8000 hours was the projected life. Testing is showing in fact the service life may be around 2000h! For comparison, the F15 has a service life of 20,000 hours. Roughly 10 times the F35. Wow. That’s a bombshell report.
The F-15X they’re rolling out should just be the main plane of the airforce. I know it doesn’t mean navy requirements, but they could save a lot of money and use a proven airframe.
Projections like these are simple accounting mechanisms and you could cite the B52, U2, or Mick Jagger/RGB as examples of retrofits and longevity!
The only fair comparison is with the AV-8B.
The short service life is for the earliest units from the F-35 production run. Since the F-35 was put into service even as testing and development were still underway, improvements were incorporated on a rolling basis. To a degree, modifications may be retrofitted so as to improve the service life of the earliest units.