Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The Marines' CH-53K King Stallion Helicopter Is On Track To Be More Expensive Than An F-35A Joint Strike Fighter In Unit Cost

© YouTube/Sikorsky/arronlee33

DoD Buzz: Marines’ CH-53K King Stallion Set to Become World’s Most Expensive Helicopter

The Marine Corps’ new CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopter is on track to surpass the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter in unit cost, a lawmaker said this month.

The still-in-development King Stallion is designed to replace the Marines’ CH-53E Super Stallion choppers, which are reaching the end of their service lives. But while Super Stallions cost about $24 million apiece, or $41 million in current dollars, the Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin King Stallion began with a per-unit price tag of about $95 million — and there are indications it could rise further.

Read more ....

Update #1: U.S. Marine Corps CH-53K Cost Balloons By 22% (Aviation Week)
Update #2: US Marines' New Chopper to Be More Expensive Than F-35 Disaster (Sputnik)

WNU Editor: A $100 million plus helicopter for the Marines?!?!?! adn what makes it worse is that  the Marine Corp is wondering why they do not have enough funds to buy ground vehicles .... Lawmaker Worries Marine Corps Investing Too Heavily In Aviation Over Ground Vehicles (USNI News).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can anyone say black budget.

Anonymous said...

This is completely mad. Who authorised a $95mn helicopter before the price hike anyways? You can have the biggest budget in the world, but if you don't know to set priorities on what to spend you are just losing despite of all the money..

So in all seriousness, why 100+mn for a helicopter and then you get 200 of those. .OK sure it helps that it can lift heavy stuff (as in the name) but not for 100mn wtf..

fazman said...

And they will got shot the hell down by a cheap manpad.