Air Force Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, the F-35 joint program office head, has said the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter dropped since the aircraft’s baseline was updated, Defense News reported Wednesday.
Bogdan told a press event that a 2015 selected acquisition report shows no change in research, development, test and evaluation funds and indicates a decrease in procurement costs by $3 billion, Aaron Mehta reports.
“It is a fact this program is over budget from 2001’s baseline,” Bogdan told reporters.
“We will never underrun that number. We will never save that money. It’s gone. What matters is since that time, what’s happened to the cost on the program? It’s gone down, not gone up,†he said.
Bogdan said operations and sustainment work remain a challenge to the program and he attributed the problem to the lack of inflation adjustment, according to the report.
“We had a bigger cost reduction, a true cost reduction, than what was shown in the SAR because of inflation rates, because they readjusted them,†he said.
