Here's a pretty succinct summary:
Graff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff in South Korea will announce what the country is looking for in its $7.8B fighter jet tender tomorrow.I think that pretty much says it all. We should be hearing something over the next few days.
What the watch: The focus will be on the extent to which the military stresses the need to for stealth capabilities.
As Bloomberg notes, it isn't exactly a secret that the country wants Lockheed Martin's F-35, but procuring 60 of the fifth generation aircraft would require an extra investment of more than ₩2T.
Boeing (BA) and EADS (EADSF) are hoping for a split order.
Graff
Sure, $123 million is way below the actual cost of this great pretender, and surely wasn't enough, but I wonder how adding two trillion won bringing it to $155 million per plane would be enough. That's way below what the US is currently paying according to the budget. The US budgeted $176 million per unit for the F-35A this fiscal year. The sale would be under FMS which means ROK can't legally pay less than the US cost of manufacture.
ReplyDeleteWell gee, it's not like production is ramping up or anything. I mean implying that increased production would lower the cost is silly, you are obviously correct in your assertion that the F-35 will forever be stuck at LRIP costs.
DeleteI've heard of bending the facts but this is getting out of hand.