DoD Buzz website quotes Air Force Gen. Mark Welsh as saying that scrapping the A-10 will save $4.2B over five years (1). This apparently is the Air Force's justification for letting the A-10 go. Of course, the real justification is preserving the Air Force’s buy of F-35’s. Be that as it may …28 Friggin F-35's.
Let’s check that cost savings number out, shall we? Since the purpose behind letting the A-10 go is to preserve the F-35 purchase, let’s do the math and see how many additional F-35’s we can purchase (or save from cuts) for $4.2B.
At the moment, a reasonable cost for an F-35A is $150M. I know there are some of you who believe that the F-35 will eventually cost $9.95 each once we reach super-serial production buoyed by an upswell of foreign buyers. Well, a check of the actual budget requests shows a much higher cost. Will the cost come down someday? Perhaps, but we’ll deal in the here and now.
So, $4.2B / $150M = 28
There you have it. Scrapping 300 A-10’s will buy (or save from cuts) 28 F-35’s.
BS!!
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