Costliest Jet, Years in Making, Sees the Enemy: Budget Cuts

[Gerald]

Vice Adm. David Venlet was named to lead the Joint Strike Fighter program in 2010 after problems had left it behind schedule and over budget.

LEXINGTON PARK, Md. — The Marine version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, already more than a decade in the making, was facing a crucial question: Could the jet, which can soar well past the speed of sound, land at sea like a helicopter?

On an October day last year, with Lt. Col. Fred Schenk at the controls, the plane glided toward a ship off the Atlantic coast and then, its engine rotating straight down, descended gently to the deck at seven feet a second.

There were cheers from the ship’s crew members, who “were all shaking my hands and smiling,” Colonel Schenk recalled.

The smooth landing helped save that model and breathed new life into http://www.jsf.mil/ , the most expensive weapons system in military history. But while Pentagon officials now say that the program is making progress, it begins its 12th year in development years behind schedule, troubled with technological flaws and facing concerns about its relatively short flight range as possible threats grow from Asia.

Advanced costs, $154 million per unit (F-35 )

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/us...t-risk.html?hp


Note: November 28, 2012

[Gerald]

Very interesting topic,OP must have spent time on this, it really shows,

[Herr-Berbunch]

Unjustifiable costs, scrap it buy a Chinese rip-off of it for a third of the price.

Or some decent aircraft.

[Gerald]

But we also talk about quality.

[Oberon]

We (the Lolwaffles) had a big old talk about the F-35 a while back. It's a damn fine piece of kit, top notch stuff...but the price makes its deployment viability restrictive. You would only send it into missions where you could guarantee that it wouldn't get shot at, which defeats the entire point of a war machine. In the end, you're probably better with the latest version of the F-18, but that would mean that we'd have to completely redesign our carriers, which would mean that we would probably wind up not being able to afford even a single one.

Come to think of it, didn't the Enterprise get decommed a while ago?

[Gerald]

Yes,she is scheduled to be deactivated on 1 December 2012.