Current F-35 program unit cost at $766M each

150 F-35s have been delivered to date. These aircraft are far from being fully functional.

As an aside, read this from the official Reuters F-35 fan-writer.

He said the Pentagon expected to wrap up negotiations later this month with Lockheed for a ninth batch of 55 F-35s. Lockheed won a preliminary contract valued at up to $5.37 billion for the jets last month.

That is the roll-away price without engine and money needed to get the F-35 into a flying squadron.

This means that, based on the $115B-plus invested by U.S. taxpayers  thus far, the program unit cost--in other words--per air-frame is:

$766M

Again, for an aircraft that doesn't work right and is likely to get shot down.

Then there is the $57,000 cost per flight hour.

Tell me how the U.S. DOD is going to pay for thousands of these aircraft.


---

Cost sources: Congressional Research Service (CRS) up to FY2013 then adding budgets since then. USAF cost per flight hour via their own budget documents.

.