Sam O’Neill
Mr. Reuter
Economics
10/19/2015
America’s security is thankfully is recognized by our politicians as a priority. Although on the other side of the coin, our government is spending so much money that the amount reaches up to billions on a single project. The F-35 joint strike fighter aircraft is one of them, and with the amount of money being spent on the program one might think that this airplane is the best out there. Such an assumption would be false. The Pentagon should admit that they made a bad call, and scrap the project.
The greatest downside to the jet is its hefty price tag. The concept behind the plane being to perform multiple roles under one airframe was suppose to significantly cut production costs. But infact, it's done just the opposite. William Boardman, global research reporter writes, “The F-35 is the world’s most expensive weapons system – $400 billion and counting.” This situation creates an Opportunity cost, where instead of funding this project the government could be feeding the poor. The price tag on the system is billions over budget, and yet the pentagon keeps continuing to push the aircraft.
With the cost for the program being billions over budget, and the largest price for any war machine in history, it must be spectacular in performance. Unfortunately that's not the case. It has been reported that the jet does nothing better than what aircraft are already in service can do. The reality is that there is a Trade off when making a multi roll airplane. When making it good at everything, it loses focus that a dedicated fighter, or dive bomber would have. John Stillion and Harold Scott Perdue make remarks about the aircraft after the conclusion of a war game. “The new plane can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run.” The only reason a machine should be adapted, and especially a machine that is suppose to be the future, is if it greatly outperforms its competitors. The largest price for a war machine in history and it doesn’t outperform the other jets already in service.
Even though the plane can’t do all the things that make a fighter plane great, the feature that is suppose to make up for its cost is being invisible to radar. Stealth Technology has only been incorporated in 3 other aircraft within the U.S. military besides the F-35. Being invisible to radar is a huge advantage, as the enemy won’t know the plane was there until it's too late. Stealth is the best feature a warplane can have in the modern age, however Larry Abramson explains why it won’t live up to its full potential with the F-35. “...in many situations, the F-35 is also going to have to carry bombs and things on the outside of its wings... under a lot of situations, it won't be that invisible to radar... the stealth technology that was built in really isn't going to live up to advertisements...” The aspect that is suppose to make up for the price tag will be in most scenarios useless, and defeats the purpose of spending so much money on a single project. Should this project fail, it will create a larger demand for substitutes such as the F-16, or even upgrade programs for the planes currently in service. There is no reason to spend 400 billion on a plane that can’t keep its promise of being stealth.
For obvious reasons, the F-35 program should stop receiving funding. It costs more than any other war machine in existence, all while being unable to outperform already existing aircraft, and its stealth capabilities aren’t fully utilizable. The security of our nation should always be a priority, but with the price tag and lack of capabilities the F-35 will be hurting us more than it will defending us.
Boardman, William. "The F-35 Strike Fighter." GlobalResearch.ca. Global Research, 5 July 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Axe, David. “Pentagon’s Big Budget F-35 Fighter.” Blogs.Reuters.com. Reuters, 14 July 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Conan, Neal. “The F-35 Fighter Jet: The Cost And Controversy.” npr.org. National Public Radio. 3 Jan. 2013. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Davenport, Christian. “Meet the most fascinating part of the F-35: The $400,000 helmet.” washingtonpost.com. The Washington Post. 1 Apr. 2015. 20 Oct. 2015.
Fallows, James. “More on the F-22, the F-35, and big expensive airplanes.” theatlantic.com. The Atlantic. 4 May 2009. 20 Oct. 2015.
I believe that this plane wasn't designed for dog fights and aerial combat as much as the planes in the past have been. There havent been really any wars between countries in the past decade or so. I think this plane was more designed for strategy and will be improved upon when the time comes. When they built this plane, I'm sure they already knew what it was going to be and what needs it had to fill.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that they should stop funding. It would be one thing to continue this if they weren't over budget. The price tag in this plane seems way to high for what they are trying to get it to do. Also, by creating a new plane, this means more people that have to operate it and work on it. Because it will have many different parts, I assume they will have to have a whole truck load of mechanics and engineers to fix problems. If this jet can't do any more than other jets and planes already in service, what is the point? Maybe spend this money on upgrading the stealth technology to make it work even better on other planes. They should stop the funding and rethink the plane. Maybe with a little more planning, they will create an even better aircraft.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that they should stop funding. It would be one thing to continue this if they weren't over budget. The price tag in this plane seems way to high for what they are trying to get it to do. Also, by creating a new plane, this means more people that have to operate it and work on it. Because it will have many different parts, I assume they will have to have a whole truck load of mechanics and engineers to fix problems. If this jet can't do any more than other jets and planes already in service, what is the point? Maybe spend this money on upgrading the stealth technology to make it work even better on other planes. They should stop the funding and rethink the plane. Maybe with a little more planning, they will create an even better aircraft.
ReplyDeleteIf it costs $400 billion for anything that isn't extremely useful and new, I don't think that our government should be buying/selling it, especially with our national debt as high as it is. Like you said, the money could easily go somewhere else and be 100 times more effective. I don't know too much about planes (definitely not as much as I know you do), but I'm pretty sure that a skilled pilot in a decent plane would beat a new pilot in an advanced plane almost any day. So maybe making all new planes isn't the real answer to this "problem" but instead it is simply adding more advanced upgrades to the current planes.
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard of the F-35 until now, and based on what you said it doesn't seem like a noteworthy aircraft. If the aircraft isn't outperforming all the other aircrafts, like the designers hoped it would, they should come up with another design to modify the F-35 to meet the criteria they originally wanted. I wouldn't say that an opportunity cost for building the plane is feeding the poor, because the government is probably taking money for this project out of their budget specifically for defense forces and weaponry. However, I do agree that building this aircraft was inefficient, because it can't perform as well as other aircrafts that were already made -- even with the advantage of stealth technology. Instead of continuing to spend on the F-35, they should have considered making multiples of the already efficient aircrafts, such as the F-16, or modify the F-35 instead of adding to it.
ReplyDeleteThe f-35 cost an average of 178 million dollars per plane and production cost have dropped 55%. In the third quarter sales have increased 11%. Sales will continue to rise "Lockheed remains confident that more countries will sign on to the program. It already has commitments from the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and Israel, among other countries."(Christian Davenport) sales will rise as the production continues to improve. As the biggest military contractor in the world Lockheed is very confident in there planes ability to preform and sell. The stealth fighter jets make up a large portion of the company "The next-generation stealthy fighter jet makes up about 20 percent of annual corporate revenues"(Christian Davenport). So I do not believe the project should be scraped because then multiple deals with other countries will fall out and the Billions already put into the project would be for nothing.
ReplyDeleteMilitary spending has always been a huge concern to U.S. citizens. This post gave me a new insight into just how much money the government wastes on unnecessary military spending. It is clear by this post that this ‘upgrade’ in plane technology isn’t actually improving on our current technology. I liked how you included the opportunity cost of the money being spent on this military project. You also might have been able to include opportunity costs in terms of other defense mechanisms. This would show how the military budget could be used more wisely. Overall, this post opened up my eyes into the economics behind current military projects.
ReplyDeleteAlthough some might want to pull the plug on this project it might not be the best idea. Since we are already so deeply into this project It's probably worth finishing. You can never get the money back that has already been spent on the project so if you give up now you wasted a ton of money on a project that never turned out. If we were to at least finish the project so at least you would have some sort of product for you money spent.
ReplyDeleteHi Sam! You picked a relevant, newsworthy event to reflect upon. I like your realistic take on the situation at hand.. it makes me think is our government really making the right moves to benefit the public as whole or just investing in things without knowing the future benefit of those decisions. The idea that $400 billion dollars could go to waste and with the poor financial situation the nation is in, is not a secure feeling for any American. While I felt you had some very strong points, I felt like you could have elaborated more when using "opportunity cost", and maybe a few more terms from this unit just that way we can relate it to what we are learning in class! Overall nice job!
ReplyDeleteHi Sam! You picked a relevant, newsworthy event to reflect upon. I like your realistic take on the situation at hand.. it makes me think is our government really making the right moves to benefit the public as whole or just investing in things without knowing the future benefit of those decisions. The idea that $400 billion dollars could go to waste and with the poor financial situation the nation is in, is not a secure feeling for any American. While I felt you had some very strong points, I felt like you could have elaborated more when using "opportunity cost", and maybe a few more terms from this unit just that way we can relate it to what we are learning in class! Overall nice job!
ReplyDeleteMaybe the F-35 isn't designed to carry bombs and such on its wings, therefore keeping the stealth capability in tact. It is a huge trade off though, spending that much money on something we might know if it works or ever good, instead of upgrading planes that we know our good. Overall I agree with you saying it is a waste of government funding and should be cut off.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the substitutes that are so much cheaper and that can outperform the F-35 are much better options. The program is just wasting the money that could be spent elsewhere, whether it be on upgrading other aircraft, starting a new program, or using the money in some other sector that the country needs.
ReplyDeleteSam, I think you picked a really unique topic. You seem to know your information, as well as get it quoted correctly. Never in my life would I have imagined an aircraft to cost 400 billion dollars. I can't picture anything reaching that high of a price, really. By what you said, it doesn't sound like it should cost that much at all. Now, I don't know how much an airplane actually costs, but whatever it is, the F-35 should in no way cost more than a plane that's better than it. Although stealth is an amazing feature for it, I don't believe its worth it to buy it if it still doesn't preform better in other categories besides stealth.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 is an example of a product that costs a lot compared to other substitutes and also does not perform better than them. This means that even though the product is not quality and costs a lot the demand of the US government is still high. This idea is mirrored by other products like IPhones and their competitors. The government believes that they need this new jet and is willing to spend large amounts of money on it just like people believe they need the newest IPhone and will spend more money to get it.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 is an example of a product that costs a lot compared to other substitutes and also does not perform better than them. This means that even though the product is not quality and costs a lot the demand of the US government is still high. This idea is mirrored by other products like IPhones and their competitors. The government believes that they need this new jet and is willing to spend large amounts of money on it just like people believe they need the newest IPhone and will spend more money to get it.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35 is an example of a product that costs a lot compared to other substitutes and also does not perform better than them. This means that even though the product is not quality and costs a lot the demand of the US government is still high. This idea is mirrored by other products like IPhones and their competitors. The government believes that they need this new jet and is willing to spend large amounts of money on it just like people believe they need the newest IPhone and will spend more money to get it.
ReplyDeleteIt's sort of ironic that the main purpose of this jet would be to do everything every other jet can do, but in an attempt to put every ability into one plane the aircraft is ultimately the equivalent of the term "A jack of all trades but a master of none". Yes the aircraft uses stealth technology, but it isn't nearly as effective as other specialized stealth planes in the limited situations where the stealth technology actually does work. Yes, it's supposed to be able to do multiple combat rolls and many other fancy tricks, but that makes the plane slow and hard to handle. So many different abilities were forced into this plane in the hopes of it being a multi-purpose aircraft, but sadly made it into a below average aircraft in every field they tried to make it a master of. So yes I agree that this project should no longer receive funding, and that the money should be put towards either improving already existing projects, or spent in other departments where the money would make a greater affect.
ReplyDeleteFrom your discussion it would seem clear that the program should be scrapped and a new fighter program should be developed, or existing aircraft should be upgraded to fill the desired capacity. Not counting the fairly convincing counter arguments to your points, from a purely economic standpoint, continuing the program may be the most sensible option because the $400 million you mentioned has been spent has already been spent, and is therefore a sunk cost. Shuttering the program will not recoup this cost so it shouldn't be taken into consideration when considering its status going forward. Unless there is a program which could meet the nation's needs at a lower cost than it will take to complete this program, the programs should and must be continued.
ReplyDeleteFrom your discussion it would seem clear that the program should be scrapped and a new fighter program should be developed, or existing aircraft should be upgraded to fill the desired capacity. Not counting the fairly convincing counter arguments to your points, from a purely economic standpoint, continuing the program may be the most sensible option because the $400 million you mentioned has been spent has already been spent, and is therefore a sunk cost. Shuttering the program will not recoup this cost so it shouldn't be taken into consideration when considering its status going forward. Unless there is a program which could meet the nation's needs at a lower cost than it will take to complete this program, the programs should and must be continued.
ReplyDelete