The hits keep coming....F-35 Far from Ready to Face Current or Future Threats, Testing Data Shows

via POGO

The Navy’s version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, recently declared ready for combat, has netted unacceptably low “fully mission capable” rates—meaning it’s in fact almost never fully ready for combat—according to a document obtained by the Center for Defense Information at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO)

The fact that the Navy is pushing ahead with the aircraft in spite of evidence that it is not ready for combat and could therefore put at risk missions, as well as the troops who depend on it to get to the fight, comes at the same time as the Pentagon’s annual operational testing report for fiscal year 2018 shows that the entire F-35 program, the most expensive weapon system in history, is not ready to face current or future threats.

Story here. 

Standard operating procedure for the F-35 fan base.  Attack the messenger.

The problem?

If you read carefully you'll see that the messenger in this case is the Pentagon's annual operational testing report for fiscal year 2018.

How do you attack them?

Now do we know why the USAF is buying F-15X's?  Now do we understand why the USN is pushing the Super Hornet buys and only purchasing such a small number of F-35's (we can do a reasonable guesstimate on what the competition between the Super Hornet and the F-35 revealed by the purchase plan)?

What has me curious is the F-35B.

I've said that it is the one model that is delivering on the promise of being better than the legacy airplane.

But is even that true?

Would an upgraded Harrier successfully compete with the F-35B?  Would it have been cost effective?

One thing is certain.  More and more info is leaking that shows that the F-35 program is as bad as many of us feared.