Task & Purpose: The ‘Most Powerful’ Helicopter Ever Fielded By The US Is Also The Most Expensive
The CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopter is on track to enter arsenals around the world within the next few years — but it’ll cost militaries a pretty penny.
Marine Corps officials announced early this month that the CH-53K was on track to enter service sometime in 2019 as a replacement for the existing CH-53 Echo fleet. Weeks later, manufacturer Sikorsky debuted the CH-53K at a German air show in a move that, per Aviation Week, signals that the defense contractor is “preparing to fight for export orders.” Both are signs of the King Stallion’s imminent arrival downrange after more than a decade in development.
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WNU Editor: At around $150 million per copy .... it better be as good as they say it is.
5 comments:
This puppy better not only be able to lift stuff but be stealthy superfast low carbon emissions and pimped as f*ck.
Reality is: it can lift stuff. For 150 million a piece. Does this make sense? I'm not saying it's not great to be able to lift 27,000lbs..but not for that price tag. This is INSANE. It would almost be worth its weight in gold.
1 ton of gold is $64 million. Empty weight of that chopper is 15 tons. While I was half joking it's not that far off. (It's about 10% of its weight in gold).. this is still insane. Absolutely insane. We need to replace lifting technology ASAP. You cannot tell me this cannot be done more cheaply. The article mentions that the unit priece might even go up. This kind of unwise spending must be stopped ffs! It must be possible to use cheaper technologies. That's why we have DARPA and other units. Ffs. Makes me furious.
Put it differently, each chopper is the equivalent of 2.25-2.5 tons of gold.. so yeah 10% is too little. .it's up to 20% of its weight in gold
Anon, agreed. Having grown up with 5 cent candy bars and 10 cent soda pop, these costs are simply unfathomable.
Roger
Agreed with all of the above. As I have pointed out here and elsewhere how much a country spends on its military is the least important stat when comparing how their militaries stack up against each other. For example, the Russian and Chinese militaries are every bit as capable and superior in many ways to the US militaries yet they only spend a fraction of what America spends on their militaries. There simply has to be a less expensive way to get things like this done.
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