The British Ministry of Defense will suffer heavy costs due to the operation of American fifth-generation F-35B stealth fighters. This was stated in an interview with journalists by the former head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the country, General Richard Dannatt.
According to Dannat, one fighter costs 80 million pounds (8.2 billion rubles), and an hour of its operation will cost London 90 thousand pounds (9.2 million rubles).
"The cost of their (fighters.- Ed.) is so high that even the US Air Force is beginning to look for a cheaper combat aircraft, " the military agency The Mirror quotes on March 13.
He also said that such" capital "spending by the UK on F-35B fighter jets is a" real pressing issue."
Dannatt believes that such spending will "distort the defense budget for decades", and the losers will be the British Ground Forces.
In June 2019, it became known that the American fifth-generation F-35 fighters have a number of significant shortcomings, because of which the aircraft risk not being able to cope with combat tasks. We are talking about the F-35B and F-35C models designed for the Navy and Marine Corps.
In early June, Business Insider called the F-35 the worst example of US weapons. The reason was the numerous technical and production flaws of the aircraft, problems with reliability, as well as its huge cost.