The timetable for each branch’s in-service date was formalized in May, when the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps delivered a joint report to congressional defense committees establishing the details of the IOC of each service’s variant of the F-35. Each will achieve IOC once it acquires enough aircraft to establish one operational squadron with enough trained and equipped personnel to support the various missions prescribed. The Marines will reach IOC with the F-35B by December 2015, the Air Force with the F-35A by December 2016, and the Navy with the F-35C by February 2019.

Flight/static test progress is but one leg of the march to IOC, and Bogdan reported that its projected 50 percent completion by year’s end includes lifetime structural durability testing for the three variants, which have already started their second lifetime durability test cycle.

Flight test points accomplished are surely a metric of success but, particularly in a “concurrent” program, so is production. The latter not only expands data collection and fleet experience but indicates trends in reliability and cost. Lockheed Martin had delivered 20 aircraft by mid-September in 2013 and produced its 100th F-35 in December. That total included 44 F-35A, 42 F-35B, and 14 F-35C aircraft.

“As a microcosm of the program, it’s easy to measure progress on the [flight] test program and it gives a sense that we are moving forward,” Bogdan said.

Flight test points accomplished are surely a metric of success but, particularly in a “concurrent” program, so is production. The latter not only expands data collection and fleet experience but indicates trends in reliability and cost. Lockheed Martin had delivered 20 aircraft by mid-September in 2013 and produced its 100th F-35 in December. That total included 44 F-35A, 42 F-35B, and 14 F-35C aircraft.

Bogdan explained that the program is just reaching the point at which production will ramp up, the decision having been made several years ago to maintain low, flat production rates from 2011 to 2013 to allow development to unfold before building aircraft in numbers. From 2014, the production rate will accelerate, and 50 percent of the increase will be devoted to partner and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) aircraft production. Maintaining the F-35’s development schedule is crucial to realizing production increases and the cost efficiencies they generate.

So too is standing up more operations sites.

“The biggest thing that has changed in the program this year in terms of scale and scope is how many different operations and training sites we’re standing up,” Bogdan said.

In addition to the aforementioned operational test sites established at Edwards and Nellis, the program will add an additional 11 operations/training sites, growing to 17 by 2017. Crucially, it will also stand up more maintenance depots. In 2013, depots were established at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, N.C., and Hill AFB, Utah. The first fuselage was also delivered abroad to the Italian Final Assembly and Checkout Facility (FACO) at Cameri Air Base. Standing up maintenance depots not only places the F-35 in service logistics chains, it establishes an organic capability to make repairs, relieving Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney of the task, driving down cost in the process.

More aircraft also need more pilots. The Lightning II complement at the Integrated Training Center at Eglin AFB, Fla., grew to 25 by July, with 12 F-35As, 11 F-35Bs, and two F-35Cs. Mid-summer saw the start of the fifth class of Air Force F-35A pilots, F-35B Class 4, and the start of F-35C courses with VFA-101, the U.S. Navy’s first JSF squadron. Ultimately, Eglin’s fleet will grow to 59 aircraft, with approximately 100 pilots and 2,100 maintainers graduating annually.

USAF and international partner pilots will also train at Luke AFB, Ariz. In late June, it was announced that an additional 72 F-35As would be located at Luke, bringing the total to 144 aircraft. MCAS Beaufort, S.C., will be the F-35B training center for both the USMC and U.K. As of September, there were 67 fully qualified pilots across the F-35 fleet, including U.K. pilots.

“One of the main reasons is because when we all buy airplanes, the price of each airplane goes down. From a warfighting perspective, the ability of U.S. services to be side by side with our allies, flying the same airplane with similar capabilities in an AOR [area of responsibility], is very powerful. It’s a powerful signal to the rest of the world that we’re one team. I take that very seriously.”

Just prior to Bogdan’s AFA briefing, news broke that the Netherlands confirmed it would be buying the F-35, though only 37 aircraft instead of an originally envisioned 85. The positive news prompted Bogdan to point out that there were also further potential FMS sales, to South Korea among others. Perhaps the general knew something the media didn’t. Exactly one week later, South Korea surprised analysts – and the Boeing Company – with an announcement that it was rejecting Boeing’s F-15SE – thought to have had a 60-jet deal with the Koreans locked up – in favor of reopening the competition in what observers believe is a path backtracking to an F-35 purchase.

“The [international] partnership is crucial to this program,” Bogdan re-emphasized. “One of the main reasons is because when we all buy airplanes, the price of each airplane goes down. From a warfighting perspective, the ability of U.S. services to be side by side with our allies, flying the same airplane with similar capabilities in an AOR [area of responsibility], is very powerful. It’s a powerful signal to the rest of the world that we’re one team. I take that very seriously.”

Similar equipment surely yields benefits, but cost sharing is the chief value of the JSF partner program. In late June, Frank Kendall, under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, told a Senate panel that the JSF program was on track to reduce overall costs. The oft-cited $1.1 trillion total program cost was pared back to $857 billion by the F-35 Program Office in July, a figure in which Bogdan reiterated his confidence. But earlier in September, Kendall said his staff was taking another look at the program office’s number.

“We are going to do a review of F-35 this fall …” Kendall said. “We’ll probably make some adjustments. I do expect it to come down. I don’t know if it will come down to $857 billion.”

Differing estimates of the final program number don’t alter the fact that cost efficiencies must be realized. As Bogdan said, “I believe this will be the best airplane in the world, but if nobody can afford it, it doesn’t work.”

The general’s cost mantra, he added, is “no more time, no more money.” He promised that as long as requirements stayed stable, the JSF enterprise would deliver on the commitments it has made. Putting the services on notice that if they craft a requirement, they will have to give up an equal, existing requirement, Bogdan declared, “If something comes into the development program that wasn’t there in the first place, something needs to come out or you have to add more time and more money. I’m not in the business of adding more time or more money to this program.”