F-35 costs double estimate

ABC News:

The Pentagon announced today that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has experienced significant cost overruns that have almost doubled the estimated cost per aircraft beyond original projections made by Lockheed Martin back in 2001. The Pentagon will now conduct a congressionally-mandated review of the program’s future, but despite Pentagon and congressional concern about the cost overruns, it’s highly likely the program will continue forward.

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The Pentagon says Lockheed Martin originally projected, back in 2001, that each aircraft would cost $50.2 million. DOD officials told Congress today that it now believes each plane could cost almost double that, between $80 and $95 million dollars each in 2002 dollars. That’s a 60 to 90 percent increase. Adjust those numbers for inflation and the actual cost for each plane rises to between $95 and $113 million. Top scale, that would make it a 125 percent increase over the original cost estimate.

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This is not good news for the US or its allies who are counting on the F-35. It is looking like the projected cost savings over the F-22 are illusory.