The Government Accountability Office (GAO) yesterday released testimony of interest to the DoD life cycle logistics and product support manager community entitled “GAO-21-505T F-35 Sustainment: Enhanced Attention to and Oversight of F-35 Affordability Are Needed”.

According to the GAO, “DOD plans to acquire nearly 2,500 F-35 aircraft for about $400 billion. It projects spending another $1.27 trillion to operate and sustain them—an estimate that has steadily increased since 2012. We testified that the military services collectively face tens of billions of dollars in sustainment costs that they project will be unaffordable. For example, the Air Force needs to reduce estimated annual per-plane costs by $3.7 million (47%) by 2036, or costs in that year alone will be $4.4 billion more than it can afford. We will recommend ways to address this in a forthcoming report.

They went on to state “GAO's draft report suggested that Congress should consider (1) requiring DOD to report annually on progress in achieving the affordability constraints, and (2) making F-35 aircraft procurement decisions contingent on DOD's progress in achieving these constraints. GAO also made four recommendations to DOD, including that it assess its cost reduction efforts and F-35 program requirements, and develop a plan to ensure it can afford to sustain the future F-35 fleet.”