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How can we afford this and not single payer universal health care???

 
 
Reply Thu 17 Mar, 2016 10:27 am
Military Admits Billion-Dollar War Toy F-35 Is F**ked
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/17/military-admits-billion-dollar-war-toy-f-35-is-f-ked.html



Officials are finally admitting the F-35 fighter has turned into a nightmare—but it’s too late to stop the $400-billion program now.

Military Admits Billion-Dollar War Toy F-35 Is F**ked
David Axe
03.17.16 4:01 AM ET

Way back in the early 2000s, the U.S. military had a dream. To develop a new "universal" jet fighter that could do, well, pretty much everything that the military asks its different fighters to do.

But the dream of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter turned into a nightmare. The program is six years behind schedule and tens of billions of dollars over budget. And now, 16 years after the JSF prototypes took off for their first flights, top officials are finally owning up to the trauma the $400-billion fighter program has inflicted on America's finances and war readiness.

In a remarkable period, beginning in February and lasting several weeks, senior officers and high-ranking bureaucrats finally publicly copped to the warplane program's fundamental failures.

But the timing of the military's mea culpa is ... interesting. For at the same time as the admissions of guilt, the F-35 was passing several bureaucratic milestones that make it more or less impossible to cancel. Too much money's already been spent. Too many well-established jobs are at stake. Too many F-35s are already rolling out of the factory.
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oralloy
 
  -2  
Reply Fri 18 Mar, 2016 06:38 pm

The US Navy could replace the F-35 with the Dassault Rafale or the Saab Gripen and would end up with a much better fighter for doing so.

The only alternative for the US Air Force is the F-22. Restarting F-22 production will be expensive, but we could pay for it by taxing the districts of congressmen who voted to end F-22 production to begin with.

The US Marines and the UK Royal Navy both need the F-35. It is the only modern fighter that is capable of replacing aging Harrier Jump Jets.
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Leadfoot
 
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Reply Mon 5 Dec, 2016 09:47 am
Dammit, I lost the story link but:

The first real crack in the F-35 program has appeared. The Navy is planning to buy more FA-18 Super Hornets because of cost and availability concerns.

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oralloy
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2016 07:24 am

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-troubled-f-35-five-ways-replace-it-10914?page=show
Leadfoot
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2016 05:43 pm
@oralloy,
Pretty good article. I'm guessing no one in our government has the guts to choose any of the fixes. How do you admit you spent over $400B on a mistake? And that's before any big production runs.
oralloy
 
  2  
Reply Fri 23 Dec, 2016 03:23 am
@Leadfoot,
What will have to happen is the F-35 first being canceled outright. The the fix would be chosen in the aftermath of that.

I favor a fleet of 750 F-22s for US Air Force air superiority. And I still want to carve the cost of restarting production out of the hides of the people who halted production. Dropping bombs on other countries can be done by the new stealth bombers. Keep the A-10s for close air support.

I favor Dassault Rafales for US Navy air superiority (because France has already developed a carrier version and the US has already approved it for use on US carriers). Use Superhornets for bombing other countries after the Air Force softens up their air defenses. Develop the proposed stealth refueling drone to give the carriers enough range to fight peer powers from a safe distance away from shore defenses.

I don't know what to do for the US Marines. They need close air support that can operate from STOVL carriers. Perhaps a fresh batch of old fashioned Harrier IIs? That's not new and high tech, but "new and high tech" isn't necessarily what is needed for close air support (note the A-10 for example).

The UK can apparently configure their carriers to use CATOBAR planes, so their carriers have the same range of good options to choose from that the US has.
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