The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere

[unhappycamper]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/08/pentagons_399_billion_plane_nowhere



The Pentagon's $399 Billion Plane to Nowhere
BY Kate Brannen
JULY 8, 2014

~snip~

Effectively saying that the most expensive warplane in American history is too dangerous to fly is a huge public relations blow for the Pentagon, which has been under fire for years for allowing the plane's costs to increase even as its delivery time continued to slide right. The plane's prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, could also take a hit to its bottom line if the F-35 isn't cleared to fly to the United Kingdom for a pair of high-profile international air shows packed with potential customers. One thing the grounding won't do, however, is derail the F-35, a juggernaut of a program that apparently has enough political top cover to withstand any storm.

Part of that protection comes from the jaw-dropping amounts of money at stake. The Pentagon intends to spend roughly $399 billion to develop and buy 2,443 of the planes. However, over the course of the aircrafts' lifetimes, operating costs are expected to exceed $1 trillion. Lockheed has carefully hired suppliers and subcontractors in almost every state to ensure that virtually all senators and members of Congress have a stake in keeping the program -- and the jobs it has created -- in place.

"An upfront question with any program now is: How many congressional districts is it in?" said Thomas Christie, a former senior Pentagon acquisitions official.

In the case of the F-35, the short answer is: a lot. Counting all of its suppliers and subcontractors, parts of the program are spread out across at least 45 states. That's why there's no doubt lawmakers will continue to fund the program even though this is the third time in 17 months that the entire fleet has been grounded due to engine problems. In fact, in the version of the defense appropriations bill passed by the House, lawmakers agreed to purchase 38 planes in 2015, four more than the Pentagon requested.

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Oops.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/10958398/Britains-new-F35-jet-fighter-to-miss-international-debut.html

Britain's new F35 jet fighter to miss international debut
By Alan Tovey, and John Ficenec
9:02AM BST 10 Jul 2014

The F35B Lightning II joint strike fighter, the cornerstone of Britain’s new aircraft carrier fleet, looks set to suffer an embarrassment by failing to appear on its planned international debut.

Concerns about the reliability and safety of Britain’s next generation jet fighter, which will give the country's new aircraft carrier fleet its strike power, mean it will almost certainly not arrive at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) at RAF Fairford.

The entire F35 fleet was grounded following an engine fire during takeoff in a development aircraft in the US last month.

The jets’ failure to fly at the airshow as scheduled will be an embarrassment for Lockheed Martin, the US defence giant which leads the $1trillion F35 programme, and UK peer British Aerospace Systems, which is the biggest partner in the project and produces 15pc of each airframe.

[bemildred]

1. That is a lot of money to piss away. nt

[nitpicker]

2. Instead of housing (some) of the homeless

Someone already posted the following article in another thread:

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/07/09/3458101/f35-boondoggle-fail/

It bases its idea on a HUD study estimating that over 600,000 persons were homeless on a night in Jan 2013 in the US.

Others claim that those experiencing US homelessness during a year could be as many as 3.5 million.