Posted on 03/18/2016 6:40:44 PM PDT by maddog55
Officials are finally admitting the F-35 fighter has turned into a nightmare—but it’s too late to stop the $400 billion program now.
Way back in the early 2000s, the U.S. military had a dream. To develop a new “universal” jet fighter that could do, well, pretty much everything that the military asks its different fighters to do.
But the dream of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter turned into a nightmare. The program is six years behind schedule and tens of billions of dollars over budget. And now, 16 years after the JSF prototypes took off for their first flights, top officials are finally owning up to the trauma the $400 billion fighter program has inflicted on America’s finances and war readiness.
In a remarkable period, beginning in February and lasting several weeks, senior officers and high-ranking bureaucrats finally publicly copped to the warplane program’s fundamental failures.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Looks like a killing machine-—enemies coming up against that smiling face would die laughing.
“The Navy version of the F-111 became the F-14. ...”
No it didn’t.
The F-14 was entirely different, designed and produced by Grumman, to serve as a fleet defense interceptor: completely different mission. No commonality at all, beyond variable-geometry wings and tricycle gear. And those parts were built to different dimensions anyway.
F-14 turned out to be more flexible and adaptable than anyone had anticipated.
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