The flyaway cost of any aircraft is dependent upon the number procured in any given fiscal year, because the facilitization costs are amortized over the number of airframes. So, if DoD tells the builder to facilitize to build 40 per year, and you only build 20, all those costs are divided over half as many airframes, and the flyaway cost rises proportionally. I remember in the 1980s when the Navy was procuring just one or two EA-6B Prowlers per year, the cost per aircraft exceeded $150 million–in then-year dollars! And that, for a pretty mundane airplane that had been in production for twenty years. As to whether one F-22 is worth three or more F-35s, that depends on what you want them to do. Certainly, if I had my druthers, I would have bought only F-15s–they could do all the jobs of the F-16, and do them better over a longer range. In some missions, one F-15 is worth (easily) three F-16s–and in some cases, no comparison is possible, because the F-16 just can’t do the job (e.g., low-level deep penetration in all weather). Can the F-35 do the air-to-air mission as well as the F-22? Probably not. Can the F-22 do the air-to-mud mission of the F-35? Probably (after a little tinkering). The fact is, though, that nobody could afford all F-15s in the 1980s, and nobody can afford all F-22s today. That’s why we have the hi-lo mix. Quantity has a quality of its own. But the F-35 is no bargain, either, and we’re still not sure what the flyaway cost of the various versions will be. To be the low end of the hi-lo mix, the JSF would have to come in at something less than 50 percent the cost of the F-22, otherwise you don’t get much in the way of numerical leverage from the program.
