Denmark's National Audit Office says F-35 will not perform as promised...

via Sputnik.

To the dismay of Denmark's Air Force, which had been betting on F-35s replacingthe country's aging fleet, the National Audit Office has decided that the pricey war toy is overrated, arguing that the Defense Ministry has been far too optimistic in its evaluation.
For Denmark, where the acquisition of the US F-35 fighter jets is set to become the largest-ever state purchase, the new report highlighting the shortcomings of its prized possession, is hardly good news.

The new fighter jets, which are expected to set Danish state coffers back DKK 66 billion ($10 billion), could actually yield much more modest performance than that stated by the Defense Ministry, the National Audit Office (NAO) found in a report.

According to the NAO, the Defense Ministry has overestimated the amount of tasks the 27 new F-35 aircraft can handle. Another blunder regards how many hours the aircraft can spend in the air. While the Defense Ministry proceeded from a solid 250 hours a year, the same fighter jets only are airborne 168 and 210 hours in Norway and Holland respectively, Danish Radio reported.

Story here. 

Wow.  This thing is far from over.  The Program Office can do their best to manage the message and keep support up via F-16.net, other fanboys, retired and active military officers and the uninformed but reality is coming....AND FAST!

At some point the program will run out of time and excuses.

That's what we've been warning about.  Prior performance is NOT indicative of future outcomes, but it does give you an idea of what to expect.

We can expect the F-35 to continue to limp along, underperform, cost an outrageous sum of money and fail to deliver as promised.

When the patience of the zealots has run out and it's obvious even to them that they've been duped is when WE (the critics of the program) need to have solid alternatives mapped out.  That's what we'll chew on in a blog post tomorrow.  

It's time to chart a plan B for the Marine Corps, Navy and USAF (God help our allies...I have no idea what they'll need to do!).