Washington September 28 2022: The Pentagon’s latest estimated cost to develop and procure the F-35 fighter jet, the world’s most expensive weapons program, has edged up to $412 billion from $398 billion, according to the Defense Department’s latest program report.
The $398 billion estimate held steady for several years before the latest 3.5% increase, outlined in the Defense Department’s new Selected Acquisition Report on major weapons.
The $14 billion projected increase is a relatively modest bump for a program with a record of soaring costs and development setbacks. Yet the increase alone approaches the $16 billion the US will have committed for security assistance to Ukraine from January 2021 through the latest installment to be announced on Wednesday.
The F-35’s expected cost was $233 billion when Lockheed Martin Corp. won the contract to develop and build the fleet in 2001.
The updated estimate covers 2,470 planned planes for the US armed forces, including 14 test aircraft, but not about 940 aircraft that may be sold to 16 other countries.
The Selected Acquisition Report, issued Friday, doesn’t explain the reasons for the F-35’s $14 billion increase. Russell Goemaere, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s F-35 office, attributed the new $412 billion estimate to three more years of research-and-development spending than projected in the previous estimate. Also, he said in a statement, the increase incorporated the latest actual contract costs in place of estimates as well as contract negotiation data, inflation and changes in planned aircraft quantities.
The $412 billion estimate to develop and build the US fleet doesn’t include the long-term cost of operating and maintaining it. That’s still estimated at almost $1.3 trillion, according to the new acquisition report. The Pentagon and Lockheed have been working to reduce that amount, and the report forecasts that the $1.3 trillion will cover costs through 2088, 11 years longer than previously predicted by the Defense Department’s independent cost estimate office.
Unlike previous versions of the annual Special Acquisition Report mandated by Congress, the 23-page document doesn’t break down production costs between Lockheed, which builds the F-35’s airframe, and Raytheon Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney unit, which produces the engine.
The congressionally mandated document suggested in a footnote that the number of F-35s in the next budget may be reduced. “Ongoing negotiations” for contracts of Lots 15 through 17 and the cost to install a crucial new hardware and software upgrade have “the potential to influence” the budget request for 2024 and over the next five years, according to the report.
