I was reading in Wired magazine how Boeing and Lockheed are competing to get the U.S. government contract for the new generation of fighter planes. They’re trying to standardize the plane’s design, so you don’t need to build different planes for each branch of the service, which needs different things in a fighter. This will presumably save money through economies of scale, which in itself is a good thing.
Except each plane will cost $75 million. And they are going to build 6,000 of them.
Six thousand new fighter planes to drop bombs on a world at peace, a world with no credible threat of any kind. They’ve already spent $1.2 billion just building the two spec planes from scratch. And we spend our time wondering how public schools can cost so much and how welfare mothers are draining our national coffers dry.
Classic non sequintor. Boeing/Lockheed has spent 1.2 billion, not the Government. Or did you think that number was surprising because it was *less* than the cost of public schools and welfare?
Actually, Anonymous, the government paid for the prototype planes as well. From the article: “Each plane cost American taxpayers $600 million to build and fly. They aren’t even considered genuine prototypes – neither can carry or fire a weapon or jam enemy radar, and they’re filled with off-the-shelf products from past projects.”