Lockheed Martin's F-35 is one of the most advanced aircraft ever designed. Buying and keeping them flying for decades is estimated to cost the US government $2 trillion.Leon Neal/Getty ImagesLockheed Martin's F-35 program is estimated to cost more than $2 trillion over its lifetime.Most F-35 costs come from sustainment, with 75% of expenses due to maintenance and repairs.Lawmakers push for repair rights as Lockheed Martin controls key F-35 maintenance elements.Lockheed Martin's F-35 stealth fighter is one of the most advanced aircraft ever built — and the most expensive, given how many the US military plans to buy.By its scale and state-of-the-art technology, it showcases the soaring costs America bears to build weapons at a time its rivals can do so more cheaply, threatening the US's edge.The fighter jet program is expected to cost $2.1 trillion over its lifetime through 2088, including the planned production of over 2,400 jets by 2049.Designed as a fifth-generation aircraft that can replace multiple planes, carry out a wide range of missions, and avoid radar detection, the F-35 reflects a broader shift toward more complex, costly military technology.Sustainment drives most of the F-35's $2 trillion price Many close US allies are buying the F-35, and some of them, like the Netherlands, host major F-35 industrial suppliers.Norbert Voskens/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesA single F-35 is not the most expensive aircraft in the US arsenal — it's the program's massive scale and projected 94-year lifespan that drive its cost.The F-15EX Eagle II, for example, costs about $99 million for Boeing to produce, compared with roughly $90 million for the F-35.
Other aircraft cost much more. Each B-2 Spirit stealth bomber costs an average of $2 billion.Building the aircraft is only part of the total price. The majority of the F-35 program's cost comes after production.Sustainment — the cost of maintaining and repairing the aircraft over time — accounts for about 75% of the program's total estimated cost, according to a 2024 Government Accountability Office report.Keeping combat jets flying is inherently expensive, and a major driver is the spare parts needed to keep aircraft mission-ready.That requires a constant flow of replacement components — and demand only grows as the jet accumulates wear and "lifecycle damage," Paul Saunier, a retired Lockheed Martin engineer who worked on the F-35, told Business Insider.A maintenance technician prepares a Lockheed Martin F-35A jet for a training flight.Bloomberg/Getty ImagesBecause sustainment stretches over decades, the need for parts — and the logistics systems to deliver them — compounds over time, steadily pushing up the program's total cost.For instance, sustainment estimates increased from about $1.1 trillion in 2018 to roughly $1.58 trillion in 2023, according to the GAO, which attributed part of the rise to the longer period of flying for each aircraft.
With each aircraft still well above the original sustainment target — $4.1 million for each Air Force plane — the expected cost to keep the fleet flying grows as more F-35s enter the US military's flight lines.A Lockheed Martin spokesperson told Business Insider over email that the company has worked to bring those costs down. While the cost to keep the entire fleet flying has increased, the annual sustainment costs per aircraft have actually fallen by roughly one-third over the past decade.Structural cost pressures remainA Pratt and Whitney F135 jet engine on display during the 2024 Farnborough International Airshow.John Keeble/Getty ImagesParts themselves are expensive, in part because they come from a limited pool of authorized suppliers.Those manufacturers are often tied to the US defense industrial base, where production costs are structurally higher, as well as other advanced economies like the UK, Australia, and Canada.American factories rely on higher-paid labor and face persistent worker shortages, which can push wages up further or slow production — both of which raise the price of parts.
In the US alone, F-35 production supports an estimated 317,000 jobs.Moreover, unlike consumer products like iPhones and steel, defense contractors can't easily shift production to the lowest-cost manufacturers overseas, since US law requires prioritizing US-made items; these decisions are also driven by national security concerns. Parts for the F-35, for example, are produced in the US and in the countries of close allies approved to buy them.The F-35 fleet is significantly larger than other programs, contributing to its record cost.Thierry Monasse/Getty ImagesScale also matters. The F-35 fleet is roughly 25 times larger than the F-15EX program and includes three different variants, helping drive its projected lifetime sustainment cost to over a trillion, compared with about $63 billion for the F-15EX.The F-35 is also produced at a far higher rate than other Western fighter programs. Lockheed Martin delivers on average 15