But the DoD’s most ambitious weapon the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter- continues to be plagued by growing costs and operational challenges. The military plans to fly the jet less often even as the program price balloons past $2 trillion despite its critical nature in meeting U.S. national security objectives.
In March, the F-35 passed the milestone of “full-rate production,” a stage where development is considered reliable enough to ramp up production. But the Air Force, Marines, and Navy-the main F-35 operators-plan to scale back its use. The latest paradox comes after endless delays in modernization and a mushrooming cost of operations.
The DoD is spending $16.5 billion to further enhance the F-35’s capabilities through a modernization effort, including hardware and software upgrades such as radar improvements and collision avoidance. Those upgrades have been delayed by instability issues in the software. The modernization of the fighter jet’s engine and thermal management system has been challenging due to the military’s inability to define fully the power and cooling requirements that will be needed to support future capabilities. Delays in these modernizations have dramatically increased the costs of the program.
Despite achieving full-rate production, the F-35 program is still experiencing technical risks that further raise costs. Although there were some recommendations to fix these problems, DoD has only partially implemented some of them.
Operation and sustainment costs of the F-35 have likewise increasingly surged from $1.1 trillion in 2018 to $1.58 trillion in 2023, or a 44 percent increase. This is partly due to the extension of the aircraft’s service life from 2077 to 2088. Military services, although trying to decrease the sustainment costs through better reliability and maintainability of parts, for instance, have reduced their projected annual flying times by 19 percent for the Air Force and 45 percent for the Navy. The reduction in flying hours is expected to help achieve the targets on affordability.
However significant hurdles remain for the F-35 program to overcome. The repair time has been slow, leading to a growing backlog of components that need repair and reducing the number of jets available for missions at any given time. Most of what’s at stake, particularly, is that the F-35 be as affordable as possible and that it be on hand when the military needs it.
Operational challenges for the F-35 are further exacerbated by structural and software problems. This has caused issues with restrictions on how long it can stay at peak performance, in maneuverability, and with stealth capability. The Air Force’s variant of the F-35A also has problems with its machine gun accuracy. Most notoriously, a so-called brain of the F-35 software suite entitled the Autonomic Logistics Information System, or ALIS, has been all but replaced because of persistent problems; however, its replacement, the Operational Data Integrated Network, or ODIN, also took longer than expected.
The Gen III helmet, designed to integrate the pilot more into the jet, has faced information glitches and was implicated in a crash in 2020. Unit costs for the F-35s-the cost of the F-35s themselves, plus ancillary costs such as engines, electronics, and gun pods-is $110.3 million for the F-35A, $135.8 million for the F-35B, and $117.3 million for the F-35C. With a total life cycle cost to operate and sustain the aircraft over its 66-year life cycle, it reaches nearly $1.3 trillion, making it the most expensive weapon system in U.S. history.
The U.S. Air Force has scaled back its F-35 purchases due to continued delays in the latest upgrades to the aircraft. The service had planned to buy 48 F-35As in fiscal 2025 but cut that to 42 due to problems with the TR-3 upgrades. The TR-3 is a package of hardware and software upgrades necessary for the wider Block 4 upgrades, set to increase the aircraft’s capabilities, but is nearing a year behind schedule. The delay has compelled the Pentagon to stop accepting delivery of new F-35s until upgrades are complete.
Nevertheless, despite these challenges, the Air Force still committed to buying a total of 1,763 F-35s. The service plans to ramp up purchases in the coming years-42 jets in fiscal 2026, and 47 each in fiscal 2027 and 2028. It is expected that improvements will be visible in system stability, radar, and video capability in TR-3, which Lockheed Martin is still working on.
Rep. Rob Wittman, chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces, has said he’s troubled by the delays, adding that long-term solutions need to be provided so that the F-35 program will be successful.