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The Most Notorious Weapon Ever Produced?
There are no simple answers for fixing the F-35 program, as tempting as it is to look for a single root cause for its problems.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/magazine/f-35-joint-strike-fighter.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer
By Valerie Insinna
Published Aug. 23, 2019
Updated Aug. 24, 2019
What is there left to say about the F-35 joint strike fighter? Its the most expensive program in the Pentagons history and potentially its most ambitious, and its arguably the most notorious weapon ever produced. This week for At War, I wrote about its troubled history and the challenges the Defense Department is still facing.
As an air-warfare reporter, Ive covered the minutiae of the F-35 program and the aircrafts manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, for the past five years. When people ask whether its as big a disaster as theyve heard, its hard to know what to say. I cant help respecting the ambition of an effort that has tried to solve so many problems and has overcome technical and bureaucratic hurdles that would have killed another program, resulting in a plane that pilots seem to love and say is desperately needed. At the same time, its frustrating to watch the continued struggles knowing that American taxpayers will sink more than $1 trillion into an effort that has been poorly managed and resulted in so much waste.
Some officials in the Pentagon feel the same. This year, the Pentagons inspector general investigated Patrick Shanahan, then the acting defense secretary, over accusations of favoritism toward Boeing, Shanahans previous employer. One accusation derived from a Politico report in which a former senior Defense Department official said Shanahan had called the F-35 [expletive] up and suggested that Boeing would have done a better job running the program.
When the inspector general interviewed Shanahan about his comments, he said the capabilities of the F-35 were awesome but acknowledged that he criticized the program over having insufficient spare parts in the inventory, the cost per flight-hour not decreasing fast enough and the logistics support system not having the functionality that the war fighters need to sustain the aircraft. Military leaders from the F-35 program office, the Navy and the Air Force have publicly made similar complaints. In the end, the inspector general concluded that Shanahan had not crossed any lines.
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lpbk2713
(42,674 posts)The carrier USS Gerald R Ford can't be delivered because the $13 Billion ship
won't work as designed. No problem. Just throw some more money at it.
Link: https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-aircraft-carrier-weapons-elevators-wont-work-anytime-soon-2019-5
madinmaryland
(64,913 posts)Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)The F-35 Flying Pig. Your tax dollars at work.
Aristus
(65,985 posts)like the F-14, F-15, F-16, and FA-18.
Then install the latest technology in the airframes, and voila! capable, reliable strike fighters!
keithbvadu2
(36,305 posts)The planning for the manufacture of the F-35 was ingenious.
They spread the jobs around many, many Congressional districts.