Quote:
Originally Posted by Caltex
holy shit, $1.2 billion. I guess they were training/practicing flying. Still that's a mighty expensive training mission.
|
The costs of the B-2 bomber have been highly distorted by politicians and the media. I know, I worked on the program in the early "black world" years before congress became involved.
Here are a few little known historical facts.
The US government originally proposed the B-1 bomber as a replacement for the aging B-52's in the 1970's but "stealth" technology changed the desires of the military and a RFQ (request for quote) as submitted to the major defense aerospace companies. Lockheed (who was already in the early years of production of the F-117) and Northrop eventually submitted proposals and Northrop won the contract. It included the prototype development of two scale model "proof of concept" airplanes, seven develpoment airplanes and a BAM (basic assumption memo) for the production of 250 airplanes. The B-1A program was ended because it didn't have the stealth characteristics desired by the Air Force.
This was of course "black world" at the time and few even in congress knew of the program. There were huge expenses early on not just in developing the new technology but also the acqusition of facitilities for a black world program. Northrop purchased the former Ford Motor Company facility in Pico Rivera CA, remodeled it and added 180,000 sq/ft for the production shop of the forward center section while balance of the airplane was contracted out predominately to Boeing which manufactured the wings. As with all new enterprises this was a major cost but would have been absorbed by the production run. The facilities, design, development of scale model test airplanes , testing, tooling, planing, security, and start-up costs were in the billions of dollars. All of these expenses have been included in the $1.2 billion price tag of the B-2's.
Northrop, at this time, was working on the program based upon "cost-plus" funding based upon the government contract. Northrop made an offer to the DOD for a fixed price of $154M per airplane (less engines which the Air Force typically supplies) for the production of the B2. Northrop did have two conditions. First was this price excluded the development costs of the two scale model airplanes and the first seven B2's which were also defined as development airplanes. Second was that Northrop was to be allowed to build the balance of 243 airplanes at the most economical rate of productions (i.e. Northrop would build the airplanes and get a check when delivered without a defined rate of production by the government).
Several things then happened that adveresely effected the program both in number of airplanes build and the related cost per airplane
Being a Black World program the American public was unaware of this program our politicians were taking heat for not building the B-1 to replace the B-52's so the "political" decision was made to build 100 B1-B's (a modified version of the original 2 B1-A test aircraft that had not met the original specifications). The budget for the 100 B1-B's was taken from the B2 budget at the cost of 118 B2's reducing the order base of B2's from 250 to 132.
Next the program went "White World" and Congress intervened to greatly reduce the production rate of the B2 basically driving up the costs. Work in the factory almost came to a stand-still while Congress began intervening in the program and the costs related to these delays was huge. Instead of producing airplanes the facilities were almost idle driving up the overhead costs of the program. And, of course, Congress also began reducing the number of airplanes that were to be built while including the program development costs in the price tag of the airplanes.
The development costs related to the technology and testing the POC (proof of concept) should never have been included in the production costs of the B2. Those costs exist whether there is production or not and would not have been that great per airplane had the original BAM for 250 airplanes been followed.
Just a couple more facts. All together 22 B2's have been built plus the two scale model test airplanes. The per airplane costs, which were driven up because of reduced production rates by Congress, for airplanes 8 to 22 which excludes the first 7 full-size test aircraft, was about $500 million each. So of the approximately $42 billion dollars spent on the entire program about $7.5 billion was spent for production and $35 billion was spent on development. Had Congress reduced the number of airplanes to just the seven test airplanes the "reported" cost per airplane would have been $7 billion each or, if Congress had reduced the number of airplanes to just one it would have cost about $29 billion (the actual cost of building the first 7 test airplanes was estimated at about $1 billion each which dropped by 50% on the production airplanes even at the reduced production rates).
If you have followed all of this then let me give you some numbers of what the cost of airplane would or could have been.
The development and production of the first 7 B2's would have been $35 billion.
Had the DOD accepted the Northrop fixed rate offer of $154 million per airplane for the balance of production of 243 production airplanes that would have equaled about $37.5 billion.
The total program costs for 250 B2's would have been $72.5 billion or about
$290 million per airplane including ALL development costs.
Instead of spending $72.5 billion for 250 B2's, because of political intervention, we spent $42 billion for 22.
So when people talk about the costs of a B2 bomber remember that the outrageous cost is not due to the airplane so much as it is a reflection of your elected representatives mismanagement of the program. It wasn't private industry that drove up the costs it
was the government that drove up the cost per airplane.
Linear Mode
