Shiny Capstar
PROFESSIONAL
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2008
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They did not waste billions of pounds designing stealth fighters. They only spent maybe 30 million on the BAE Replica (see the pictures in one of my previous post). They are spending billions of pounds developing JSF, and those 2.5 billion are only 10% of JSF's development cost! You are under-estimating how expensive it is to develop a stealth fighter.
They went for JSF because they need a VTOL (Vertical Take-off or Landing) fighter for the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers. Harrier is too old and out-of-date. THAT is why they are buying JSF - they are buying the VTOL model (F-35B).
The Typhoon is already cutting US market in Europe. Don't forget that Typhoon is already here and being delivered years ago. They are now exporting it to Saudi even - where is JSF? Still years until it is finished, never mind delivered. Royal Navy was told by lockheed that their JSF can be delivered in 2014, even though UK helped develop it.
Also, the Typhoon was supposed to replace Tornado, which is old now.
Any price you have read for JSF does not matter, what matters is how much the custoemrs actually pay. You do not know if JSF will be cheaper than Typhoon, I don't think anybody believes it will be - maybe if it is bought by many countries like F-16, but if Typhoon is bought by many countries then it will also be cheaper.
Ah, didn't see this post before posting my reply. Sorry for the repeated points.