U.S. Military Plans for F-35 Stealth Fighters Set Incur $21-40 billion Losses

U.S. Navy vice admiral Mat Winter, executive officer for the F-35 program fighter program, recently revealed that the Air Force was considering cancelling upgrades for 108 of the first F-35 fighters which entered service. The Navy and Marine Corps, with a further 81 early model F-35s requiring similar upgrades to be considered fit for combat, would likely follow suite if the Air Force made this decision. These troubled early fighters require extensive software and other upgrades to be combat capable, and the diversion of funds for such an expenditure would threaten the military's plans to expand production. The result is that 189 F-35 fighters, some of the most expensive multirole fighters in the world, might permanently remain unready for combat as the services would prefer to invest in new fighters. The collective cost of these early fighters is almost $40 billion, double the annual defence budgets of North Korea, Iran and Syria combined, all of which would be wasted should the military follow through.