F-35 Lightning II

Name: F-35 Lightning II acquisition cost growth
Creator: Aous Abdo
License: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

F-35 · DoD · Lockheed Martin

+108% $233.0B (2001) → $485.2B (2023)

F-35 Lightning II: cost trajectory from $233.0B in 2001 to $485.2B in 2023, +108% growth.

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Baseline

$233.0B (2001)

Current estimate

$485.2B (2023)

Cost growth

+108%

Units

2852 → 2470

Quantity change

−13%

Unit-cost change

+140%

IOC

2012 (planned) → 2015 (USMC)

Schedule slip

+3 yr

Cost basis

Confidence

high · reconciled

+108% (then-year). Quantity cut 2,852 → 2,470, so per-unit growth exceeds total growth. It breached Nunn-McCurdy (a 2010 critical breach). Excludes ~$1.58T life-cycle O&S.

Documented events

2010Nunn-McCurdy breach

Source: GAO-25-107632 (Sep 2025), Table 1; Dec 2023 F-35 Modernized SAR. All then-year $. Reaffirmed ~$485B in GAO-26-108457 (Jul 2026) — no newer estimate filed.

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Drift — an independent project by Aous Abdo, built from public GAO, CRS and DoD sources. Cost growth has many causes; a larger number is not by itself evidence of mismanagement. How this is built · Explore the data →