Posted on 03/06/2021 2:39:17 PM PST by RomanSoldier19
The House Armed Services Committee chairman railed at the expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on Friday, saying he wants to “stop throwing money down that particular rathole,” ― just days after the Air Force said it too is looking at other options.
“What does the F-35 give us? And is there a way to cut our losses? Is there a way to not keep spending that much money for such a low capability because, as you know, the sustainment costs are brutal,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said a Brookings event.
Air Force officials recently said they are conducting a study to find the best mix of fighters including Lockheed Martin’s F-35, Boeing’s F-15EX and a replacement for the service’s oldest F-16s. Smith was thinking along similar lines.
“What I’m going to try to do is figure out how we can get a mix of fighter-attack aircraft that’s the most cost effective. And I am telling you right now a big part of that is finding something that doesn’t make us have to rely on the F-35 for the next 35 years,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Gosh, it’s a weird coincidence that Boeing is headquartered in Washington state.
"Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash Boeing
Office address:
9th District Office. 101 Evergreen Building 15 S. Grady Way Renton, WA 98057
Never should have stopped procurement of the F-22. To make matters worse they destroyed the tooling and equipment to build them.
Made in St. Louis
Technically not, they are headquartered in Obama, Illinois. They do make planes at a facility about a mile and a half from his district office, however. 7 to 10 minutes in normal to heavy traffic.
While I agree with your skeptical sarcasm in the case of this dem rep. The fact is the F-35 is a turkey and has been from the get-go. There is no such thing as a single military aircraft that can be all things for all needs. The entire concept was the F-35 was to be the Swiss Army Knife of the skies for the 3 branches of service. The end result is an aircraft that attempts to do so very many things and does none of them very well.
The VSTOL variant for the Corps should be kept. It is a valuable asset. The other versions need to be euthanized.
The biggest mistake made was to destroy the F-22 tooling and limit its production. A carrier-borne version should have been made to increase volume and decrease costs. The F-22 is very close to the same footpring as the Tomcat.
Here comes the F-35 MAX.
The F-22 is already obsolete. The USA could make a air dominance fighter much better than the F-22 quickly if the hit fits the shan. At least until all the engineers are Chinese or Indian H1b visa holders.
The A-51 Apache was drawn up in a hotel over 1 night and was put into production mere months later. When the Brits strapped the Merlin engine to it, it became the Mustang.
It would have been cheaper to buy twice as many F22s and a new version of the A10.
The F-35 factory is in Ft Worth, TX.
The F-22 factory is in Georgia.
BiXiden could always buy some 5G/6G CCP fighters.
the DoD didn’t pick the boeing proposal, so the congressman from washington state is going to damage the nation’s security as punishment.
It would have been cheaper to buy twice as many F22s and a new version of the A10.
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The purpose of these aircraft is not a superior fighter, put a superior pork pie.
how did your application to be SecDef turn out? lol.
naysayers trashed the f-16 in the early going of that plane’s production; they turned out to be idiots.
there’s always someone saying that the new stuff sucks, no matter what the new stuff is.
One epic example was patricia schroeder trying to kill the AWACS claiming it was "an airplane in search of a mission".
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