Originally Posted by UAL T38 Phlyer

AZ:

Up through about 4th-gen fighters, the navigation system, radar, RWR (Radar Warning Receiver; the thing that tells you if someone is looking at you or shooting a radar-shot at you), weapons (bombs, missiles, gun, targetting pod) and countermeasures (chaff, flares, jamming pods) were each developed separately, and mounted in the aircraft independently.

The system integrator was the fighter pilot.

Late-model F-16s, F-15s, and F-18s have this to a degree through (as I understand it) add-on systems, such as tactical data-link.

Starting with the F-22 for us, they have attempted to merge all of these features into one system. No more looking at multiple scopes to see radar, navigation, and threats....they are all on one display. Scopes---how open-cockpit biplane-ish. Helmet-mounted sight. Weapons envelopes, too (theirs and yours). Need defensive measures? It does it for you, or shows you what it can do.

This means the manufacturers of all these components have to work with each other to make the systems compatible. It also means the airframe must have a specific type of electrical/data network to connect the computers. All that "cooperation" takes time, effort, delays....and more money.

You could put new stuff like this in older jets, but would cost about as much as the F-35. Why?

The two most expensive components in a jet aircraft are the engines and avionics. It used to be that engines were more expensive...now, I believe that is reversed.

As to why new aircraft cost so much? Once they have the contract, is there any incentive to make it cheaper, or finish them quickly? The sooner the contract is finished, the sooner the manufacturer starts laying-off the engineers and technicians (the aerospace industry has been described as a high-tech migrant worker industry---and I've seen it to be true). And as was a pet-peeve of John Boyd, Generals love to add one more gizmo to a new jet to give it one more capability. But, in so doing, they make it heavier, lower performance....and more costly.