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The US military's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft is proving to be a pain in the neck in more ways than one. Not only did the Pentagon spend almost $400 billion to buy 2,400 aircraft - about twice as much as it cost to put a man on the moon - the F-35 program is 7 years behind schedule and $163 billion over budget. This at a time when cuts in the defense budget are forcing the Pentagon to shrink the size of the military. CBS 60 Minutes took a closer look at the troubled fighter plane a few months back, but their rebroadcast on Sunday evening seems like as good a reason as any to revisit one of the biggest ongoing budget debacles in U.S. military memory. David Martin gets an inside look at what makes the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter the most expensive weapons system in history.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quacking duck on Monday June 02 2014, @01:25PM
Canada's ruling Conservatives also doubled-down on this mess a year or two ago, despite the fact that a single-engine fighter is inappropriate for patrolling the vast and mostly empty great white north. No one denies that our aging CF-18s need a replacement, but we need fighters that have a chance to make it down in one piece if one engine fails.
The Super Hornet, while not the latest-generation fighter, is still "modern" enough for our needs. Even if Prime Minister Harper tries fulfilling some fantasy about taking on Russia directly in some far north dick-waving contest, it still makes more sense to go with a Super Hornet: based on cost alone, we could buy two Super Hornets for every one F-35, and we could buy them *now*, with roughly equal performance but missing the stealth advantages of the F-35.