It is now 15 years since Lockheed Martin won the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter contest to develop what is now the F-35 Lightning II. The program is without doubt the defense industry's most ambitious and complex fighter program ever, with different models being developed for multiple military applications. It also involves eight full-blown partner nations and three other customers. Critics have doubted whether it was prudent to try to meet three distinct air power requirements in one common airframe, but this concern appears to have been overcome. Still to be determined is whether Lockheed Martin and its many partners can achieve ambitious goals for cost containment.