U.S. Aerospace, Inc (USAE)

[ICGGRASSBII]

The Air Force has proposed a meager 16 million dollar budget for the T-X program in 2012. The KAI T-50 will have to cut production costs by 7 million dollars to meet the challenge for an off the shelf product. The costs for an L-15 Hongdu via USAE is about 16.7 million. All available aircraft are joint ventures with foreign entities. This includes BAE, KAI, AVIC and Alenia Aermacchi. More than likely Lockheed has the advantage even though the L-15 is a far superior twin engine design for about 7 million dollars less than the T-50. Still the L-15 may actually make it into the contest considering the T-50 program was subsidized by the Korean government to the tune of 70% funding. In this particular case not one design is at the drawing board and available by a sole US player. It is apparent that UAV's will eventually outdate all piloted aircraft. The Air Force is still mulling over the need for a TX replacement plan. In the meantime foreign Air Forces are already purchasing advance trainers capable of duplicating 4th and 5th generation fighter stresses at 10/3g's giving a four year edge in advance training for their pilots. Still I'm sure we have a work around...