FLYING HIGH: The highly scrutinized F-35 fighter jet program — at $400 billion the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program ever — is moving into a new phase with the decision to ramp up orders for hundreds of new planes, along with an infusion of spare parts to keep them flying at a much higher rate. The $34 billion agreement with Lockheed Martin calls for the delivery of 478 F-35 aircraft in three batches or “production lots.”
“This is a new, stark milestone for the F-35 enterprise,” said Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, at a Pentagon briefing yesterday. “The F-35 … will form the backbone of the U.S. and allied fifth-generation inventory for the foreseeable future.”
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