Is the F-35 Stealth Fighter Set to Triumpth Over Its Greatest Foe (Not China)?
James Mugg
Security,
Cost is the real enemy...
For the past few years, Andrew Davies has examined the annual USAF budget projections for the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter (most recently here). The F-35A will be the most numerous of the three variants of the joint strike fighter, and it’s the model Australia has committed to acquiring. The projected cost and production numbers of the A model have continued to stabilize since the 2012 program re-baselining, and we decided to see if the other two variants exhibited similar trends. The answer is yes, but the journey has been an interesting one.
The F-35B is the USMC variant, equipped with a vertical lift engine to allow deployment from amphibious ships. Italy and the UK are currently the only two foreign buyers of the F-35B, and USMC declared initial operating capability (IOC) last year. The F-35C has larger, foldable wings and is equipped for the stress of arrested landings on carriers. The USN is its only customer and is aiming for IOC in 2018.
The data on both those more specialized variants indicates a more turbulent history than that of the A model—shedding some light on the pitfalls of joint-service platform development—but has stabilized in recent years.
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