Only One of Six Air Force F-35s Could Actually Take Off During Testing

Thanks to Super Rhino for the link!

via Fortune

Five of six Air Force F-35 fighter jets were unable to take off during a recent exercise due to software bugs that continue to hamstring the world’s most sophisticated—and most expensive—warplane.
During a mock deployment at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, just one of the $100 million Lockheed Martin LMT -0.15% F-35s was able to boot its software successfully and get itself airborne during an exercise designed to test the readiness of the F-35, FlightGlobal reports. Nonetheless, the Air Force plans to declare its F-35s combat-ready later this year.
Details surrounding the failed exercise were disclosed earlier this week in written testimony presented to Congress by J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester.

Inside info.  I've been getting hit with a few e-mails saying to lay off military leadership.  Supposedly they're fighting battles behind the scenes and things could be much worse.

Fast forward to this story and is it any wonder that I find them to be a group of liars?  I mean seriously.  The USMC placed the F-35 into IOC, the USAF lied about that baby deployment to Mountain Home, and when asked if the program is on track they keep telling us it is and begging to start block buys.

Sorry Leroy, Ionosphere and the F-16.net zealots.  This plane is hopelessly broken, its wrecked the defense budget for a generation and its set to continue to bleed the Pentagon  dry.

Its past time for someone with guts (definitely not looking at Dunford or Neller) to step up and tell the awful truth.  We wasted valuable time and money on an abortion of an airplane.  The nation's defense requires that we scrap the program and get to work on the next gen NOW!