Canada updates their F-35 acquisition assumptions

Canada just updated their F-35 acquisition and sustainment estimates with a new report.

It assumes a 16.9 percent attrition rate for 65 F-35s and 20 percent less flying compared to the current CF-18s. Ponder that flying safety math.

This should also be interesting when an F-35 turns out to be over twice the cost per flying hour of a CF-18.

In order to believe some of the report, one would have to drink the LM / DND F-35-fan-base bathwater.

The F-35A has been designed for up to 8,000 flying hours.

LOL.

Missing from all of this is the fact that the F-35 is yet proved to work toward any worth.

Acquisition assumptions of $9B for 65 aircraft are also low because of the point above.

Fly before you buy?

Not with Canada.


Faulty graph from the report. I have added a few things to it. Yellow-Orange is actual cost for USAF (the biggest alleged buyer of the F-35) to get the still under-developed aircraft into squadron service (no R and D dollars). A figure of "unit recurring flyaway cost" is valueless. More on USAF's ability to predict these pigs cost is here. The Red shows the actual number the U.S. DOD is ordering so far. Alleged increases of any worth are just that; alleged.


(click image to make larger)

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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013 
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Aviation Week (ARES blog) F-35 posts (2007 to present)
-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)


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