Last week, the Norwegian daily Bergen Tidende, published an article on the additional costs of the F35 program which seems to be causing a lot of noise in Oslo. Indeed, according to this article, the price of the program increased from 81,6 billion crowns (€8,16 billion) to more than 97,6 billion today (€9,76 billion), an increase of almost 20% of 16 billion crowns, €1,6 billion, in just 7 years. This additional cost would be based on variations in the dollar exchange rate as well as on the maintenance and upgrade costs of the devices, of which Norway ordered 52 copies, and received 9.
In a country like Norway, where public opinion has very significant power, this information did not remain without consequences. Thus, the country's government has mandated a group of experts of 10 people, supported by 30 specialists, to carry out a complete study of the costs of the F35, and the impact of possible additional costs on the country's budget. This study would represent nearly 10.000 hours of work according to a specialist on the subject, interviewed by local media.
It is more than surprising that such an initiative has not already been taken by other customers of the American fighter. If theF35 acquisition prices continue to fall, at least for the classic A version, the price per flight hour remains dramatically high. L'US Air Force values ​​it today at $35.000 , while the DoD and the Pentagon estimate that this cost will not be able to go below $25.000 in the next 5 years. In addition, the evolutions of versions of the F35 already delivered add significant additional costs to the final bill of the States, knowing that the American manufacturer has decided to deliver devices in incomplete standard to customers, while waiting for the emergence of the required technological solutions. , so as not to slow down the production chain. Therefore, the devices that come off the assembly lines today will soon have to undergo expensive updates costing several million dollars to have all the planned functionalities.
Depending on the result of the Norwegian study, the European manufacturers, Airbus, Dassault and Saab, would therefore be entitled to take to court the decisions of European leaders in favor of the F35, claiming biased competition by the American manufacturer, by hiding the real costs of its devices. This study will also most likely be of interest to governments Swiss et Finnish, who were offered the F35A in competitions aimed at modernizing their respective fighter fleets.
It will be necessary, at some point, for the truth of the costs of ownership and use of the American plane to be published in broad daylight, and for Europeans to be informed of the expenses made for this plane, of which performance is always questionable.