Fighters set to cost about $131m eachPHILIP DORLING
26/07/2008 9:38:00 AM
Senior Defence officials have said the true cost of Australia's next-generation warplane, the Joint Strike Fighter, will greatly exceed the $75 million-a-plane estimate that Defence Materiel Organisation chief executive Stephen Gumley gave recently.
The Canberra Times has learned that the head of the fighter project told Opposition Leader and former defence minister Brendan Nelson last year the real cost of the aircraft was likely to be about $131 million each.
At a parliamentary committee hearing on July 10, Dr Gumley expressed confidence the Joint Strike Fighter was ''affordable'', with costs within the $12-$14billion budgeted for the project.
''I would be surprised if we paid more than about $75 million a copy for the aircraft, measured in 2008 dollars and assuming we buy at least 75 or three squadrons,'' he told the defence sub-committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.
''Even if one were to buy 100, $75million times 100 is $7.5 billion, which is well within the project's upper limits of $12-$14 billion at the moment.''
While the final cost to Australia of the Joint Strike Fighter is not known, and will not be settled until contracts are signed in 2009, estimates within the Defence Department of the likely full cost to taxpayers are considerably greater than Dr Gumley's public figure of $75 million per aircraft. Defence Department submissions to earlier parliamentary deliberations on fighter aircraft requirements set out a range of pricing formulas which start with the ''unit recurring fly-away cost'' that includes the airframe, engines and mission systems.
Beyond this there are non-recurring equipment and other costs which form the basis of an average ''unit procurement cost''.
In early 2007, the Defence Department's Joint Strike Fighter project office estimated the unit procurement cost for the F-35 for Australia would be in the vicinity of $131 million (in 2005 dollars) for between 75 and 100 aircraft.
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has declared himself impressed with the F-35's air combat and ground strike capacity.
Uncertainty about the full price to Australia of the F-35 is likely to arm critics of the project who argue the Joint Strike Fighter is the wrong choice to ensure Australian air superiority when neighbouring countries are acquiring new advanced fighter aircraft.
Chairman of the defence sub-committee Arch Bevis said there should be greater scrutiny of the F-35 acquisition. ''Taxpayers won't be happy if Defence makes the same mistakes on the Joint Strike Fighter as have been made on other projects,'' Mr Bevis said.
Source
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/fighters-set-to-cost-about-131m-each/1227299.aspx
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