The F-35 grew out of a hunt for a supersonic Harrier replacement
The F-35 began as several cash-strapped programmes stitched together. One was a secret effort to build a stealthy jump jet able to fly faster than sound; others aimed to replace aging Navy and Air Force planes. After the Cold War ended, the Pentagon merged them, and the result is now expected to cost about US$2 trillion through 2088.
From 1983 to 1994 a DARPA project sought a successor to the Harrier for the US Marines and Britain's Royal Navy. Inside it, Lockheed's Skunk Works studied a supersonic stealth design lifted by a shaft-driven fan, sketched as a single-engine canard delta of about 11,000 kg empty. The Soviet collapse in 1991 squeezed defence budgets, and a 1993 review scrapped an Air Force plan for a cheap F-16 successor and a Navy strike aircraft, folding their work into a technology programme called JAST.
In 1994 JAST absorbed the jump-jet effort, and in 1995 it became the Joint Strike Fighter, meant to replace the F-16, the Harrier, the A-10 and others across the US and allied fleets. Lockheed's X-35 beat Boeing's X-32 in 2001. The resulting jet first flew in 2006 and comes in three versions: the F-35A for ordinary runways, the F-35B that can land vertically, and the F-35C for carrier catapults and arrester wires. The Marines put the B into service in 2015, the Air Force followed with the A in 2016, and the Navy with the C in 2019.
Critics point to the programme's size, complexity, delays and ballooning bills, though roughly half of the projected lifetime cost reflects inflation. In the batch due from 2026, one F-35A costs about $92 million to build, the B about $121.4 million and the C about $110.8 million, with the engine alone accounting for $20.4 million.
With 883 in service in 2025, it is the most numerous stealth aircraft anywhere and fourth among all military types. Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems are partners, allies including Australia helped fund it, and Turkey was dropped in 2019. The United States plans to buy 2,456 of them through 2044 and keep them flying until 2088.
Source: Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
