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Comment by Kon-Peki | Hacker News Reader

Not knowing much about these things, I wondered if 1,000 is a lot or a little. Wikipedia says that it is not very many [1]. But then again, we aren’t in the middle of a world war. Does anyone know what the final production number will be? As in, the vast majority that will ever be produced have already been ordered? Or is the future still wide open?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-produced_aircra...

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For a modern fighter jet, it's a lot. It's planned to remain in service till 2070.

One of the most important strategic innovations of the F-35 has been economies of scale.

For a military, non WW2 plane, 1000 aircraft is a lot. The US government plans on buying around ~1700 F35 and US allies have orders for another ~1000 F35. Overtime I would expect the number of orders for f35 to keep going up.

For comparison, the F-16 had about 4,600 built over 50 years, while the F-15 has had maybe 2,000 built over 50 years. 1,000 for a relatively young fighter is a lot.

I don’t have a citation for you at the moment, but I recall reading estimates of something like 4,500 F-35s anticipated to be produced over the program’s lifespan. I think I also recall that being something like a 50/50 split between the United States and the rest of the world, but I’m even hazier on that.

Taking a quick glance through the table you linked, the closest equivalent I saw was the F-4, which is a multirole fighter that was used by the US Navy and Air Force as well as broadly around the world. About 5,200 of those were ultimately produced, and that number is close to what I recall reading about anticipated F-35 production. For a variety of reasons, it’s a very different world now from when the F-4 was introduced but on balance a mid-four-figure production run for the F-35 feels about right.

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