With recent foreign military sales (Switzerland, Norway, Czech Republic, maybe Greece), the R&D costs of the F-35 are now being spread over a much larger fleet.

With recent foreign military sales (Switzerland, Norway, Czech Republic, maybe Greece), the R&D costs of the F-35 are now being spread over a much larger fleet. It's still not a cheap plane .. but the price is dropping by building them in volume (like was originally intended for the F-22). Production rate is up to about one being delivered every other day. Lockheed Martin and it's many contractors have made a large investment in production tooling & automation so the planes are being built in a process more like an automotive assembly line than individually like in years past. Note the large fixture @3:00 holding the wings vertically to make it easier to drill accurate holes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPEy3QwsKjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPEy3QwsKjQ