The U.S. Department of Defence and Lockheed Martin have reached an agreement in principle for the production of 43 F-35 Lightning II aircraft.  Officials anticipate the Low-Rate Initial Production lot 8 (LRIP 8) contract to be finalized in the coming weeks.  The contract is for fiscal year 2014 with deliveries beginning in 2016.

Cost details will be released once the contract is finalized; however, in general, the average unit price for all three variants of the airframe in LRIP 8 is approximately 3.6 percent lower than the previous contract.