Originally Posted by
ORAC
Hilarious as it may sound the F-35 is the F-16 cheap replacement, supposedly being less expensive both to buy and maintain. Go figure.
The next generation USAF fighter, the PCA, is the high end of the high/low mix and is the planned F-22 replacement....
But if LM manages to replace every F16 in the world with export versions of F35A, then the unit cost of that variant will be very much lower than the Bs or Cs, and the programme cost would be far lower than developing a different replacement from scratch.