Ironicamente, o F-35A está entre os caças ocidentais mais baratos de adquirir, custo contrabalançado pelo custo de operação.
Ora aí é que reside o problema. O preço unitário do actual lote de F-35A (Lot 11) é de 89,2M USD (81,3M€) de acordo com a Lockheed Martin, e comporta tanto a célula como o motor F135-PW-100; os próximos Lot 12 a 14 irão descer o valor progressivamente até aos 79 milhões de dólares ou 72M€
“We will reach a unit-recurring flyaway-cost-per-aircraft target of $80 million for a U.S. Air Force F-35A price by Lot 13, which is one lot earlier than planned — a significant milestone for the department,” she added.
The F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing model — which is used by the U.S. Air Force and most international users — is set to decrease from a Lot 11 price of $89.2 million to $82.4 million in Lot 12; $79.2 million in Lot 13; and $77.9 million in Lot 14.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/10/29/in-newly-inked-deal-f-35-prices-fall-to-78-million-a-copy/
A questão é que depois falta tudo o resto: treino, formação, simulador, armamento, adequação ou construção de infraestruturas (não esquecendo os importantes desumidificadores e aparelhos de ar-condicionado
), manutenção, apoio logístico e actualização de software e hardware nas células mais antigas. E é aí que a porca torce o rabo, a que se junta o exorbitante custo da hora de voo: 44 mil USD/h ou 40 mil euros H/V.
Este artigo é bastante elucidativo a esse respeito:
The F-35 Is Cheap To Buy (But Not To Fly)
...) Although the cost to buy has come down, the cost to fly remains high. The F-35 costs $44,000 an hour to fly, or $44 million to fly for 1,000 hours, or $352 million over the 8,000 hour lifespan of the jet. That’s more than twice as much as other jets such as the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and F/A-18 Super Hornet. Lockheed Martin wants to get the cost per hour to $25,000 by 2025, but the Pentagon believes that number may be unattainable. The Air Force has warned in the past that if the cost per flight hour doesn’t go down, it could end up buying fewer F-35s.
Another cost the F-35 program will have to deal with at some point is the cost of bringing older jets up to the latest standard. Under a manufacturing concept known as concurrency, F-35 production began before the jet’s hardware and software was completed. This was done to get jets into the field faster, so pilots could train on them earlier. The problem is that there are now scores, if not hundreds of jets around the world that need updating to the final standard, a complicated and expensive process.
The F-35 program continues to make progress on costs, but the progress is uneven and in some cases may be unattainable. The difficulty of managing such an enormous, complicated, slow-moving program has prompted the Air Force to push for producing new fighters every five years, in order to field new technology faster and create more purchasing options.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a29626363/f-35-cheap/
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