F-35A Drops Below $100M; Trump Pentagon Trumpets Jobs « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary
WASHINGTON: While President Trump has not yet “saved” American taxpayers “billions of dollars” on the F-35 program as his spokesman claimed recently, today’s deal for 90 planes pushes the average cost of an F-35A below $100 million per plane for the first time.
Plane maker Lockheed Martin has promised the F-35A will drop below $85 million by 2019. And the leader of the F-35 Joint Program Office, Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, has promised it will hit between $80 million and $85 million for the plane and its engines. The engines are technically a separate program. The latest costs include the engine and assorted other costs.
LRIP 10 – F-35 Costs:
F-35A: $94.6 million
F-35B: $122.8 million
F-35C $121.8 million
The company says in a statement that the increase in production this marks, “enables us to reduce costs by taking advantage of economies of scale and production efficiencies.” For those who haven’t been reading us regularly, the statement also says that the president’s “personal involvement in the F-35 program accelerated the negotiations and sharpened our focus on driving down the price.” However, Bogdan deserves the credit for bringing the price down and for having kept sharp the government’s focus on both price and quality.
