How many F-35A's will be ordered?

In the last decade the USA and many European countries “signed up” to F-35 as the mainstay of their future MRCA fleets or as their sole fighter/strike resource. Since then there has been a drastic turnaround in the world economy due to the near collapse of the world banking system. Many governments were left with little option but to increase borrowing very substantially in order to prevent their banks (and economies) collapsing. Almost at a stroke, national debt levels rose spectacularly in many countries requiring urgent action to reduce the interest governments needed to pay.

Against this background of multinational financial crisis, the F-16 replacement chosen by various countries was falling further and further behind schedule and its anticipated cost was rising further and further. Instead of being an aircraft of comparable procurement cost to the F-16 with lower operating costs, F-35 operating costs are forecast to be far higher than those of F-16.

Short of countries increasing military budgets to finance the unanticipated rise in F-16 replacement costs, something has to give here. One obvious possibility is to reduce the size of one’s F-35 purchase. Another is to choose a different F-16 replacement.

The F-35 program plan is to build 2,000+ F-35A’s. As such the loss of 50, 100 or 200 F-35A orders should not raise the unit procurement/operating cost dramatically although it does make a weapons system that has shot up in cost even more expensive for the remaining customers.

Q1: How many F-35’s will be ordered by partner countries – USA, UK, Australia, Netherlands etc?

Q2: Will any export partner countries abandon their plans for F-35 and order a different type?

Any thoughts about order prospects for F-35B and F-35C also welcome.