F-35 program timelines and costs continue to slide dangerously across the Atlantic

Once again, a report from the GAO warns of the cost increases of the F-35 program in recent years, as well as the deadlines which slide inexorably.

For about ten years now, each year, the US Government Accountability Office, or GAO, the American equivalent of the Court of Auditors, draws up a report worried about budgetary excesses surrounding the Joint Strike Fighter program and the F-35 fighter aircraft.

Thus, on numerous occasions, GAO experts have pointed very clear malfunctions concerning this program, which obviously benefits from privileges and significant support to circumvent the budgetary management rules established by the American Congress.

This year, the new report was no exception to the rule, pointing in particular to a further increase in the program aimed at bringing the Lockheed-Martin fighter to the Block 4 standard, the first standard expected to reach full operational capability in the coming years.

Indeed, according to the GAO report, the costs of the F-35 program to design and deploy this new standard once again increased during the year by $1,4 billion, to reach 16,5, $XNUMX billion, more than twice the amount invested by Berlin, Madrid and Paris to study and design the FCAS program demonstrator.

The cumulative increase, compared to the first estimates surrounding this 2018 standard, now reaches 55%, having increased from $10,6 to $16,5 billion in 5 years, which, in normal times, would have had to initiate a Nunn-McCurdy regulatory procedure and bring the Secretary of Defense before Congress to avoid the end of the program.

The fact, and as has been the case with all elements of the F-35 program for years, these programs are considered subsets of the main program, so as to bring back the increases which now exceed $183 billion then that the delays have, for their part, slipped by 10 years, in an iterative and non-cumulative manner vis-à-vis the program as a whole and its $500 billion already invested.

This form made it possible to reduce the perceived budgetary drift, and thus avoid the regulation of Congress. Note that these costs are then passed on to the users, i.e. the US armies, but also foreign operators of the device.

The rest of this article is for subscribers only

The Classic subscriptions provide access to
all articles without advertising, starting at € 1,99.

Newsletter subscription