AHC Harrier replacement

[Riain]

IIRC work on the F-35 is expected to be worth about £1.5 trillion to the UK economy over its service life. Though I expect that estimate is largely pulled out thin air and pretty much meaningless.

Not really, a vertical tail for a hornet is about half a million bucks so I assume one for an F35 would be double that, so 722 of them is about $722 million, give or take. L-M says that the 30 engine change cradles have an export value to Australia of $80 million, and since putting a 3 axis jib on a Manitou telehandler to change the engine on a Hercules works out to make the machine cost about $400K, I could easily envisage that F35 unit costing almost $3 million each.

These 2 simple equations, plus adding a little fat over time, is how they come to the conclusion that Marand will do $900 worth of F35 work. I'd suggest that similar rough numbers were done for the British as well.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

I agree. My issue is that the programme was fundamentally flawed from the outset, mostly because of the requirement for a STOVL variant that the other variants were then based upon and compromised by. I wonder how things would have been different if there were no STOVL requirement or if that requirement was developed separately. Maybe it could be an earlier development such as the development of P.1216 instead of the Sea Harrier FA2, and that aircraft having plenty of growth potential and the ability to be modified to reduce it's radar cross-section.

See also
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1225.html

arguing that joint service projects don't save money.

Or
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/th...ter-jet-costs-more-than-three-separate-planes

which expands on it