F-35 News. The first fallout from the fire hits the program hard...

Thanks Don for the link...

via The Globe and Mail...

The Harper government is pressing pause on a decision to buy new jet fighters, including whether to purchase Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II without holding a competition, because it feels ministers need more information on other options before selecting a course of action.
There will be no decision this month on the next step – whether to hold a competition for a new plane or purchase the F-35 outright – and it is very unlikely anything will be announced even by mid-July, The Globe and Mail has learned.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper removed the item from the agenda of a recent meeting of cabinet’s priorities and planning committee to give ministers more time to deliberate and gather information, people familiar with the matter say. Priorities and planning is the main cabinet committee that provides strategic direction.
Sources say the government feels it’s being rushed and pressured by the Canadian Armed Forces and parts of the civil service to purchase the F-35 without a competition. The government, which took a serious credibility hit in 2012 over its poor management of the procurement process, is now concerned only one fully fleshed-out option has been presented for review and that it resembled a decision to be ratified rather than a well-developed option.
Ottawa appeared on track to decide before the end of June after Public Works Minister Diane Finley announced in April that cabinet would take the “next several weeks” to review all reports on jet options that had been prepared as part of a “reset” of the fighter procurement process. As recently as mid-June, senior officials were talking privately about a decision in the next couple of weeks, and the government paved the way with a news conference where arm’s-length experts praised fighter option deliberations on a replacement as “rigorous and impartial.”
Now, however, the Conservatives are trying to take it slower, concerned that the civil service was pushing too heavily for a decision to buy the F-35 fighters without competition before Ottawa had sufficiently considered the matter. These would replace Canada’s aging CF-18 jets.
“Cabinet hasn’t decided when they will decide, and haven’t determined what they’ll decide,” a senior government official said. “What has been determined is that they will take the necessary time to review the reports, and make a careful, considered decision.”

Those desperately needed foreign orders...especially from Canada...has failed to materialize.

Consider this the first fallout from the fire (and the earlier grounding).

What does this mean?  It means that they won't be able to "push the cost curve" down.  It means that this expensive airplane will continue to be expensive.

Have you noticed that the planned buy by the Brits has failed to happen?

THIS IS THE DEATH SPIRAL!

The Program Office must be frenzied.  They can see it all slipping away and there isn't a thing they can do about it.