>>8779437It's been a long time since either the F16 or -18 cost less then 50 million a pop, when alls said and done, and neither have any room for growth. Boeings efforts not withstanding, the rhino can't do everything on it's own, and the F-16 has just plum run out of room to put shit. To get either aircraft up to the same sort of tricks the F-35 has you'd need to hang conformal tanks, pods and all sorts of expensive upgrades. Meanwhile the F-35 is clean, stealthy and has plenty of room for growth. If you consider the future costs, and not just the current list prices, the F-35 is the only real option for the west. High visibility 4th gen airframes just aren't going to cut it anymore.
The west is long overdo for a new lightweight airframe. Whether the F-35 is ideal is, of course, a debate, but no one should be surprised it's expensive. Every successive generation of aircraft has been more expensive then the last. That's just how this stuff works. The costs of developing three independent and purpose made aircraft would have been even more ludicrous, even if they resulted in better designs.
600 F22's was never going to happen, and no one really expected 3000 F-35's either.