The Air Force has worked up some numbers on what it will cost to add F-22s to the fleet beyond the three-year multiyear buy of 60 aircraft. Adding one more lot of 20 aircraft would cost $3.81 billion, for a flyaway cost of $153 million each. Boosting the one-year buy to 24 aircraft would cost $4.25 billion, for a flyaway cost of $144.2 million, or a per-airplane savings of about $9 million. The numbers come from an unclassified briefing given to staffers on Capitol Hill last week. The service is still working up the cost of a four-year multiyear at 24 per year—which would bring the fleet up to 283 aircraft—but service officials said they think doing so would trim unit costs by as much as $25 million per airplane.
As the Air Force readied for its June 21-22 strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the service was also putting its Agile Combat Employment strategy into action, dispersing combat aircraft and Airmen from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in preparation for a possible Iranian retaliatory attack. Some defense experts say…
