into the wide blue yonder

Photo montage: Michael Hale (Image sources available on request)

"On 16 July 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government announced that it would buy 65 F-35s to replace the existing 80 McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornets for CAN$16 billion  [my emphasis] with all ancillary costs included) with deliveries planned for 2016. The intention to sign a future sole-sourced, untendered contract and the government's refusal to provide detailed costing became one of the major causes of the finding of contempt of Parliament and the subsequent defeat of the Conservative government through a non-confidence vote on 25 March 2011." — Wikipedia
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"Canada significantly overpaid for new fighter jets jointly developed with the United States and its allies, a parliamentary watchdog said Thursday. Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page said in a report Ottawa should expect to doll out as much as CAN$29.3 billion [my emphasis] (US$30 billion) for the purchase and maintenance of 65 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters over 30 years.
     The estimate is nearly double the amount suggested by the government, and opposition parties pounced on the report to criticize Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives." — Defense Talk
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"Fiction #3: The F-35s will cost $75 million each.
Reality:  Mike Sullivan, a Director in the U.S. Government Accountability Office, recently told CBC that the $75 million (CAD) per fighter jet estimate frequently cited by the Conservatives is “not a number that I am familiar with at all.”  A report from Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Office also confirms that, “a figure of $75 million does not match other data points in the public domain.” Mr. Sullivan estimates that for the F-35 A variant Canada will pay “somewhere between $110 and $115 million” (USD) per fighter jet – an assessment in line with what other countries are estimating. [...]
      "Meanwhile, Canadians have no details about the engines of Canada’s F-35s, who will provide them, or how much they will cost (“Engines not included in Canada’s $29B fighter jet deal,” [my emphasis] Postmedia News, April 16, 2011).  In the U.S., the F-35 engine is purchased through a separate contract directly with Pratt and Whitney.  The F-35 engine contract will cost the United States an estimated $75 billion (USD), and is experiencing development cost overruns of $3.4 billion.  (“U.S. “not happy” with F-35 engine cost overruns,” Reuters, April 13, 2011)."Liberal.ca
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"Total costs on the first three production contracts for the new radar-evading warplane and its primary engine overshot their targets by 11 to 15 percent, said Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon's F-35 program office.
     The Pentagon has restructured the $382 billion program twice in two years to get a grip on nagging technical issues and repeated cost overruns. [...]
     The fourth production contract included 11 Air Force variants at $111.6 million each, excluding the engine [my emphasis]; 17 short takeoff, vertical landing versions of the F-35, priced at $109.4 million; and four Navy variant planes, to be used aboard large aircraft carriers, which would cost $142.9 million each." —Reuters
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