I stand corrected, apologies.
No problem.
But still, it'll require the same, if not more that sum, if it's to not only be in serial production and but to stand its ground against the fifth gen aircraft, in less than twenty years.
Plus, the labour cost would be a minor factor in cutting-edge tech development,
Let me unpack that little bit.
Afaik, The development budget is equivalent to $ 9-10 billions. And if the engine development cost is equivalent to $ 5 billions, in total it would be around 15 billions. (Keep in mind we are talking about direct exchange rate here, not PPP)
So, almost half of JSF development cost.
Labour cost should make a difference in the sesne that, TAI engineers probably on avarage does not need to get paid as high as Lockheed engineers.
But mostly, it is about PPP as a whole.
i assume TUSAS pays it's engineers in Lira, not in USD. But more importantly, (i assume) all the local subcontractor companies that are involved in the TFX project get paid by the state/TAI in local currency. In addition to that, cost of all the locally produced raw materials/parts will also come into the equation.
In this case, PPP would be considerably more accurate when estimating TFX actual development cost.
and it's offset wildly by the prior experience they had with the F-22 and such.
Maybe not as much as it seems at first glance.
Let me explain why, when LM developed F/A-22 as the first true 5th gen air dominance fighter, they had to innovate lot of concepts and technologies (from scratch in the literal snese) that were unheard of before.
Which was much harder as well as costlier Then using follow on same proven design with modifications (like TFX or KFX). In addition to that, they used three decades old design, manufacturing and testing techniques and processes.
However, today much more advanced yet efficient and less costly design processes (like new generation softwares) are available.
Same is true for manufacturing and testing processes. We have now additive manufacturing technology, digital twin technology, etc available.
Just for one example, TAI literally 3D printed TFX's bulkhead with $ 250k printer instead of using costly and super heavy hydraulic forging presses. (Probbaly only 5/6 countries has that technology in the world, but you can commercially buy that same 3d printer that TAI bought)
In a nutshell, all of this considerably reduces the cost.
And LM being a private company is a additional factor to the increased cost, could you elaborate further if you don't mind my ignorance?
Tbh, in this matter I am only relying on 'general wisdom'
I don't have sufficient info to specifically unpack it in details. However, there are other respected forum members here who probably could help us.