The F-35 Fighter Jet Is A Historic $1 Trillion Disaster {image heavy}

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-f-35-is-a-disaster-2014-7?op=1

This was supposed to the be the F-35's big month.
The troubled next-generation fighter jet was going to make its international debut at the Farnborough Air Show in England. The U.S. and its partners would have something to show for their years of delays, setbacks, and cost overruns.

They would have nothing less than a functioning version of the most advanced warplane in history.

This potential breakthrough has hit an all-too-typical stumbling block.

The Air Force temporarily suspended all F-35 flights after one of the planes caught on fire before takeoff at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Even if the plane does debut later this month, it still has some serious issues, and a long way to go before it can be rolled out for combat missions. Already, the plane is expected to be delayed for over a year beyond its projected mid-2015 delivery date.

In 2011, the plane was grounded twice with electrical problems. One incident in August of 2012 resulted in a complete failure of the aircraft's integrated power package, which combines the functions performed by an auxiliary power unit, emergency power system, and environmental controls.


Developers have also discovered major issues with its software, which Air Force Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan once called "the gorilla in the room."


And it's supposed to fool enemy radar with stealth capabilities. But stealth coatings have been found peeling off, and the Pentagon report mentions — but does not describe — a "classified" deficiency. Bill Sweeney of Aviation Week says, "dollars to doughnuts it has something to do with stealth."

[Make7]

1. Thanks Obama! ( n/t )

[MH1]

10. Just curious, why Obama?

Isn't this a program that's over a decade old?

And think of the jobs in all those congressional districts. Hell, Congress won't even stop funding crap the Pentagon ASKS them to discontinue. (There are news articles about examples of this problem from time to time).

Obama has many failings but I'm not sure this one can be laid on him.

[IDemo]

12. I think this was a /sarc post

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[MH1]

15. Ah, ok. Hope you're right.

I did sorta suspect that but figured I'd post anyway, just in case.

You can never be sure at DU.

[Iggo]

14. It's a thing.

[MH1]

16. LOL, thanks. Somehow I had managed to miss that.

I was laughing my ass of at that but at the same time realizing how much it actually sounds like some people I know IRL. So, hilarious and tragic all at once.

[unhappycamper]

2. They're also having problems with the $500 k brain bucket.

(Yup, $500,000 for a helmet.)

[xchrom]

3. +1

[intaglio]

5. Back in 1990 Marconi (now Bae) was trying to develop such a helmet

and I knew one of the developers. He reckoned the only way to do it efficiently was to make the pilot helmet a kind of "pickelhaube" with a spike on top to correct head position information and optimise data transmission. It would also make cracking the canopy in case of ejection much easier.

He was only half joking ...

[n2doc]

4. Just imagine what that money would do for infrastructure, schools, research….

instead of pissing it down a rathole for defense CEO salaries. Those other things provide jobs too, but don't have the same level of lobbyists.

[A Little Weird]

6. +1

[MisterP]

7. well, since we've spent it on useless armaments we THEREFORE "don't have the money"

for infrastructure, R&D, education, domestic affairs

after 1970 Boeing and Rocketdyne needed a new talking point other than "we have white coats so nobody can disagree with us" and "what if Columbus had been told no?" (once it turned out space exploration was more Weddell than Cook)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. That's OK. We can palm them off to Al Queda to defend us from Isis at a bargain price.

[LongTomH]

9. From the late, great Bill Hicks:

Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

.....and unfortunately, that imagination is currently, very, very dark!

[SomethingFishy]

17. One of the greats, and gone way too soon..

I still think of him every time I pass a Waffle House....

[hatrack]

11. Combat missions against who? Some dude in a C-4 vest? A roadside dead-dog bomb?

Oh, wait, forgot - the ever-present threat of Teh Russia. And Teh China. But mostly Teh Russia.

[tabasco]

13. War profiteers are traitors.

As are the corrupt politicians who feed them.