More Bad News For the F-35

schwit1 sends this news from Aviation Week: "A new U.S. Defense Department report warns that ongoing software, maintenance and reliability problems with Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 stealth fighter could delay the Marine Corps' plans to start using its F-35 jets by mid-2015. It said Lockheed had delivered F-35 jets with 50 percent or less of the software capabilities required by its production contracts with the Pentagon. The computer-based logistics system known as ALIS was fielded with 'serious deficiencies' and remained behind schedule, which affected servicing of existing jets needed for flight testing, the report said. It said the ALIS diagnostic system failed to meet even basic requirements. The F35 program, which began in 2001, is 70 percent over initial cost estimates, and years behind schedule, but top U.S. officials say it is now making progress. They have vowed to safeguard funding for the program to keep it on track. Earlier this week, the nonprofit Center for International Policy said Lockheed had greatly exaggerated its estimate (PDF) that the F-35 program sustained 125,000 U.S. jobs to shore up support for the program."

Fat defense contract conundrum

[oldhack]

This is a structural problem, and seems a tough nut to crack. Ike pointed out the problem more than half a century ago, but there is no apparent solution/alternative.

Giant F-ing Boondoggle

[tekrat]

The F-35 is expected to cost over a trillion dollars over ten years and that's not including the billions in cost over-runs. And then the GOP has the gall to talk about shutting down PBS and the Post Office as a waste of government money.

This plane's engine is being built in Speaker John Bohener's state of Ohio. No wonder funding for it will never, ever be cut. The plane could cost 20 trillion, bankrupt the entire United States, and they'd still continue to fund it, by cutting all healthcare, schools, welfare, social security, and foreclose on every American whether they can or not.

This is the GOP mantra. Build more planes and ships we don't need so that defense contractors can be wealthy beyond their wildest dreams... Remember the kid that ran over 4 people in his pickup truck and got off with the defense of "affluenza"? his parents are government contractors. Follow the money. We're being fleeced by the military and then told that the USA is broke if we dare ask for any social service.

The pentagon's photocopier paper budget is bigger than PBS. But what did Mitt Romney promise to cut during his (failed) campaign?

We're headed for a third-world nation banana-republic where the military has everything and the citizens live in mud huts.

Complexity is not a feature, it is a bug

[leandrod]

So many failures by trying to be all things to all people as long as the taxpayer foots it all.

My native Brazil has decided on ðe Saab JAS 39E Gripen NG, as did Switzerland where I lived. Two very different countries, very different needs, and sure enough the Gripen even in its NG version cannot do all the F-35 should be able to do — but it does not need to. It is more of a versatile aircraft, doing passably well in its intended deployments at a reasonable cost, than a do-it-all.

It is not to say the US should just ditch ðe F-35 and localise ðe Gripen just as ðey did with ðe Harrier. But it could be an strategy: to have a flexible (‘swing role’ is what Saab calls it) main aircraft, perhaps the evolution of ðe F-18, perhaps a pared down F-35 just as ðe Chinese did, and dedicated planes to do things ðe main platform cannot do, such as ðe A and B planes: ðe A-10, ðe Harrier &, yes, ðe B-52, or evolutions or replacements ðereof. Theoretically a single plane should be cheaper to keep ðan several ones, but not when its costs spiral out of control.

It would be far cheaper..

[Patent Lover]

.. to just keep paying those 125,000 people their salary to do nothing and dump this turd of a program.