Well the Government has announced plans to possibly purchase 65 brand new F-35 Jet Fighters when they come out in 2016.  This would put them just in the range of our old C-18s which were just recently retrofitted to last until 2017, which would give a good year of cross-fighter training.

Besides the 9 Billion up front there are other costs which could potentially bring up the total cost to about 16 billion to include maintanance and upgrades for 20 years from the date of purchase.