Really?
Has the government changed any of the design or performance requirements since the original award?
Try that with your building contractor and see if the price doesn’t go up and completion schedule get delayed!
Back when I was a field service engineer I used to try to carry as few heavy tools as possible.
For this reason I had a pair of pliers that would do several jobs, but it didn’t do any of them well.
Unfortunately our procurement of fighter aircraft follows the same logic as my pliers. We make one aircraft, with modifications, that fills the needs of all of the branches of the military, but it doesn’t do it very well.
We should go back to having aircraft with designated roles, interceptor, fighter-bomber, close air support, etc.
I work in the aerospace defense industry so I’m not naive to how government bumbling and shifting requirements can drive up costs. But the contractor is often just as at fault through poor program management and shoddy engineering. Yet there is little financial penalty since most of these programs are cost-plus - the contractor continues bumbling along while the government pays for it.
Lockheed has maneuvered itself into a good position. Program costs have exploded (+100%) and the schedule has slipped another 6 years (+60%). But they’ll get rather rewarded for their efforts because this program is “critical” to national security and must be funded. Despite a terrible track record with the F-22 and F-35, they will win future programs as well since the USAF in its myopia awarded all of the 5th-Generation fighter jets to Lockheed, effectively squeezing out Northrop and Boeing and leaving Lockheed with a monopoly on jet fighters.
You want to fix the national budget? Get defense contractors under control.