{"id":70396,"date":"2025-06-12T17:52:23","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T17:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2025\/06\/12\/air-force-f-35-buy-would-be-cut-in-half-under-pentagon-spending-plan\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:21:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:21:24","slug":"air-force-f-35-buy-would-be-cut-in-half-under-pentagon-spending-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2025\/06\/12\/air-force-f-35-buy-would-be-cut-in-half-under-pentagon-spending-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Force F-35 buy would be cut in half under Pentagon spending plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Air Force would cut its F-35A purchase for fiscal 2026 roughly in half under the White House\u2019s draft defense budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The service typically buys about four dozen Joint Strike Fighters each year, with some years\u2019 purchases topping 60. But a budget document obtained by Defense News shows the service would procure 24 F-35s next year, for a cost of nearly $4 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is less than the 44 F-35s, costing $4.8 billion, the Air Force is on track to buy this year, and the 51 jets worth $5.5 billion the service bought in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while the number of jets the Air Force plans to buy would drop by 45% between 2025 and 2026, the savings would lag far behind. The cost of the F-35 purchases in 2026 would drop less than 18% over the 2025 cost, suggesting economies of scale would suffer from the reduced buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The slow emergence of budget documents and administration spending plans in this way is highly unusual, even for an administration in its first months. Proposed budgets for the upcoming fiscal year are often released formally sometime in the spring and accompanied by briefings explaining the spending plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But President Donald Trump\u2019s administration has not rolled out its full budget proposal for fiscal 2026, though it has trickled out broad outlines of spending plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The House Appropriations subcommittee on defense advanced Tuesday its own version<\/a> of a Defense Department spending bill that looks closer to a typical F-35 purchasing plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That bill would provide $4.5 billion for the Air Force to buy 42 F-35As, as well as another $1.9 billion for the Marine Corps to buy 13 short takeoff and vertical landing F-35Bs. Another $2 billion was included for the Navy and Marine Corps to buy the F-35C carrier variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Air Force has sought to pare back some F-35 purchases in recent years, primarily due to dissatisfaction with delayed upgrades known as Technology Refresh 3, the apparent plan to slash purchases to this degree would be a surprise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top Air Force leaders have stressed consistently that the F-35 is the centerpiece of its fighter fleet. Some have referred to it as a \u201cquarterback\u201d that uses advanced data sharing capabilities to tie together multiple assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Air Force\u2019s fighter fleet is rapidly aging<\/a>, and older F-15s and F-16s are retiring. Air Force leaders have often said the service needs to buy at least 72 fighters each year<\/a> to modernize its aircraft and bring down the average age<\/a> of its fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\t