MOD agrees to buy first four F-35's

[JEB]

Oh dear!!! MoD strikes again.

[welshandy]

Israel are now buying 44 and quoting from that post " Israel has already purchased 19 of the aircraft, at a cost of $2.75 billion. The first two F-35s are due to arrive in Israel by early 2017 and the rest should be delivered by 2018." not sure whether that refers to the 19 or the full 44

How many will we have by then?????

[thorny1a]

There must be some reason why the British orders are very drip drip drip so far (i.e. no "bulk" purchase). This despite us being the only "Level 1" partner nation. Are we waiting for the unit price to drop?
The article makes it clear that we are only planning to order 14 aircraft in the next 5 years!!

Maybe we'll get a few dozen plastic mock ups to put on the deck of Queen Elizabeth to make it look more impressive....

[Vulcanone]

Another take on it here..


http://www.defensenews.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 4310280026

Edit : roughly speaking we are doing a purchase for each Fiscal year like the US do.


Tim S

[TonyO]

The LRIP aircraft are potentially the most expensive and also the least reliable and will most likely need upgrade work in the future. Buy less now, and get cheaper, better aircraft in the coming years. Very simple. As for Israel, well they aren't paying the bills, the US is.

[Andy_99]

Which version of the 'Dave' are Israel buying guessing the A variant which is a tad less complex that than the 'B' with all its VTOL/VSTOL trickery.

Reason we're buying so few at a time is the old MOD search down the back of a sofa for loose change isn't proving as fruitful as expected

[welshandy]

Another take on it here..


http://www.defensenews.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 4310280026

Edit : roughly speaking we are doing a purchase for each Fiscal year like the US do.


Tim S

So we will have 18 jets in 5 years time(2019) Tornado retired end 2019 I can see a capability gap appearing on the horizon.

[lowlevelRAF]

Another take on it here..


http://www.defensenews.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 4310280026

Edit : roughly speaking we are doing a purchase for each Fiscal year like the US do.


Tim S

So we will have 18 jets in 5 years time(2019) Tornado retired end 2019 I can see a capability gap appearing on the horizon.

Not to mention we are hoping the Typhoon has all is weapons by then (2018 I think?), that's with no issues or problems. Capability gap I can see if there are any delays on the Typhoon weapons development front. By 2019, will the F-35 have UK weapons on it by then? As they are only testing US weapons on it at the moment..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fqg3iz ... fkCy3we32g - Interesting thoughts hear, especially from 2 minute 46 seconds.