get you there quicker than both too, at least until calling bingo fuel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pass the Popcorn So, Lockheed-Martin, on a plane that is not really in production yet, and one for whom the cost numbers are very fluid, decided to call out the McDonnell Douglas Boeing F\/A-18 E\/F by name on operating costs, and Boeing’s response was, “Oh no you didn’t bitch!”. We now have a contractor cat …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}