The Department of Defense released its latest round of selected acquisition reports and tucked away in their review of the biggest program in DoD history was an interesting footnote that said the F-35 is now expected to operate in US service until the year 2088.
That’s 11 years later than previously expected. Yet the same report declared that the plane’s service life is still expected to be 30 years. So, if it’s retiring 11 years later but not staying in service longer, that implies it will be in production for 11 more years than anticipated.
At first blush, that sounds like a good thing for Lockheed Martin and its investors. But the target total number of aircraft for the US has not budged, so given an 11-year slowdown in procurement, that would imply lower numbers per year, at least for the United States.