{"id":395245,"date":"2026-03-28T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T05:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/6-reasons-f-35-expensive-operate\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T05:00:16","slug":"6-reasons-why-the-f-35-is-so-expensive-to-operate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=395245","title":{"rendered":"6 Reasons Why The F-35 Is So Expensive To Operate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"display-card-hyperlink-article\" data-id=\"2036358\"><a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/why-f-35-isnt-expensive-is-a-fantastically-good-jet\/\" >The F-35, particularly the F-35A variant, is not very expensive to buy<\/a><\/span>, but it is expensive to maintain and operate. The flyaway cost of an F-35A can be as low as $82 million, which is lower than many of the world&#8217;s 4th-generation fighter jets like the Boeing F-15EX, Dassault Rafale, and Eurofighter Typhoon. But the total ownership costs can be far larger than those of legacy jets. It is largely nonsensical to compare the cost of an <span class=\"display-card-hyperlink display-card-hyperlink-no-vignette\" data-id=\"58657\"style=\";  ;\" class=\"display-card-hyperlink display-card-hyperlink-no-vignette\"><a href=\"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/tag\/f-35\/\"  >F-35<\/a><\/span> with the cost of a lower-end, lighter fighter like the Saab Gripen. They are different machines built for different missions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The F-35 is expensive to operate because it is the most capable fighter jet that requires a specialized ecosystem greater than other fighter jets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,748,628,412,423],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-f-35","category-fighter-jets","category-military","category-united-states"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395246,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395245\/revisions\/395246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}