F-35C budget predictions

The U.S. Navy wanted to order 6 F-35Cs for their fiscal year 2015 budget. They will end up with 2. Not counting all of the mission systems problems with all variants, the F-35 has had trouble proving it is a carrier aircraft.

Much of the risk around this problem is that if you want a carrier aircraft, it should be designed in from the ground up. F-35B STOVL airframe requirements put a lot of bad affects on the F-35C.

The following charts show what the U.S. Navy thought the gross weapon system unit cost for each F-35C would be in their fiscal year 2012 budget and what they thought it would be in their fiscal year 2015 budget. A low order number of 2 aircraft vs high unit cost aside, we can see that the U.S. Navy is about 3 years off on their unit cost assumptions. And that is hoping for no more significant problems.

Note previous year mentions. 2011 mention in the 2012 budget is close to what was paid. The same for 2013 and 2014 in the 2015 budget. As we have seen when you follow all of the DOD contracts (low rate initial production, R&D and other changes), even these numbers are off and can only be considered close.

The bottom charts are for reference from the U.S. Navy fiscal year budgets for 2012 and 2015. Both of these documents are created before Congress has their final say.

(click images to make larger)






(USN fy2015 budget, F-35C)


(USN fy2012 budget, F-35C)