Chinese Sixth Generation Fighters Poised to Cut Pentagon Demand For F-35s: Lockheed Martin Stock Drops After New Jets’ Unveiling
Chinese Sixth Generation Fighters Poised to Cut Pentagon Demand For F-35s: Lockheed Martin Stock Drops After New Jets’ Unveiling
Did you see the comparison to other jets?
Su57 is artisanally made, less than two dozen. ~200 is a short production run, they shut it down early because those 200 could defeat every other air force on the planet several times over. But tech has progressed since then, it's only a bit better than the J20. But like the U2, that's not it's fault.
If the US ever had use them to fight a peer competitor then these 200 would disappear very quickly. At that point the US would be unable to replace them because it lacks industrial capacity to do so.
It lacks the molds, fittings, and jigs to do so. They were destroyed after the production run shut down. Similar story to the F1 Saturn V engines, it'd be more work to recreate them than to make something better.
F35 was an attempt to make something better, and after over a trillion dollars being poured into the project over many years, it's an unmitigated disaster.
No, it was an attempt to make something stol and cheaper, and it succeeded after billions of extra dollars and an extra decade. NGAD is supposed to be the all around better replacement.
You can keep repeating that it succeeded till you're blue in the face, but the reality is that it's far from a successful platform. It's highly unreliable, and it needs a ton expensive of maintenance. It's the opposite of what you want in a weapon which is to be cheap, reliable, and easy to service. It's a toy.
Expensive maintenance compared to what? Have you looked at the operations rates? It looks like F35 costs about the same per hour as the F15EX.
https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/documents/rates/fy2023/2023_b_c.pdf
Far more expensive compared to SU-57 that's actually been proven effective in combat against NATO air defence systems. This is how actual weapons are developed:
The Russian Air Force has demonstrated high confidence in the Su-57’s stealth capabilities, and has deployed the fighters for high intensity combat operations to parts of the Ukrainian theatre with particularly high concentrations of Ukrainian air defences.
The Su-57 program has prioritised reducing maintenance needs and operational costs to avoid the very low availability rates that have plagued America’s F-117, F-22 and F-35 stealth fighter fleets. One notable means by which this had been achieved is through reduced reliance on radar absorbent coatings, which was achieved by using innovative solutions such as radar absorbent fibreglass. In contrast to American stealth fighters which consistently cost far more to operate than their fourth generation predecessors, this approach allows the Su-57 to potentially achieve lower operational costs than its direct predecessor the Soviet Su-27, thus allowing Russia to move its fleet into the fifth generation without either significantly raising sustainment funding or contracting the number of fighters in service.
What's the su57 cost per hour taking into account maintainer income differences? I don't see any numbers. And weren't you criticizing the F22 for only having 200 units?
F22 was introduced in 1996, SU57 is a new platform that's still being tested and hasn't been put into mass production. The manufacturing only started in 2019, and there are already 32 produced. Let me know if you need help crunching the numbers on that one.
What’s the su57 cost per hour taking into account maintainer income differences?
The cost of the entire jet is a mere $35 million. Here's an article you can read discussing the lifetime cost comparison
If you're saying it's still pre production, then it's production delay is worse than the F35. It's first flight was in 2010, so that puts it at 15 years from first fight to lrip and counting. F35 only had 10 year timeline between first flight in 2001 and lrip in 2011.
First, maintenance costs are fundamentally different from sticker price. To find maintenance cost, you'd want to find the maintenance factor, how many hours of maintenance per flight hour, and the cost of replacement parts per flight hour.
Comparing quoted sticker price isn't much good either, since they haven't sold any, and as you said it's still pre production, so even if the cost wasn't subsidized, it'd still be way off from final numbers.
