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The US Grounds All F-35 Jets (bbc.com)
Thelasko tipped us off to this story. NBC News reports:
The U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marines -- as well as 11 international partners who participated in the program -- grounded all F-35 fighters on Thursday as part of an ongoing investigation into a jet that crashed in Beaufort, South Carolina, late last month.
"The pilot in that incident ejected safely but the aircraft was destroyed," reports the BBC, adding "the problem has already been identified as faulty fuel tubes. Once these are checked or replaced the aircraft will be back in the air."
The U.S. has spent more than $320 billion to build their fleet of 2,400-plus F-35 jets, according to a recent GAO report -- or roughly $130 million for each one of the planes. The BBC calls it "the largest and most expensive weapons program of its type in the world."
"The pilot in that incident ejected safely but the aircraft was destroyed," reports the BBC, adding "the problem has already been identified as faulty fuel tubes. Once these are checked or replaced the aircraft will be back in the air."
The U.S. has spent more than $320 billion to build their fleet of 2,400-plus F-35 jets, according to a recent GAO report -- or roughly $130 million for each one of the planes. The BBC calls it "the largest and most expensive weapons program of its type in the world."
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- as a former general, guy knew of what he spoke.
F-35 was money thrown down the toilet. You're Portuguese -- when your government does corrupt and wasteful things, people turn out into the streets and shut things down. It's a shame that Americans aren't as proactive when seeing government waste and graft.
You mean the largest and most expensive welfare program for defense-contractor parasites. FTFY. :D
It's a reverse Robin Hood -- stealing from the average working American and giving to Lockheed-Martin stockholders.
After what they did in Turkey? How about what they've been doing in Yemen? And their own country? The blockade on Qatar?
Except that a lot of military spending is paid for by "emergency funding" that's outside the official US budget. Most of the spending on the Iraqi and Afghan wars wasn't counted as part of the official US budget.
Why is /. insanely cynical?
Saying that Saudi Arabia is a brutal repressive dictatorship is not cynical, it is just stating the obvious.
They murdered a journalist in Turkey.
They are waging war in Yemen against some of the poorest people on the planet.
They behead people for thought crimes.
They created the Taliban, and still fund extremist madrassas in Pakistan and Africa.
But they have plenty of oil, and they pay cash for their F35s, so allies the are.