The US Department of Defense (DoD) is planning to reduce F-35 Lightning II subcontractor costs to bring down the price of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme.
Defense News quoted Pentagon director of defence pricing Shay Assad as saying, “What we’ve learned is that a lot of the money that we’re spending is at the subcontract level.”
“We want to make sure we have a complete understanding of what we think a fair and reasonable subcontract price should be, and we do expect Lockheed Martin to develop their own position,” he added.
The decision has come in the midst of the US preparing to receive the fifth batch of low-rate initial production (LRIP) jets.
The cost of the overall JSF programme was earlier estimated at more than $380bn, which involves more than 2,400 US jets and an estimated 700-plus international order.
