“The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was originally estimated to cost around $220 billion to research, engineer, and build 2,800 planes. Now we are going to spend more than $330 billion, a 50% increase, to buy 400 fewer planes. John McCain's opening statement to the Carter nomination hearings.Yeah.
That is a US Senator with visibility on the program stating that we've seen a 50% increase in the cost of the F-35.
Tell me again how the death spiral isn't here.
Tell me again how I'm misreading budget documents.
What? No response? I thought not!
Senator McCain is most familiar with the F-35 "scandal" and "tragedy."
ReplyDeleteSenators McCain and Levin penned a letter to SecDef Panetta in December 2011 as reported by The Hill. (excerpts)
“We are troubled by serious concerns that the Director [of] Operational Testing and Evaluation, Dr. Michael Gilmore, raised in an internal memorandum on Oct. 21, 2011, about plans to begin training flights at Eglin Air Force Base,” Levin and McCain wrote in a Dec. 6 letter to Panetta.
“Dr. Gilmore cited several safety-related shortfalls and highlighted the safely-of-flight risk of flying unmonitored production aircraft with less than half the test hours accumulated in previous programs,” McCain and Levin wrote. “Dr. Gilmore asserts that starting unmonitored Slight training at such a low level of testing hours presents inherent risks, regardless of the skill level of the training pilots or limitations placed on the training mission envelope.”
[On June 23, 2014 Gilmore's concerns were realized when an engine failure caused a serious fire, with no engine redesign fix in sight after seven months]
This has not been the best week for the F-35 program — thanks almost exclusively to the Senate’s Arizona maverick.
On Monday, McCain called the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet program a "scandal" and "tragedy," and demanded greater accountability for the weapons system's maker, Lockheed Martin.
"The Joint Strike Fighter program has been both a scandal and a tragedy," said McCain from the Senate floor. "[W]e are saddled with a program has little to show for itself after 10 years and $56 billion in taxpayer investment that has produced less than 20 test and operational aircraft."
Today marks the beginning of Joint Strike Fighters flying over the skies of Arizona for perhaps the next 50 years,” stated Arizona Senator John McCain during the ceremony. “That’s another 50 years for the city of Yuma, and the state of Arizona to do their part to help ensure this great nation remains strong and secure.”
DeleteRead more: http://www.dvidshub.net/news/98226/first-operational-f-35-squadron-honored-historic-ceremony#.VNOFLP54qrE#ixzz3QsnqTNSE
$330 billion divided by 2400 planes is $137.5 million per plane.
ReplyDeletetake it up with the Senator but he's probably including fixes to the total
Deletemaybe he is including the cost of integrating them into bases in his home state?
Delete"Complicated" man I guess
Something interesting to read Sol'
ReplyDeletehttp://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-to-win-in-a-dogfight-stories-from-a-pilot-who-flew-1682723379
This quote is spot on.
DeleteIf you had to fly any fighter into an air combat arena today, including an operational F-35A as an option, what would it be?
The F-22. It's a better jet than the F-35. It can carry at least as much, further and faster. If it was up to me I'd cancel the F-35 and start building more Raptors. A common counter to that is the cost to restart the F-22 assembly line. How much does one pig cost? Another is that the F-35 program is too far along. Yep, let's just keep paying for a poorly-managed, overly expensive fighter that has three versions that make any one version less than it could be. Can you say F-111? That the F-35's avionics are better than the F-22's; how about a Raptor upgrade? I'd also build more advanced versions of the F-15 and F-16.
I read that too yesterday. Very interesting stuff. I enjoyed his perspective about F16 that I have always been a fan of.
Deleteif it's in WVR, i take rafale... Do you want video footage of F22 shooting ??
DeleteHow does the newly restarted production F-22 take off of aircraft carriers?
Deletehttp://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-to-win-in-a-dogfight-stories-from-a-pilot-who-flew-1682723379..
ReplyDeleteI can't answer this one. I can ask, "Why did they make it such a pig?"
-LtCol "Spanky" Clifton
Dont see him putting a stick in the wheel - he might achieve saving A-10 but Pentagon has thrown its lot with F-35.
ReplyDeleteToo big and too fat to fail, they`ll build at leats 1500 of them - its multi-national program with things like NSM specifically redesigned for F-35.
Thats just one of the examples.
Tell me again how the death spiral isn't here.
ReplyDeleteOK
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-14/pentagon-said-to-seek-funds-for-57-lockheed-f35s-up-from-55
youve been saying this thing will be canceled anytime now for years, so Sol, where is the death spiral?
And if its going to be canceled anyway, why are you always whining about it? Do you still complain about your high school girlfriends or is that old history?
What? No response? I thought not!
ReplyDeleteLOL from the guy who is always deleting my comments?
http://youtu.be/1C1abhEhjmc?t=53s
ReplyDeletesuckers
Mister, or is it misses Cocktail, I do not know why you are so smug?
ReplyDeleteYou can not seriously think it would be a good thing for the F35 project to survive much longer. That is, unless you have quite a few LockMar shares..
We would have a failed aircraft and apart from that not much else... because there would be no more money.
In fact, even if the aircraft is not failed.. no one would have money to actually fly it enough to matter.
When will the reality sink in that a weapon system not only has to be functional and competitive , but that it also has to be affordable! I use the word affordable very literally here, if we have to give up necessary capabilities just to afford this plane then we CAN NOT afford it!
Sidenote.. how is it that spellcheck can not understand I want to write necessary when I type nesessery? sereneness??? Really??? spryness??? Do they really think I do not at least know the first letter?