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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Wed Oct 21, 2015, 07:23 AM Oct 2015

The sorry saga of the F-35: When the Pentagon wastes money, we all get a Vegas hangover

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/10/21/sorry-saga-f-35-when-pentagon-wastes-money-all-get-vegas-hangover.html


The sorry saga of the F-35: When the Pentagon wastes money, we all get a Vegas hangover
By Tony Shaffer
Published October 21, 2015

It’s as if the Pentagon went to Vegas with a boatload of bucks, gambled like crazy, lost its shirt, and now the whole nation must pay for an endless supply of Alka-Seltzer. That’s the story of the F-35.

Former U.K. defense chief Nick Harvey recently said this about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: “You could argue it was already one of the biggest white elephants in history a long time ago.” He added, there is “not a cat in hell’s chance” that the F-35 would be combat-ready by 2018. In fact, the House Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing today on the troubled aircraft after news broke that due to "concerns about increased risk of injury to F-35 pilots," those under 136 pounds were restricted from flying the aircraft.

At a time when our national security is precarious, one would expect any reorganization of military forces and upgrades of defense equipment would mandate strong programs and efficient weaponry modeled for 21st century threats. Instead, we get an aircraft we might have been able to use to shoot down the Red Baron a century ago.

For this trillion-dollar-plus investment we get a plane that was crushed by an F-16 during a recent competition. The F-35 is far slower, with less than half the range, and sustained-turn- performance that is outdated by decades. It’s not just that billions of dollars are being wasted, it is that we need that money to spend on other programs.
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