Free Republic

F-35 started with recipe for trouble, analysts say By Bob Cox rcox@star-telegram.com As Pentagon officials worked on the 2012 defense budget proposal late last year, they were forced, yet again, to devote several billion dollars more to try to fix the F-35 joint strike fighter program. Nearly a decade after Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth division won the F-35 contract, the company is still struggling to deliver on its commitments for what is arguably the most technologically ambitious aircraft ever built. In a nutshell, the F-35 program is five to six years behind schedule. The estimated cost to taxpayers has nearly...

The U.S. Air Force’s senior officer has acknowledged concern over the Lockheed Martin F-35 program, in particular slow software development that may push the Joint Strike Fighter’s operational debut into 2016. “There are some issues with respect to timing on software development,” the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, told a group of defense writers this week in Washington. “We don’t have a complete understanding yet of whether that will affect the new, predicted [initial operating capability] of April 2016. I’m still concerned about the schedule – a little less on technical matters, [but] software appears to be...

While Israel is interested in purchasing the fifth-generation stealth Joint Strike Fighter from Lockheed Martin, it will likely hinge its order on US acceptance of its demand that Israeli defense industries be allowed to participate in the aircraft's production, senior defense officials said Thursday. On Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and discussed potential Israeli involvement in the production of the JSF, also known as the F-35. In the past, Israeli aerospace companies have been integrated into the production of aircraft purchased by the IAF. During their meeting, as well as a meeting...

For the second year in a row the Pentagon has insisted that it doesn't need another engine for its next-generation fighter jet. And again, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and other powerful lawmakers are forcing it to build one anyway. Tucked in the annual defense bill moving through Congress is $480 million to develop a spare engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter even though the Air Force concluded in 2005 that it was redundant -- and two independent review boards agreed. That didn't trump pork-barrel politics. General Electric Aircraft Engines in Lynn is designing the spare engine and says the...