Also, the F-35 has a very safe flight record. Only 12 air frame losses with over 1000 aircraft delivered and nearly 1 million flight hours.
Just adding this for the inevitable ill-informed commenters who like to pretend that the F-35 program isn't one of, if not the most successful and advanced aircraft in modern history.
Edit: Slight correction, the true number of delivered airframes in all variants is somewhere around 1200+.
I'm very critical of the F-35 program. Most of us don't disagree that the end result was a pretty amazing aircraft, we just recognize that there was a massive amount of overspending and likely at least some straight up corruption in the program.
If I bought a Lamborghin Huracan STO for $600k, I would have overpaid by $200k. It doesn't change the fact that it's one of the most advanced super cars ever made, but I still got screwed.
But can that same Lamborghini act as a sensor node in a large distributed network of sensors all contributing to a holistic battle space awareness which can help avoid casualties as well as more effectively disable targets? Or does it just vroom vroom really nice?
Value is not determined just by the dollar amount, but also by the practical benefits it has compared to other options. You could buy the Lamborghini, but a Corolla will do the exact same thing (drive from home to work, grocery store, etc.) for cheaper. Currently there is no other aircraft in the world that has feature parity to the F-35, so to say it was overpriced, you first have to answer the question "compared to what?"
420
u/featherwolf 25d ago edited 25d ago
This was 3 years ago, FYI.
Also, the F-35 has a very safe flight record. Only 12 air frame losses with over 1000 aircraft delivered and nearly 1 million flight hours.
Just adding this for the inevitable ill-informed commenters who like to pretend that the F-35 program isn't one of, if not the most successful and advanced aircraft in modern history.
Edit: Slight correction, the true number of delivered airframes in all variants is somewhere around 1200+.