Planes Aren’t Cheap: The F-35 Lightning II

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Sean D. Smith
  • Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  The newest American fighter jet is the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. A product of the Joint Strike Fighter program, the F-35 is a multipurpose aircraft that's been in development for over a decade.

In the media, the cutting-edge technology and air superiority potentially brought to the table by the F-35 have been overshadowed by the difficulties of getting it into service. Obstacles to the F-35 program have been political, economic, and it was even pushed back because in 2007 and 2008, foreign intelligence services may have downloaded information that could compromise the jet.

Many of the F-35's troubles stem from its extremely high costs, which have repeatedly put the program in jeopardy, and were exacerbated by the budget sequestration in 2013.

The F-35 comes in multiple variations intended for different combat missions, and the United States Marine Corps brought the F-35B into service this year. The Air Force and Navy are expected to adopt the F-35A and F-35C in 2016 and 2018 respectively.

More than one trillion dollars have been spent on the F-35 program. Here are some of the things that money buys: 

The F-35 features general improvements over previous generations of fighter aircraft , but its most notable features are mostly in its electronics, such as increased data speeds and information gathering systems. Substantial emphasis has been put into increasing the pilot's situational awareness, with a touchscreen cockpit with a panoramic view. The F-35 has been designed with a helmet-mounted display (the helmet itself costing roughly $400,000) system instead of the traditional head-up display. The cockpit has a speech-recognition system, and the plane's sensors can track and target aircraft that the plane is not pointed toward.

Stealth technology on the F-35 is intended to be lower-maintenance than what's been used in the past, and its computers and weapons are designed to be effective in shooting down surface-to-air missiles.

Development is expected to continue on the F-35 at least until 2021, and upgrades and updates will follow indefinitely.

While the F-35 is overwhelmingly financed by the United States, several other countries including Norway, Turkey, Canada, and the Netherlands have contributed billions of dollars to the jet's development, with the understanding that these nations and others will purchase F-35 planes when they are operational. The United Kingdom's first order of F-35Bs should be delivered in 2016.