Officials at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics are days away from sending Eglin Air Force Base its first of 59 Joint Strike Fighters.The momentum has become unstoppable. The program has survived its critics and will go into full rate production.
“We are very close to delivering the first jet down there and I would say we believe it will happen in the month of June,” said Mike Rein, a spokesman for the company.
The arrival of the first F-35 will start a string of deliveries from this month to September. Six jets are slated for delivery by the end of the fiscal year, Rein said. The base will receive the majority of the jets within the next three years.
“While we’ll still be delivering aircraft to other bases, Eglin will be the primary focus for the coming years,” Rein said.
Since Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates restructured the program last January, Rein said the deliveries are on schedule.
The proposed delivery date when the Draft Executive Summary came out last September was four planes in 2010 and 26 planes in 2011. Instead, the first six aircraft will be bought this year and another six the following year.
The rate of delivery will eventually increase until Eglin receives its 59 aircraft.
Other than test aircraft, Eglin will be the first base to receive F-35s. The jets will be used to train F-35 pilots and maintainers at the 33rd Fighter Wing’s Joint Strike Fighter Training School.
The first pilots who will train on the F-35 will be instructors. Some of them, including Marines, are already stationed at Eglin and are a part of the cadre tasked with forming the curriculum.
Rein said Lockheed and Eglin plan to have events where the public can see the aircraft sometime this year.
Officials at the Pentagon and Eglin said the base is working closely with Lockheed Martin and will announce the jet’s arrival when the date is firmly in place.
The Joint Strike Fighter is the country’s first fifth-generation, multirole fighter.
“This is going to give our armed forces the capability that they’ve never had before and it is going to be a tremendous leap in technology,” Rein said. “We’re quite excited about it.”
The Haters can pound sand....eat fish heads and rice...and shut the fuck up...
You lose boys.
As some used to say, "word"... Is it just me or has the general consensus of the "haters" now moved into schedule and cost concerns and away from the capability of the F-35 itself?
ReplyDeleteIt's been quite amusing watching the tide of the attacks turn from capability to essentially the manufacturers ability to execute the program, with cost and schedule the essential "outcomes" of the manufacturers performanc in the minds of some...
As an example, I doubt few honest people would admit that eary comments about the F-16's capability and "marketability" have stood the test of time, So it will be with the F-35 I believe...
I believe we are witnessing the beginings of the point where these critics are shown to be cranks they truly are. During the development phase, a critic can pretty much make up whatever complaint he likes and run with it, due to the inability of anyone to verify whether or not such an assertation is correct.
When F-35's are increasingly flying daily and are in the hands of ACTUAL users, rather than the "bought" L-M testers, the ability to take such potshots at the program based on inaccuracies in public reporting are hugely decreasing and the opportunties taken to deride the capability are increasingly seen for what most have believed they are all along. Sour grapes or agenda based...
Interesting times...
totally agree!
ReplyDeleteyou covered their strategy from A to Z...i'm just looking forward to posting various statements by 'those in the know' that proclaimed the program a failure--every gambit they've tried has failed and you can sense that the arguments are borne of desperation and not facts.
Whether the F-35 will be a capable fighter and whether the F-35 is a successful program are two different questions.
ReplyDeleteDoD has shown every sign that they will make the F-35 into a successful plane no matter how long it takes and how much it costs. This strategy tends to make the plane more successful and the program less successful at the same time.
Certainly having hand built training planes in the air is a huge step forward and will greatly facilitate the introduction of the F-35 into service use.
Eventually the F-35 will do what it is supposed to do. In that sense, the F-35 will be a successful airplane: probably a lot of fun to fly and very capable in BVR air to air and good at the suppression of sophisticated air defenses.
Even if it hits its current plan, the F35 program is four years late and almost double the originally projected cost. With every delay and cost increase, us "haters" raise the bar for what we expect the plane to be able to do.
This leads to situations where a development that you celebrate because it shows solid progress and performance, for example the F35 is as maneuverable as an F-18, we jump on as an example of the plane under performing relative to the time and money invested.
So here you see production planes arriving at a squadron. I see planes that are four years late, are far too hand built and too many planned design changes away from being called "production", have have non-combat capable software. In short, I see what in the old days we used to call "prototypes" being shoved into squadron service.
In a "glass is half full" sense you're right, this is big progress. In a "glass is half empty sense" I'm right, this is so much less than was promised for so much extra money that it's just painful.