[sci.military] The A-12

gwh%tornado.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) (01/19/90)

From: gwh%tornado.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert)
Anyone else notice the leak of the unit cost of the A-12 ATA plane?
The navy accidentally told congress the unit cost [100.3 million per,
if i recall right] of these new planes.  They wanted this for the 
[if i got it right] _production_ of the plane...  did i miss the 
prototype stage?  or was my source on what the navy said incorrect?

PS:  Bet on the Locheed team's ATF contender to win the Air Force
ATF contract.


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George William Herbert |  UCB Naval Architecture [On schedule? at UCB? Yes!]
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gwh@ocf.berkeley.edu       ||||||||| "And What if I Don't?"  "Then, You Die, 
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wjh@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (william.j.hery) (01/24/90)

From: wjh@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (william.j.hery)

In article <13314@cbnews.ATT.COM> gwh%tornado.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) writes:

>Anyone else notice the leak of the unit cost of the A-12 ATA plane?
>The navy accidentally told congress the unit cost [100.3 million per,
>if i recall right] of these new planes.  They wanted this for the 
>[if i got it right] _production_ of the plane...  did i miss the 
>prototype stage?  or was my source on what the navy said incorrect?

Sounds much too high for "production" (delivered?) cost. Maybe Life
Cycle Cost (plane, support, mainenance, fuel, etc. over the life of
the fleet disocunted back to a single point in time). Was your source
a public source, and if so can you cite it? What year dollars?

Depending on the point someone wants to make, a good accountant can
legitimately get an order of magnitude difference between two costs for
the same aircraft by going with the incremental production cost of a
single additional aircraft discounted back to the initial year of the
development program in that year's dollars (for the low cost), or full
life cycle cost, including R&D, one time costs of setting up production
lines and support systems, maintenance, fuel, etc. discounted to the
year the first aircraft is delivered.

>PS:  Bet on the Locheed team's ATF contender to win the Air Force
>ATF contract.

Any particular reason why? Airframe? Avionics? Cost? Polotics? (not
necessarily listed in the expected order of importance to the decision
makers -:)) No classified or competition sensitice information please.

Bill Hery
AT&T Bell Labs
201-386-2362
att!wayback!wjh
wjh@wayback.att.COM