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The F-35 Costs Even More When You Fly It
The estimate for keeping the fighter jet airborne is $1.1 trillion, and climbing.
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The bad news on the F-35 fighter jet is even worse than it sounds.
The cost of the program, already the most expensive weapons system the Pentagon has ever fielded, is estimated to climb further—to at least $406.5 billion. That’s according to a scoop by Bloomberg’s Anthony Capaccio, whose defense sourcing yielded advance access to a document called a Selected Acquisition Report. The report, which was submitted to Congress on Monday, estimates that procurement costs for the F-35 will come in about 7 percent higher than the last projection of $379 billion.