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F-35 looking more like white elephant

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The F-35 fighter jet, set to replace a large part of the US warplane fleet, has become the most expensive weapons program ever, drawing increased scrutiny at a time of tight public finances. (news.yahoo.com) Mehr...

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TTail
TTail 0
156 million a copy, even more expensive than the RAPTOR. i love the american aviation industry, but why in the hell cant we keep building the F16, or F18 at less than a 100 mil a copy. i do want the u.s. to have the best but not at the price we are getting here.
glennparker
glenn parker 0
I agree with TTail. Or at least scrap the F-35 and go back to the F-22; I also don't like sharing technology with the rest of the world; or depending upon them for anything.
desperado50
desperado50 0
One big selling factor of the F-35 was its low cost compared with the F-22. Now that the contractor has its foot in the door, the sky's the limit. We seem to ignore the warnings from Ike about the military industrial complex.
bishops90
Brian Bishop 0
We are sacrificing our own security for political reasons by ending production on a superior platform (the F-22) and sinking all this money into a so-called "Joint" fighter program where we pay almost all the bill, and everybody else involved gets the benefits. It's time to pass some of the cost overruns to our "partners" on the JSF, and use that money to build more F-22's that will provide true air superiority like it was designed. Otherwise we may be getting our asses kicked by the Chinese in another 8-10 years. We cannot afford to get behind.
TTail
TTail 0
the government is the problem. the ever changing target of requirements. the government seems to change the requirements daily. how the hell can lockheed build a plane on budget on time, if the target keeps changing all the time??
freelunch
freelunch 0
glenn parker. With all that US knowhow, and UAVs, in Afghanistan you cannot sort a load of ragheads. Besides the french are way ahead of you lot.
99NY
99NY 0
Like so many other major military contracts in recent years, this one was far too ambitious for its original budget. Seems to me that defense contractors always low-low-low-lowball their estimates and then put the squeeze on with the 'too big to fail' routine. Maybe since the F-35 will more than likely be one of the last major manned fighter aircraft programs Lockheed is trying to get everything it can from it.

Hopefully this plane lives up to its billing, and does it for quite some time. B-52's werent chreap either in the 50's and they are still flying.
ltwcharlie
Lynn Wagner 0
Wait until you see the cost of the new USAF Bomber if you think te F35 is bad - something that we don't need but the "cigar smoken" USAF generals think so. . Tis why we have cruise missile etc.

I believe the old Soviet doctrine was to over whelm with numbers. So as an above writer states well - we can build 3 F18 / F16 per one F35. Hummmm.

The Raptor with fixes to problems is a better deal. Buy the Marines the Saab machine that uses road etc. for take off and landing. Maybe even build them new A4's.

Sure would not like to be the pilot who dumps one of the 35's in the ground. At least a Navy pilot might be able to put it in deep water. ::))

MIKESWICK
MIKE SWICK 0
when this program was in competition back in 03- Boeing was the other competitor LM won the contract "because it was their turn"- Navy assumed program manager responsibilities but either did not have enough technical expertise or listened to the contractor- government was sold a bunch of stuff (including another engine) that wasn't needed- LM keeps onmilking the cow- dont know whats going to happen now the cow is drying up
99NY
99NY 0
"LM keeps onmilking the cow- dont know whats going to happen now the cow is drying up"

Dont worry, China has plenty of cash for us! :D
MHarryE
Michael Enzmann 0
The F-35 is what it is - corporate welfare. Take away massive military spending programs like this and what do you get - tens of thousands of technically skilled people out looking for work. What is better - eliminate the white elephants like this, give me a tax break so I can open a fast food restaurant and hire a group of laid off engineers to make sandwiches? Maybe that is the way to go. An uncle of mine worked for more than a decade doing finite element analysis on the B-2, great plane but oh so dear to crash (like on Guam). But his pay was more than double mine for doing the same FEA for a construction equipment manufacturer.
nuconrad
george bruton 0
I just happen to watch on Netflix the documentary between LM and Boing showing the inside thinking of both companies back when they where biding on this contract. Funny think about it the whole point of the JSF was to create a superior aircraft at a very manageable price..hence why the other countries where apart of the deal. Also it was to become a shared design for all branches of Military. I believe the goal was to produce each aircraft for a cost of 60mill. Completely sad that the whole goal/concept was to be able to produce a new style fighter on a manageable budget for the future and it tuns out being the most expensive aircraft ever. What a joke. Also, just from the video they spoke about how the cost of aircraft for our military is going by 2050 will would only be able to afford a few aircraft because it is so out of control...once again why they created the jsf..
freelunch
freelunch 0
Im the UK we ahve just scrapped a project called "Nimrod MRA4" at a cost of $5.5 billion, the money has all been paid and the project is 90% complete. Stories like this do not inspire confidence at all but the French do seem to get it right though.

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