Posted on 07/28/2014 11:11:22 AM PDT by MadIsh32
Britain’s Farnborough Air Show wrapped up last week after seven ear-splitting days. To impress the excited kids and jaded dealers in attendance, the U.S. sent an F-8, an F-15, and a pair of F-16s. But the much anticipated F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter was a no-show. After a runway fire grounded the fleet earlier this month, the Department of Defense suspended negotiations to purchase the next batch of the planes.
The troubled fighter is only the latest in a growing number of cases where the DOD has bought poorly designed and massively overpriced equipment for the nation’s armed forces. The average major Pentagon acquisition comes in at 40 percent over budget, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. In spite of the Pentagon’s well-documented history of profligacy, the Congress continues to enlarge its responsibilities. The DOD’s mandate now includes wide-ranging scientific and medical research and international infrastructure projects, diffusing the focus on its core mission—like buying planes that don’t set themselves afire on the runway. That’s a disservice to America’s military and a burden to the country’s taxpayers.
The F-35 grounding is the latest setback in the development of an aircraft that’s already cost $400 billion. A recent GAO report noted that cost estimates for operating and supporting the F-35 fleet are now more than $1 trillion, “which DOD officials have deemed unaffordable.” The report went on: “Reliability is lower than expected for two variants” of the F-35, and the program has “limited additional opportunities to improve reliability.”
Meanwhile, Pentagon procurement is also running amok elsewhere: in the same week as the F-35 engine fire, the DOD’s inspector general issued a report on excess payments such as a payment to Bell Helicopters for gears at $8,124 each—more than 18 times the expected cost of $445.
(Excerpt) Read more at campaignforliberty.org ...
“U.S. sent an F-8”, Haven’t had active F-8s in the DoD(US Navy/USMC) since the 1980s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F-8_Crusader
These stories never mention the added cost of the bureaucratic paper trail, or re-tooling to produce parts that have been out of production for years, or even DECADES. . .
I still remember having to certify parts were not made with “conflict metals”, i.e. tantalum from certain countries in Africa.
The fact that the parts were PURE ALUMINUM was irrelevant. . .thank some Congresscritter for that. . .
I think they might’ve meant the F-18 super hornet. Just a guess.
CC
Most of the time paying more for items from toilet paper to aircraft is specified by congressional pork injected into appropriations and federal purchasing bills. These rules and specs ensure that congressional constituents or donors and friends are rewarded generously. Not just the DoD, the entire federal government.
The F-35 is supposed to replace the F-16 - an airplane that's been around since 1976. Most companies wouldn't have a 40 year old fleet of trucks, let alone airplanes that old.
Congress can’t fix the Pentagon’s procurement problems because half the time Congress is responsible for crony-capitalist (contractors in the home district) add-ons in military contracts, add-ons the Pentagon agrees to NOT because without them the goal of an item’s use was jeopardized but just because getting approved by congress would be jeopardized without it.
When people complained about us buying Russian Helicopters for Afghanistan as part of our military aid agreement with Afghanistan they were either ignorant of or willingly blind to the total agreement’s cost, which included the helos, training, parts and supplies in a mutli-year pact, all of which were less expensive on the less complex, easier to operate, less sophisticated but well built Russian helos.
Under political pressure American military hardware has become a field of arrogant technological gold mines, for the contractors.
Government has been economically gang banging middle America every way possible, every single aspect of everything they do for many years.
For example, they’ve charged American’s many hundreds of billions in tax dollars for border security, to keep the borders safe and secure etc.
We’ve all be burned, taken, ripped off, coned, and robbed at gun point, repeatedly over and over and on and on...
At this link, the designer of the F-16 explains what’s wrong with the F-35. Most informative!
http://digg.com/video/the-designer-of-the-f-15-explains-just-how-inanely-stupid-the-f-35-is
Maybe they can get a F-35 flyable for the next show in 2 years.
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