Posted on 09/09/2016 10:10:59 PM PDT by US Navy Vet
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the most expensive procurement program in Pentagon history. It’s been plagued by schedule delays, gross cost overruns, and a slew of underwhelming performance reviews. Last month the Air Force declared its variant “ready for combat,” and most press reports lauded this as a signal that the program had turned a corner. But a memo issued from the Pentagon’s top testing official, based largely upon the Air Force’s own test data, showed that the Air Force’s declaration was wildly premature.
Dr. Michael Gilmore’s latest memorandum is damning. The F-35 program has derailed to the point where it “is actually not on a path toward success, but instead on a path toward failing to deliver the full Block 3F capabilities for which the Department is paying almost $400 billion.” The 16-page memo, first reported by Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg and then by others, details just how troubled this program is: years behind schedule and failing to deliver even the most basic capabilities taxpayers, and the men and women who will entrust their lives to it, have been told to expect.
The Pentagon’s top testing office warns that the F-35 is in no way ready for combat since it is “not effective and not suitable across the required mission areas and against currently fielded threats.” (Emphasis added) As it stands now, the F-35 would need to run away from combat and have other planes come to its rescue, since it “will need support to locate and avoid modern threats, acquire targets, and engage formations of enemy fighter aircraft due to outstanding performance deficiencies and limited weapons carriage available (i.e., two bombs and two air-to-air missiles).” In several instances, the memo rated the F-35A less capable than the aircraft we already have.
(Excerpt) Read more at pogo.org ...
I remember that Trump was on Hewitt saying that the pilots thought this jet was less maneuverable. Hewitt still wanted Trump to know why Trump hadn’t committed to memory the name of the Health Minister of Dirkastan, and he had Fiorina scheduled after Trump who knew the answer. But this wasn’t as important, only that Trump could answer him about the Triad, and said F35 was questionable..
“The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the most expensive procurement program in Pentagon history.”
No, its the most expensive in the history of human warfare.
4 times as expensive as the Apollo Program and the moon landings. That was a 20 Billion dollar program, about 100 billion in todays dollars.
The flying moonpig is a 400 billion dollar program.
I sure hope the good engineers can get the plane working for us
but $400 billion is still chump change compared to the $7+ TRILLION DINEROS that O said he was spending on “shovel ready jobs infrastructure projects”... and which he later was forced to admit did not exist
where is our $7trillion!??? I mean, a Trillion here and a Trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking about some real money!
Russia spends a fraction of what we do on its military. Nonetheless, Russia’s military appears to actually be geared towards winning wars. Our military appears to be geared towards the goal of lining the pockets of fat cats. The F35 strikes me as an extreme case of fat-cat pocket-lining technology.
The bright side is that the Chinese stole the unworkable technology to make their own stealth planes. It should help drag them down too.
Heh. So I’m thinkin’, “What the heck? Let’s go back to the moon!”
Uh uh. That’ll cost ya 16 quadrillion dollars, fer sure.
... I must add, it’s my firm conviction that no human will ever set foot on the moon again. And ancillary to that, within 100 years it will be widely accepted that the Apollo moon landings are a myth.
Basic military doctrine: Use air superiority fighters to clear the skies, then use heavy bombers and close air support to help out the boots on the ground.
I am of course referring to F22s, B52s, and A10s.
Oops, sorry, we cannot do that since Obama canceled the F22 program.
Gee, wonder why he did something so harmful to our military... /SARC
Can we find a more melodramatic title please?
And - didn’t they try to cancel the A10 as well?
Anything they can do to cripple our effectiveness.
“fat-cat pocket-lining technology”
That is why they are so important.
As for ready? Well Air Force and Marines say they are IOC so send them in and we’ll find out what that means.
We cut a lot of capability to pay for these F-35s. They are what we have now. Best wishes to the pilots and the ground pounders that need them to work.
Yup
For the past 8 years, I have felt that Obama was America’s “Treaty of Versailles” President. He seems determined to limit our military and economic power and to make us subservient to foreign powers.
Not great news. was hoping the prior reports were more honest and accurate. May not be the case.
Oops!
Didn’t we also cancel the A10 Warthog program, one of the most effective airplanes ever?
And I tell you, trying to believe the prior sunshine reports went against every grain in my body.
Not again. I embrace my inner cynic. Need proof. Don’t trust, just verify.
Me thinks some people working on this project are shaking in their Boots thinking that Trump might get elected.
Then again, Hillary might cancel it and spend the money rounding up all us Deplorables (which isn’t even a real word).
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