The best way to relieve the pressure is to make progress on costs. Lockheed Martin hopes to get the unit cost of the F-35 below $80 million by 2020, compared to a minimum of $95 million currently. And while lingering quality issues remain, Lockheed has seemingly had some success in making its production more efficient. The Government Accountability Office, in a report earlier this month, said the average number of hours of labor needed to manufacture a baseline F-35A has dropped by more than half to 41,541, from 108,355 in 2012.