The Marine Corps version of the F-35 might only last 25 percent of its presumed life expectancy according to a Pentagon report obtained by Bloomberg. The news service is reporting the short takeoff-vertical landing F-35B may only last 2,100 hours instead of the projected life limit of 8,000 hours. At a unit cost of about $252.3 million that works out to more than $120,000 an hour. It also means that the first B models will hit their best before date in 2026, just 10 years after entry to service. That's only one issue in a long list of expensive deficiencies chronicled in the report on the F-35 program as a whole.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/ownership/f-35-problems-persist