Posted on 03/02/2010 12:04:01 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
You probably thought when Secretary of Defense Bob Gates killed the Lockheed Martin F-22 last year, it was a good thing for the F-35. I'm not so sure anymore. I think Gates simply shifted everyone's target. As the MOST EXPENSIVE WEAPONS PROGRAM IN HISTORY, Lockheed's F-35 program, with its nearly $11 BILLION ANNUAL PRICE TAG (and that's only the US-funded portion), faces F-22-like scrutiny, but now with an unprecedented level of public disclosure.
I spent most of my day reading the 25 reports posted by the Defense Contracts Management Agency (DCMA), an unexpectedly public archive that tramples all over the proprietary secrecy usually reserved for aerospace assembly lines.
The DCMA's disclosure is an extraordinary and unprecedented gesture. Sure, many pages are redacted, but, even so, I do not believe that a major weapons program has ever faced this level of exposure.
How do we interpret all of this data? Carefully.
DCMA reports, by their nature, have to be a bit unfair. DCMA's auditors aren't looking to provide a balanced perspective. The monthly action reports are about finding problems -- and fixing them. That said, the DCMA reports show the F-35 has been having more problems than even some of its critics realized, and they haven't been getting fixed either. It will take me another day or two to process all of it.
Meanwhile, the F-35 data dump keeps rolling.
(Excerpt) Read more at flightglobal.com ...
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You should really forward this to Eric Palmer’s blog. He writes for F-16.net, and closely follows the whole JSF fiasco.
http://ericpalmer.wordpress.com/
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