I can’t believe Lockheed doesn’t just pull the plug on it.
Get some upgraded F-15s out there, and get the F-22s going again. Upgrade and update the A-10. A ground attack aircraft needs to be able to go low and slow, the straight wing design is great.
What do you think the unit cost of an F-16 Block 80 is?
$75-80 million.
the F-35 program has met its program unit cost targets when inflation over the past 15 years is taken into consideration from the original cost goals.
The JSF was a lobbying operation to transfer defense dollars to the hands of contractors. In that regard it has been a wild success. Airfloght or combat readiness, while not totally unwelcome outcomes, aren't necessary.
Not while there is money on the table.
I had to laugh at your comment. Are you kidding?
Lockheed killed the F-22 to divert funds to the 35 to keep the program alive because they figured they could make more money, a lot more money, by selling the pig all over the world. They were hoping for another F-16.
Instead this is the most botched program in history along with the littoral combat chips. People should go to jail over this one. People have started and retired careers on this airplane it has been so long in development. It is a monumental poster child for the Golden Fleece award and it has been for 27 years now.
The program began n 1992 and first flight was in 2006. Damn good thing we aren’t at war isn’t it? We’d be screwed woudln’t we?
The feds don’t pull the plug because Lockheed has too many friends, the program has gone too far, there is no alternative, people are foolishly hoping this will work, they are whistling through the graveyard.
If the pentagon and administration had any brains at all they would pull the plug on this pig and retool the f-22 line real quick but with someone else building the airplanes besides lockheed. They would also beg Boeing to build a few wings of F-15 bomb trucks to at least give us a fair chance of somehow winning a war with the chicoms.
The 35 is a money pit that has made a lot of people wealthy. They can live with their treason because they don’t have a conscience.
Could, maybe, might, unauthorized source, unidentified source. This is the crap that comes from people ignorant of the facts.
Fact, the F-35 is killing everything in the air in air combat training with the exception of the F-22’s.
Even the eagle drivers who have never had a combat loss are dead meat in the F-35 sights.
That is the primary function of this aircraft, killing other planes. Software can be modified and improved and accuraized. If the plane can not stay in the air and kill other airborne threat it is worthless in any capacity and the F-35 does that in grand style.
The F-111 was envisioned as a multi service platform, but the navy variant didn’t cut the mustard. The navy killed it, but the engines in a new naval friendly airframe became the F-14. Evidently those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.