Ukraine is currently building 4.5 million drones per year. That's one drone every 30 seconds. Lockheed Martin delivered a record 191 F35s in 2025. That's less than one F35 every 1.91 days.

Iran has thrice the population of Ukraine and 1.5x (nominal) to 3x (PPP) the GDP. With Ukraine building 23560 drones for every F35 the US is building, it would be quite reasonable to expect Iran to be able to build a few thousand per F35 ass well. Iran already has a fairly mature drone industry supplying the Russian side of the UA-RU, after all.

In other words: If it were to come to a race of attrition, the US can't afford to lose a single one. Even ignoring the massive cost difference, F35s simply cannot be constructed fast enough.

This assume that all F35 are sitting on unprotected fields waiting for all those drones to come. Which is utter BS. Sure the US can loose few in unfortunate circumstances and it wont matter much.