Posted on 11/01/2010 8:45:01 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Defense Secretary Robert Gates will reportedly be told in a Tuesday meeting that the Joint Strike Fighter program will need $2.5 to $5 billion more than currently budgeted and also faces significant schedule delays.
The meeting is to discuss the Technical Baseline Review, which will feed into the November 22 Defense Acquisition Board meeting. THe TBR covers the current SDD phase of the largest conventional defense acquisition program in U.S. history.
The preliminary information about the meeting comes from Winslow Wheeler, a longtime congressional defense budget expert now with the Center for Defense Information. Wheeler would only say that his source was in the federal government. But he has been right more often than not with such information and is very well plugged in.
Wheeler sent several reporters an email over the weekend that said:
The “A and C models will need another 12 month delay;”
The Marine’s B model “will slip” two to three years;
The program “will be budgeted with another $2.5 billion to $5 billion;”
The Capability Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) “will re-estimate the O&S for F-35 as 1.5 times that of any aircraft being replaced
We contacted several Pentagon spokespeople who declined to comment, saying the information, was, in that wonderful Pentagon phrase, “pre-decisional.: Of course, if there’s some good news or some really, really bad news, it won’t be pre-decisional. Then it will be information important to the people of America who deserve to know what their government is doing.
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(Excerpt) Read more at dodbuzz.com ...
A cabal of inept America hating buffoons some of whom attained flag rank while on active duty.
Chump change when considering the long-term defense and combat capabilities, and cost of maintain the aircraft the F-35 replaces.
Of course costs will go down overtime, but the countries who made commitments to a certain number of planes must follow through. I would open up the sale of the F-35 to Japan and Taiwan.
We had better build a heck of a lot more F-22’s then.
LLS
You may get your wish.
Absolutely. They should be available to all of our allies. As you point out, the commonality of fleets and long production run will drive down the eventual overall cost.
Also, think of having to deploy, for defense or offensive operations in a country that has the F-35, the mx and support facilities save a fortune in logistics.
Just curious, is the JSF built with Union Labor?
ping
Taiwan has expressed interest in the plane and said that they would buy 100 of the planes. The Japanese would probably buy that same amount. The sticking point would who will be doing the upkeep of the plane the source code issue. But those are minor sticking points.
I think Texas has right to work laws.
You think right.
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not sure we should let Turkey buy them — they are fast turning into an Islamist cesspool and it is debatable whether they are an “ally” anymore
LLS
You brother is a wise sage.
LLS
Just in time to enforce Sharia law.
Agree. Turkey used to be a dependable ally. It is now a fairly Sharia Law country. Not good.
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