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The F-35 Fighter Plane Is Even More of a Mess Than You Thought

posted by janrinok on Monday June 02 2014, @11:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the buddy-can-you-spare-me-a-dime? dept.

AnonTechie writes:

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.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by No.Limit on Monday June 02 2014, @01:33PM

    by No.Limit (1965) on Monday June 02 2014, @01:33PM (#50198)

    So let's summarise:

    The US, Australia [soylentnews.org] and Holland are all involved in this F-35 debacle.
    Meanwhile, Switzerland just got over the Gripen [wikipedia.org] debacle.

    While we're at it, there's also an interesting read one paragraph [wikipedia.org] above regarding Norway's evaluation of the F-35 & Sweden's Gripen:

    In December 2010 leaked United States diplomatic cables revealed that the United States deliberately delayed Sweden's request for access to a US AESA radar until after Norway's selection. The cables also indicated that Norwegian consideration of the Gripen "was just a show" and that Norway had decided to purchase the F-35 due to "high-level political pressure" from the US.

    There seems to be a clear trend when it comes to countries wanting to replace their fighter jets.

    Well, this all seems in alignment with the corruption & bureaucracy of politics [soylentnews.org].