somewhere, PukinDog is laughing...
Posted on 09/09/2016 10:10:59 PM PDT by US Navy Vet
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the most expensive procurement program in Pentagon history. It’s been plagued by schedule delays, gross cost overruns, and a slew of underwhelming performance reviews. Last month the Air Force declared its variant “ready for combat,” and most press reports lauded this as a signal that the program had turned a corner. But a memo issued from the Pentagon’s top testing official, based largely upon the Air Force’s own test data, showed that the Air Force’s declaration was wildly premature.
Dr. Michael Gilmore’s latest memorandum is damning. The F-35 program has derailed to the point where it “is actually not on a path toward success, but instead on a path toward failing to deliver the full Block 3F capabilities for which the Department is paying almost $400 billion.” The 16-page memo, first reported by Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg and then by others, details just how troubled this program is: years behind schedule and failing to deliver even the most basic capabilities taxpayers, and the men and women who will entrust their lives to it, have been told to expect.
The Pentagon’s top testing office warns that the F-35 is in no way ready for combat since it is “not effective and not suitable across the required mission areas and against currently fielded threats.” (Emphasis added) As it stands now, the F-35 would need to run away from combat and have other planes come to its rescue, since it “will need support to locate and avoid modern threats, acquire targets, and engage formations of enemy fighter aircraft due to outstanding performance deficiencies and limited weapons carriage available (i.e., two bombs and two air-to-air missiles).” In several instances, the memo rated the F-35A less capable than the aircraft we already have.
(Excerpt) Read more at pogo.org ...
POGO railed against the F-22 as that platform took so long to mature.
Surprise, POGO is railing against the F-35 as this platform is taking so long to mature.
Innovation and revolution doesn't always follow a predetermined time schedule, but the only way to ensure you won't fail is to never try.
Compare that to Rockwell-Collins B-1 Bomber program in the early 80's - under budget and ahead of schedule.
Excuse_My_Bellicosity ~ Can we find a more melodramatic title please?
F-35 May NEVER Be Ready For Winning In Combat.
After all, it is technically capable of going into combat, just not necessarily capable of flying back out...
For the past 8 years, I have felt that Obama was America’s “Treaty of Versailles” President. He seems determined to limit our military and economic power and to make us subservient to foreign moslem powers.
Two bombs and two missiles was in the primary specification. If that is what is being delivered than what is the issue?
The F-35 was supposed to combine the first day of stealth drop two smart bombs capability of the F-117 with the months long bombing campaign ability of the F-16.
So in that respect the F-35 is plodding along slowly but steadily.
Everybody underestimated the difficulty of writing software for the sensor fusion and integrating it into the weapons control. It is the software that will limit the F-35s capabilities during IOC, not hardware.
A plane designed by a committee with a primary goal of enriching politically connected contractors can never be made to work. Or one might, conversely, say it has worked perfectly; enriching politically connected contractors.
The problem with the A10 is it is too good, simple, and cheap to operate. Where's the money it that?!
Yep, like doing a complete remodel of a Navy Exchange that just needed a new roof, but not remodeling the Pharmacy to make it Handicap friendly after the DOD MANDATED all Tricare Life use the base pharmacy or Fraud prone Express Scripts, who can’t even manage to get your meds in the right mail box, NO ID SIGN FOR required.
They just reset the Commissary, not necessary, and repaved the parking lot, again not necessary and stuck in HUMONGOUS speed bumps in both Commissary and Exchange parking lots which are 5 mph.
Millington, TN went from a training Naval base to BUPERS and we gained twice the Brass. So prices skyrocketed at the Exchange as they went to high end stuff. $200 Vera Wang Wallet type crap. Commissary is now as expensive as the local grocery store. Did I mention they installed electronic price thing’s too. Just wasting money. And we have Rent a Guards at the gates.
Ready or not, the F-35 would be employed if the shooting began.
Look at the P-40 ... a rugged and serviceable plane but it was obsolete by the start of the war. Still, that didn’t stop the Warhawk from flying in every theater of the war, right to the end.
I think they should just bite the financial bullet and reopen the F-22 production line that they never should have closed in the first place. I think I read somewhere that the F-22 tooling was tucked away in a warehouse, for just such a contingency?
FYI — Got to see the F-22 in last year’s Air Show in Atlantic City. What an impressive bird!
I never knew a fighter jet could do a hammerhead without stalling out!
Don’t listen to me, I’ve only been working with military jets for 22 years. It funny how people read a headline and just believe it, especially a bunch of conservatives that chide middle America for that very thing. It’s also funny how people read InfoWars.com and become instant experts.
*shrug* You did ask for a more melodramatic title, with a ‘please’, no less.
It was the best I could do on short notice };^P>
Good engineers do not design failing devices..jus sayin
People at Brown Aviation in San Diego told me in 1969 that the moon landing was a hoax.
Yep. And all the while, the bloggers were reporting that the V-22 was horrid, the boots-on-the-ground were scared of it, and it could “never” accomplish the mission like the H-53. (I suspect a lot of the discourse was generated by a nostalgic H-53 community that didn’t want to see their copter retired.)
By the same standard that people are looking at the F-35, the F-15 and F-16 never should’ve been fielded. In the 1980s, they were falling out of the sky and the technical problems were daunting. On this report on the F-35, I counted about 20 technical problems. Only 20 discrepancies would’ve been an absolute dream for the F-16 in the 1980s, which killed 48 pilots and about a dozen people on the ground and millions upon millions were being spent on modification programs.
Same with the F-111, which turned out to be a great aircraft but ran into a meat-grinder in it’s debut in Vietnam, to the extent that it was pulled out of country until it was further modified.
How about the AV-8 Harrier, a.k.a. “Widowmaker”?
Every weapon system has these problems. If you wait until it’s perfect to field it, it will be in testing for 50 years and be long-obsolete before it sees its first deployment.
"Ramping up production means we will be buying more airplanes that will require ever more fixes in order to be deployable."
~~~~~~
As we used to say (sarcastically) at TI, When you're building junk, compensate by increasing production volume..."
What a fustercluck! Thank the "0bama generals"...
F-35: more sloppy patches than a rural county road...
somewhere, PukinDog is laughing...
...or, of doing its job while there...
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