"It's as much an industrial policy as a fighter," said Richard Aboulafia, vice president at Teal Group, an aerospace consultancy.

One analyst said defeating enemy air defenses involves a blend of technologies and tactics which the JSF is well-suited to perform. “The F-35 is low observable against enemy radar. It is also designed to emit a lot less. A big part of this is knowing where the threats are and how to avoid them. The objective is to try to fly between the cracks and gaps,” said Richard Aboulafia, Vice President of analysis at the Teal Group, a Virginia-based consultancy.

Aerospace analyst, Richard Aboulafia with the Virginia-based Teal Group said the F-35′s first overseas appearance marked the start of a more aggressive drive to lock in foreign orders at a time when the U.S. military has repeatedly delayed its own. “What they really need to do is transform the program’s economics by getting above that 30-something (annual production) plateau they’re on,” he said. “They need to get to a virtuous cycle where numbers go up and costs go down … the opposite of a death spiral.”

News that South Korea expects to spend 7.34 trillion won ($6.79 billion) for 40 F-35s is a plus for Lockheed, said Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst with the Virginia-based Teal Group, but the company needs more orders to help drive down the unit cost of the new warplanes. “The risk is that it stays too expensive to order in large quantities, and the lack of large quantities means that it stays too expensive,” he said.