Fan accounting and the F-35.

I continue to be amazed at the 'fan accounting' regarding the F-35.  Want an example of the confusion involved and why I find Bill Sweetman (I like the guy but his fixation on the F-35 is not giving me the answers that I would normally expect) so infuriating?

This discussion on Information Dissemination sheds the light.

First Galrahn (author of the article)...
Joint Strike Fighter is an acquisition tragedy. The estimate for the per unit F-35 is only $25 million more than the F-22, and that is before a single F-35 is operational. This program is also part of Secretary Gates legacy, and it isn't pretty.

Then the rest of the comments...

Scott Brim, USAF Partisan 

The R&D costs for the F-22 are now sunk costs, while the current marginal unit cost for additional F-22 airframes is reputed to be roughly $160 million.

Someone please correct me on that last figure for the F-22's marginal unit cost, if you have updated information.

Paul Wayner

I must be misreading something, isn't the Unit Cost for the F-22 listed as 67000/188~=358.2 while the F-35 is 379392/2457~=154.4? 

 

 

Scott Brim, USAF Partisan 

The R&D costs for the F-22 are now sunk costs, while the current marginal unit cost for additional F-22 airframes is reputed to be roughly $160 million.

Someone please correct me on that last figure for the F-22's marginal unit cost, if you have updated information.

Paul Wayner  

$160M marginal cost for the F-22 sounds right although the marginal cost for the F-35 looks below $100M (from those numbers). 

 

Scott Brim, USAF Partisan  

The F-35's marginal cost is less than the F-22s, but the F-35 cannot come close to covering the F-22's air superiority mission when operating in the kind of high threat environment that will exist in the 2020 timeframe and beyond.

On one simple blog post we go from the author of the story stating that the F-35 is a tragedy...then when his readers comment we finally arrive at the truth.

The F-35 costs less than the F-22 and the costs are being driven down.

The F-35 discussion is no longer fact driven.  Its all spin by its critics all the time.

My complaint is simple.  If the biggest blogs on the net (talking Information Dissemination and ARES) aren't giving their readers the right answers then how can we ever learn the truth?

UPDATE:
If you read the article then you'll also note the cost increase in the LHA-6 program for the third ship.  If I'm not mistaken then that increase has everything to do with a design change adding a well deck to the ship...not an increase in production costs.