[dharmab]

Yup, that was the original goal of the F-35. The idea was that by sharing parts across multiple variants and across multiple militaries, the F-35 would be a cheaper fighter than the F-22 that could scale to a larger fleet.

It's not totally crazy on the face of it- The expensive but undefeated F-15 and the relatively cheaper F-16 successfully pulled it off in the 20th century.