The budget should not have increased, the number of jets being produced should have decreased.
Lockheed Martin was counting on the Joint Strike Fighter for it's income. It was looking to more than just the jet order from the USA. The USA cannot continue to singularly support the F-35 either.
When R&D hasn't worked for thirteen years, nearly a generation, it is time to take a different direction.
July 09, 2012...The summary (click here) uses the wrong baseline. As F-35 observers know and as the table shows, the cost documentation of the F-35 program started in 2001, not 2007. There has been a lot more cost growth than the “$117.2 billion (42 percent)” stated.
Set in 2001, the total acquisition cost of the F-35 was to be $233.0 billion. Compare that to the current estimate of $395.7 billion: cost growth has been $162.7 billion, or 70%: a lot more than what GAO stated in its summary.
However, the original $233 billion was supposed to buy 2,866 aircraft, not the 2,457 currently planned: making it $162 billion, or 70%, more for 409, or 14%, fewer aircraft. Adjusting for the shrinkage in the fleet, I calculate the cost growth for a fleet of 2,457 aircraft to be $190.8 billion, or 93%.
The cost of the program has almost doubled over the original baseline; it is not an increase of 42%....
