F 35
Lifted from commnents in open thread in resonse to Tom Coburn’s comments on SSDI, by ilsm:
Going after SSDI scalawags.
The congress just added 4 more F-35 to the 2015 buy than Obama asked for.
The F-35 is currently grounded because the engines tend to blow up and catch fire when they are attempted to start.
Maybe they ought to look at the waste in the $100B in R&D money thrown at Lockheed for the F-35.
It should be cann’ed.
Then the US can take care of real people.
See these references…
Washington Post, DOD report, Reuters
At times it appears that Congress would rather kill people than help people.
Unfortunately the F-35 is the only stealth option for the Navy and Marine Corp. Not having that capability leaves them both vulnerable and in great possibility of not being able to accomplish missions in areas of integrated air defense.
I’ve read that they intend to spend one trillion (t) on the F-35. Is Mars attacking? I was all for the Reagan buildup when the Russkies had 180 tank divisions and you couldn’t be sure why. But who are we going to fight now? The penguins evicted from Antarctica by global warming? Never fear; the south pole ice is growing not receding.
The F-35 costs between $125Million and $150Million per copy and they say that one of the purposes will be ground attack. (To replace the A-10 which costs about $12Million)
Have they completely forgotten what air superiority means? If the F-35 cannot provide air superiority then what is the point?
Apparently the Air Force has come to believe that one plane should be able to do it all. Follow this to its logical conclusion and we will only be able to afford one plane.
And last but not least, how much training is being canceled so that the military can purchase gold plated hardware like this?
Where are the Republican deficit hawks when we need them?
F-35 “production” is somewhat fraudulent. The anomaly is an F-35
has not burned to dust, staved off by herculean efforts at pre-flight
and monitoring engine starts. It seems the F-35 will be serviced like
the space shuttle.
Tests as applied to F-35 are done to make it look like it works.
The fraud is representing the system as tested when the tests were
washed down,
While it is in development, low rate production (using procurement not R&D fiunds) will deliver up to 300 (more than 100 by now) F-35’s all
containing a large amount of scrap and rework.
The significance of buying with procurement funds is the “legal
requirement” that a useful system that perfoms to technical
requirements is delivered. In case of most low rate productions this
little legality is not delviered.
What do you call accepting defective delivery?
While Senator Inhofe says F-35 is too “modern to kill”. Obamacare is not too old to kill…………………………
I read somewhere that the F-35 cannot even take off with a full fuel load — which means with weapons too. I went looking for that link and came up with this incredible tear down.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5
An F-35 that cannot fly is NOT a stealth option.
Engineers and other employees working on F-35 are more wasteful (as a burden to the commons) than the usual SSDI fraud.
What GAO said about ‘affordability’ in 2013 is pentagon will stop writing a blank check and start ignoring failed requirements that are no longer tested to get on schedule.
The overweight F-35 can hold 16000 pounds of jet fuel internally! The F-16 can hold 6000 pounds…. It is not a light fighter!
The latest F-35 issue identified by GAO this past spring is software.
The short take off vertical landing (STOVL) version F-35B is needed to retire the widowmaker Harriers on Amphibious ships. The initial operating needed by date is sometime in 2015, but defective software means the F-35B will not do a lot of what is needed. Good thing the idea of amphibs is supported mainly by John Wayne movies.
F-35 went into Full Scale Development in 2001. It has grown from $46B to $100B in R&D funding and is 6 or 10 years late to deliver a floating design. The total for R&D and production is $400B. Sustaining the F-35 in operation and training will be another $1000B.
The total cost of F-35 through 2050 is $1500B. Even in sustainment most of the money will go to industry.
There is too much money to let little issues with software, engine fires or chances of doing successful combat get in the way.
The Army cancelled its next generation of tanks and armoured vehicles, the Navy had A-12 cancelled in 1990 and the free world is only worried today about terrorists with RPG’s.
The coincidence of PAC money, jobs in districts and misinformation has kept F-35 alive.
However, if it were to be cancelled or scaled back like F-22 and B-2 then applying fact based (get rid of the misrepresenting) management to the pentagon and its inept suppliers might change the world.
A plan exists to bring down the $1000B sustainment price tag, but it means less training and a lot of F-35’s in near mothball.
status.
To be affordable F-35 needs to have no adversary.
Shovel leaning engineers and other employees working on F-35…..
Its called PORK, comes in a barrel. Old as the hills.
Well the barrel fo pork has gotten extra large and the enemies have gotten down sized.
The projection for the 5 year pork plan is over $600B a year in 2013 USD.
That remains higher than peaks of Vietnam, and Reagan build up in real spending.
The reason F-35 is 2400 airplanes is all those designed by Carter are gettiong old.
The reagan pork machine just made the porkers more inept.
Wow lol. So higher pay doesn’t yield better performance!
Has Cato been notified?
“So higher pay doesn’t yield better performance?”
You can say that again!
Its like the Chevy Vega, if WE build it, they will buy it, even if its a turd.
The problem with this aircraft system isn’t aerodynamics or aeronautical engineering, its Congress.
Amateur Socialist,
Closed system: defesne contractor monopoly ripping off a monopsony run by congress and pentagon officials looking at high paying post military careers for the monopolists’ welfare.
Revolving door Lt Gen Bogdan will be on the board of a Lovkheed competitor so it won’t look so bad. The talent is being a buyers of trillions in junk and being able to live with yourself.
F-35 disaster is as goood or better managed than the other $1900B outstanding procurements the pentagon runs.
GAO reports a plethora of horror stories by the pentagon and supplier axis.
It is congress’ fault that “good” engineers deliver trash! Congress keeps funding them.