Cost of F-35 Has Risen 60% to 90%, Military Says

The projected cost of Lockheed Martin’s new Joint Strike Fighter has increased 60 to 90 percent in real terms since 2001, blowing well past a level requiring the program to be revamped, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

And even though the military is trying to deal with the problems, Congressional auditors said the program — the Pentagon’s largest — was likely to continue to increase in cost and suffer more delays.

The assessments, released at a Senate hearing in Washington, provided a reminder of the extent of the cost overruns in major weapons programs and showed how hard they can be to resolve.

The latest estimates were embarrassing to Lockheed Martin, the largest military contractor, and to the defense secretary, Robert M. Gates.

Last summer, Mr. Gates promoted the new jet, called the F-35, when he urged Congress to halt production of the F-22 fighter plane. Some senators now say they might not have made that decision if they had known about the problems with the F-35.

Christine H. Fox, the Pentagon’s top cost evaluator, said at Thursday’s hearing that the estimated price of each F-35 had jumped to $80 million to $95 million, as measured in 2002 dollars, from $50 million when Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract in 2001.

She said her office was still refining the cost estimate, which equals $95 million to $113 million for each plane in current dollars.

Under a 15-year-old law, the Pentagon has to notify Congress when the cost of military equipment exceeds the original projection by more than 25 percent.

Ms. Fox’s office warned top Pentagon officials about the problems last fall. Mr. Gates recently fired the general in charge of the program and announced other plans to get it back on track.

He added more planes to speed the flight testing and extended the development phase by 13 months. He also pushed back the purchases of 122 planes to help cover the extra $2.8 billion needed for the development work.

Ashton B. Carter, the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, said at the hearing that the problems had been building for several years. He said the Pentagon was “beginning a process of aggressive management” to try to head off some of the worst problems.

The F-35, a single-engine stealth fighter designed primarily to attack ground targets, is supposed to become a mainstay of American and allied militaries over the next several decades.

The Air Force, the Navy and the Marines plan to buy 2,443 of the planes. Eight allied nations have also invested in the program and could buy hundreds of additional planes.

Mr. Carter said a substantial part of the cost increases occurred several years ago, when the version for the Marines, which will be able to take off vertically, came in substantially overweight.

Lockheed Martin had to make changes to reduce the weight. The company has said that these and other changes caused problems for its suppliers, slowed the construction of the first planes and delayed the flight testing program.

Company officials have said that they have been building planes more quickly and cheaply in recent months, and that they believe they can recover some of the lost time over the next year or so.

The Obama administration has pledged to improve the Pentagon’s contracting record, and Congress passed a law last year tightening acquisition procedures. But most of those changes focus on how new programs are begun.

Mr. Carter said the F-35 was also an example of how the military tended to start building new systems before all the problems were worked out. He said the Marines still expected to begin using the planes in 2012. But the Air Force and Navy versions will probably not be ready for combat until 2016.

Michael Sullivan, an analyst at the Government Accountability Office, said the program could eventually cost $323 billion. And while the recent changes could help ease the problems, “further cost growth and schedule extensions are likely,” he said.