Service optimistic on affordable F-35

摘要

Things are starting to look up for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and if the trend holds, by 2019 the programme will deliver a "fifth-generation aircraft at fourth-generation prices," says programme executive officer Lt Gen Christopher Bogdan. While acquisition costs have to be held in check, the aircraft will also have to be affordable, and Bogdan says the JSF programme is doing everything it can to drive cost down. Estimated sustain-ment costs over the lifetime of the programme have dropped from a 2010 projection of $1.1 trillion to $857 billion, with the new figure based on real world data from F-35 operations and more operationally-representative assumptions about the use of the aircraft.