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The F-35 Story
New submitter phyzz writes "The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program aimed to replace several aircraft from three major military services with a fifth-generation model capable of short-takeoff and vertical-landing while maintaining the capability of sustained supersonic flight — all while staying affordable. The project has finally gotten some test points validated, but after a decade in development and numerous cost and schedule overruns, it faces an uphill fight against budget reductions. Bloomberg has an interesting story about the program's troubled past. Quoting: 'Ten years and $66 billion later, the aircraft is still in development, five years behind schedule and 64 percent over cost estimates. The Obama administration may cancel some models and also cut the Pentagon’s orders. The plane, envisioned as the affordable stealth fighter for the U.S. and allies, has turned into a budget target. "I’d blame the program’s setbacks on the fact that we lived in a rich man’s world," said Jacques Gansler, a former Pentagon chief weapons buyer in the Clinton administration and now a professor at the University of Maryland at College Park. "There has been less emphasis on cost over the past 10 years," he said.'"
I think the larger story isn't a troubled individual program, it's a federal government that outsources and contracts almost *everything* these days. Having grown up around military bases, I find the level of contracting with anything military to be very troubling these days. I remember back in the 80's when bases began contracting out things like food services. Okay, that seemed pretty reasonable. But I recently went back to an old base that I had once been stationed at back in the day and being shocked by how far this has really gone. Not only were food services, the PX, laundries, etc. run by civilians--but so was base *security*. Instead of MP's greeting me at the gate, it was a bunch of rent-a-cops. I'm not even sure the base *has* MP's anymore (never saw any of them). It would seem a handful of contractors and merc firms do pretty much everything now for the government.
Thanks to the lobbying money of the Lockheed Martins, Northrop Grummans, and Blackwaters (or whatever the fuck they're calling themselves these days), we have overpriced weapons/aircraft programs that function as little more than cash funnels, U.S. embassies guarded not by Marines but by mercs, and a NASA that can't even build a rocket anymore without a Lockheed or Boeing to do all the work for them.
So why should Lockheed Martin care if the F-35 goes over budget, or the MEADS system turns out to be a money sink, etc. etc. ? It's not like a Congress that they *own* is ever going to call them to task for it. And they'll get a hundred *new* contracts to replace them. So why should it surprise anyone to see stories like this pop up again and again on /.?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It's the VTOL/STOL version for the marines that bogged the whole program down. It was just too ambious and when this became obvious the "solution" was to put almost all the focus on the Marine version to push it through. They should have paused the Marine version instead, met all the objectives for the convential and carrier versions, then come back to the marines. In 5 or 10 years we'll be smarter about how to do it, where the airframe can be lightened, how to put more thrust in the engines, etc.
The JSF's biggest problem: it's a replacement for things the military already owns.
While I do agree with your point, I'd argue the JSF's biggest problem is it's designed for a war we're unlikely to ever find ourselves in. What need is there for a high-tech plane like this when you're fighing against a bunch of cave-dwelling terrorists?
These shiny gadgets were born out of the cold war, but that's over. Does anyone think China would want a military confrontation with any of its largest customers? Do people really think Russia is likely to rise again?
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