Exactly how Trump can end the F35 and save $15 billion or more per year for 30-50 years while improving US military capability

Thanks to Don for the link!

via Next Big Future.

Last month, Pentagon negotiations gave Lockheed a $6.1 billion take-it-or-leave-it deal for 57 F-35s. Lockheed make no secret that it was unhappy with the deal and has until February to accept or reject it.
Nextbigfuture prefers that the F-35s get cancelled and the Advanced Hornet option is pursued.

The general in charge of the F35 project, Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, has floated other ways to reduce the cost of each jet, including injecting more competition within the plane’s sprawling supply chain, which touches 45 states, and buying planes in bulk.
“If you have a single source supplier of a particular component on this airplane right now and you’re not sure if that person can build you 3,000 airplanes worth of that, you probably might want to open up a second source,” he said. “Once you open up a second source, now you have natural competition. We should explore some of that.”
The F-35 will not be fully battle ready to fight a diverse range of missions until the end of the decade (or even later). As for the F/A-18, its design is stable and Boeing can build them quickly. And Boeing has marketed an “advanced Super Hornet” with high-tech equipment somewhat comparable to the F-35.
Functioning and lower cost F18s would make a stronger US military from now to 2022 at least. I am not convinced the F35s would be better even after the effort to get them capable of basic missions.
Investing some of the savings into accelerated development of the F/A-XX and new long-range unmanned strike platforms could see new military capability by 2025-2030 instead of 2035-2045.

THIS IS A MUST READ ARTICLE (HERE)!  Don't embarrass yourself and try and commit before you've taken a few minutes to read the whole thing!

Oh and I agree in total with them!