Pentagon wants to hit quite a few F-35 jets

washington - The US Department of Defense wants more than $ 10 billion from Congress to buy 77 F-35 fighter aircrafts in the next fiscal year (from 1 October). The device is also known as Joint Strike Fighter.

If Congress passes the bridge, it will be the most expensive purchase of the Pentagon that will spend 10.7 billion dollars or 8.6 billion euros on aircraft from Lockheed Martin.

According to the planning, 37 of these F-35s will also come to the Netherlands from 2019 onwards. They are successors of the fighter aircraft F-16 of the aircraft maker of the company General Dynamics, acquired by Lockheed Martin. The F-16 has been in use since 1979. The F-35 disputed by the costs and problems is not ready yet. The aircraft must be 'over its development phase' in the course of this year.

The coming budget of the Pentagon is based on converted more than 480 billion euros. That is part of more than € 575 billion that the government of President Trump wants to spend on the security of the US.