Hey Ive got a 20 th self obtained Keldeo OTGF <| sep |> I don ' t think you can definitively say the F 35 A is currently cheaper than the SuperHornet as yet . Flyaway cost aside , in total life cycle costs there ' s a lot in the F 35 that is still very much projection . As just a component of that , right now the operating costs per hour appear sky high with the F 35 . Projected to come down significantly , but that ' s where a potential 5 year competition could be as much about observing whether that actually starts to happen or not . Fully committing to an F 35 buy at this point is pretty much a no turning back proposition . You have to account for a whack of infrastructure spending that would go along with that essentially standing up a brand new capability . There ' s no going back on that kind of substantial investment . Whereas they seem to be banking heavily on the idea of comparatively minimal transitioninfrastructure costs in integrating these 18 SuperHornets as very long time operators of legacy Hornets . As well as very predictable operating costs . While also keeping a foot in the door of FA 18 production to keep that door from completely slamming shut . There are elements to the Liberals position on this which have come across as stubborn and biased toward the SuperHornet . but this to me , comes across as a step back to evaluate over the next few years whether they might be wrong on the F 35 , while keeping their options open . They may still make a stubborn decision in the end anyway , but they have a majority government mandate they could have very easily spent a year running a kangaroo court competition , announced the FA 18 the winner and started to order a whole fleet of them as a permanent measure . but they didn ' t . Doesn ' t make sense to me to tiptoe into this , if as you suggest . they ' re completely and totally dead set on SuperHornets and too proud to ever potentially admit they were wrong .