Thursday, March 10, 2011

Oopsie! The Incredible Burgeoning F-35

All along the Tories have been telling Canadians the laughably small number of F35 strike fighters they were buying would cost about $16-billion dollars all in.  That was going to be $9-billion or so to buy the planes, the rest for maintenance and operating costs.

And then Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page got to run the numbers.  He comes in at just under $30-billion - almost twice what the "Harper Government" had promised the Canadian people.   No word yet on how Page figures the Tories fixed the numbers given earlier.

Let's see - thirty billion divided by sixty-five.   Why that's just under a half-billion dollars per aircraft.   Gee but that sounds like a lot for a stealth technology that may be rendered obsolete before these planes ever reach Cold Lake.   That also sounds like a lot of reasons we're going to be stuck with what could quickly turn out to be a white elephant for decades.   If the F35, as many people warn, turns out to be a pig, there won't be any do-overs.   We'll be left to fly the pig for 30-years.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Even Israel does not want these planes at the moment preferring to get later generations...