F-35 Program Costs

It is 1.5 trillion OVER SEVENTY YEARS (in 2020 dollars) for every cost associated with the plane. That number includes design and manufacturing, fuel, munitions, maintenance and every other operational cost over the lifetime of the program. The plane is superior to anything else in the sky except possibly the gold-plated F-22 (and it is a hell of a lot cheaper than an F-22.) Sunk cost indeed...

It’s cause A10’s are cheap and F-35’s are expensive. Same reason why the SR-71 was killed (10 planes to own the sky and any adversary vs an order for hundreds).

Or that F-35 failed its goals. Double the price. 50% more expensive than estimated operational cost. Its 3x the price to operate than a F16. Planes are obsolete technologies, should have invested in drones/loitering munitions. In 10 years, its all going to be drones.

Not for the price. $1 trillion is a really step price tag for a "decent aircraft". As for the sensor package and stealth, I'm not entirely sure that suitable upgrades to the F-16 and F-18 series wouldn't have been a better option. Besides, for $1trillion, it should be possible to develop three or four different aircraft with specialist capabilities and use them together.

They are not low cost, they cost nearly as much as an F35.

The cost isn't incredibly high.There's no scenario where the US builds an advanced manned fighter or bomber of any type where it doesn't cost ~$75 million plus per unit (Russia's MiG-35 will cost them at least $80-$100m in total lifetime costs per unit for example; the Chinese Chengdu J-20 is going to be $150-$200m lifetime total cost per unit or more). And then throw in the lifetime maintenance costs. Now build two thousand of them or more, and there you go, right back at

I see your 2 billion for a carrier and raise you $1 trillion for the F35https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/magazine/f35-joint-strike...

We had a specialized plane, the F22- but it cost $150M each and people thought "that's crazy" so they said: let's save money by building a new plane in bulk that can be customized for each branch! So while the costs upfront were/are high, in the end once we start stamping them out in bulk the price per place will be much lower.And here we are. Intentions were good, execution has been bad.

The military is paying for both software and hardware. Recent dod programs have had outrageous unit costs because of this. There will probably only be 1-2k F-35s ever produced, but the DoD had to pay for sensor fusion software, avionics, new UI, targeting software, and weapons integration software. All of which must be guaranteed to work in any environment for the next 30 years. Same thing happens with modern missiles.

Agreed on the stealth aspect. But it seems a reasonable data point to consider. Granted, it would be fairer to analyze how much of the program cost is tied to the air frame and stealth vs the avionics and weapons systems. When I hear figures of over $1 trillion in program cost, I think "Wow, you could get 10,000 new F18s for that price! What would 10,000 F18s do against a couple hundred F35s!" I do think we would got more for our money if we took more iterative approached to military t