Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The F-35 Is Still the Worst Military Investment Ever
www.esquire.com ^ | Oct 1, 2015 @ 11:53 AM | Charles P. Pierce

Posted on 10/02/2015 1:05:36 PM PDT by maddog55

It's been a while since we checked in on the F-35, the Flying Swiss Army Knife, which may be a floor wax or a dessert topping, but which sure as hell isn't an viable aircraft, but is one of the epic money pits of all time, even by Pentagon standards, which are higher than the plane thus far has been able to get off the ground. How are things going, anyway?

For 10 days in May off the coast of Virginia, a half dozen F-35 fighter jets tested their capabilities under what military officials called real world combat conditions. The Pentagon was trying to see if the Marine Corps' version of the next-generation fighter plane-its most expensive weapons project ever-was ready for battle. In July, after analyzing the test results, Marine Commandant General Joseph Dunsford triumphantly declared that it was.

Now even Dunsford's piece of good news is in doubt. A scathing memo written by J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon official who oversees operational testing and evaluations of new weapons systems, dismissed Dunsford's declaration, saying the conditions of the test hardly simulated real-world combat. The planes, for example, carried no missiles or bombs during the evaluation and landed on a deck that had been cleared of other aircraft. As a result, Gilmore wrote, the test "did not-and could not demonstrate" that the war plane "is operationally effective or suitable for use in any type of limited combat operation or that it is ready for real-world operational deployments."

(Excerpt) Read more at esquire.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-27 last
To: maddog55

“My guess would be you’re a Boeing employee or just drinking the koolaid.”

Well you are clearly an aviation expert. By the way the F-35 isn’t made by Boeing. They lost the competition.


21 posted on 10/02/2015 3:00:39 PM PDT by TalonDJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: TalonDJ
I meant LM not Boeing and the article is spot on.. esquire or not but if you want other sources:

http://www.pogo.org/blog/2015/04/gao-confirms-increased-f-35.html

http://aviationweek.com/defense/controversy-flares-over-f-35-air-combat-report

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-all-the-problems-with-the-f-35-that-the-pentagon-found-in-a-2014-report-2015-3

http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/661842.pdf

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-364

22 posted on 10/02/2015 3:08:09 PM PDT by maddog55 (America Rising a new Civil War needs to happen.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: maddog55

You must have just started paying attention to military weapons system development. They all have teething problems. With modern oversight any knownothing can read the problem reports and conclude stuff. If you want to go back in time you can find articles like that about every major (and minor) weapons system. If they naysayers had their way our military would be wearing furs and using clubs.


23 posted on 10/02/2015 3:47:08 PM PDT by TalonDJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: TalonDJ

I’m well more than well aware of military weapons systems and the whole defense acquisition process from start to finish. There’s good ones run by competent people with an end goal that supports the Warfighter needs and there’s the bad ones with no leadership or goals and are in a constant state of disarray and those problems are the way the governmental defense acquisition process usually works... it doesn’t. It creates problems by default.

A simple example: If I tell you to build me box, contract you for a box, pay you to build that box because that’s what’s needed, you start to build the box and then I constantly change everything about that box that I asked you do and when it’s time for that “program manager” to rotate out and his/her successor comes in and wants everything changed and your box now becomes a round tube that doesn’t do anything that it was originally designed to do to start with and then to fix it you throw $$ after $$, slide schedules and paint a pretty picture to the tax payer that everything is fine but in reality it’s a disaster then you have what we call the Defense Acquisition Process.


24 posted on 10/02/2015 5:13:42 PM PDT by maddog55 (America Rising a new Civil War needs to happen.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: maddog55

Leave it to GOVERNMENT and you get screwed

And yet look at the idiots that want to turn their entire Lives over to it... I’d say let them but then ... They want to
(1) Make me, my kids Pay for it
(2) Drag me, my kids into it as well

Rush Limbaugh did not get his Wish
Obama is succeeding


25 posted on 10/02/2015 9:40:35 PM PDT by TexasTransplant (Idiocracy used to just be a Movie... Live every day as your last...one day you will be right)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: maddog55

A10
P3C
B51

Just 3 AC that will work today as they did in the past, will work in the future as well


26 posted on 10/02/2015 9:42:57 PM PDT by TexasTransplant (Idiocracy used to just be a Movie... Live every day as your last...one day you will be right)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TexasTransplant

P-8 trying to replace the P-3 is another massive failure and a very costly one. Taking over the P-3 mission from high altitude required changing everything the P-3C could do quicker, cheaper and for longer periods of time. Then there’s the infrastructure for the P-8, new hangars, ramps spaces had to be redone for the weight all new GSE and the cost just continues to pile up.


27 posted on 10/03/2015 5:38:12 AM PDT by maddog55 (America Rising a new Civil War needs to happen.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-27 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson