To the initial cost of the F-35 (around 82 million dollars) must be added the retrofit costs.
What are they?
The retrofit costs are the necessary expenses to upgrade, modify or repair an aircraft that has already been built and delivered, in order to bring it up to a more recent technological standard or correct manufacturing defects. In the F-35 programme, these costs apply when the aircraft leave the factory with temporary software or hardware configurations and need to be updated subsequently.
The retrofit costs are mainly divided into three categories:
- hardware upgrade: replacement of obsolete physical components, such as old processors, wiring or radar, with next-generation versions;
- software integration: installation of updated software blocks (such as the transition from Block 3F to Block 4) that require structural changes to function;
- defect resolution: corrective structural interventions to address early wear issues or vulnerabilities that emerged during post-production flight testing.