Joint spending failures: Joint Strike Fighter program's fiscal, technical, and build up challenges

This research analyzes the fiscal costs and lifecycle costs of the F-35 and of Joint Strike Fighter program. This program has developed the most advanced aircraft in the world regarding stealth and technological capabilities. However, the lack of an agreed fiscal model to properly budget the program between the United States government and Lockheed Martin has driven the costs of the program well over one to two trillion dollars, with a five hundred-billion-dollar margin of error in calculating lifecycle costs. The technical shortcomings in logistical management and available manpower made Lockheed Martin and the Department of Defense underestimate the overall long-term costs of the program. With the reliance on the F-35 as the only option for the United States military moving forward in joint service air defense, replacing the F-35 is impossible and only supplementing future purchases with improved existing designs of the F-18E/F and drone seems to be the way forward in curving the rising costs. Due to these factors, Joint Strike Fighter program and the F-35 has become the most expensive military megaproject in the world.