The budget gloom is closing in...
Basically, if Congress doesn't hand over more money for previous cost over-runs, then it will be paid for with less F-35s in the LRIP-5 batch. They are still building mistake-jets.
Along with the stock market taking an ever downward course to put some reality in market value, we have this; the pauper-USAF is in bad shape. $160B per year and we get a USAF with old and/or faulty equipment. Having seen the USAF in action, I agree with Sweetman's article.
There are some great people in the USAF; just not in the senior leadership positions. If USAF is willing to take some drastic changes in how they think--they have been seriously deskilled in engineers and procurement people ever since the post-Cold War draw-down--they might be allowed to exist the ever growing budget cuts. If not?...
USAF might be finding (like the other services) that you can sustain destructive groupthink for a while, but eventually you have to pay for your faulty decisions. They still have to acknowledge this though.
7 comments:
Great article by Sweetman on Ares. I just can't believe the number of people that can't accept any criticisms of JSF. I thought Bill was spot on, USAF wouldn't be in this mess if contractors would have delivered even close to on time and budget. It didn't seem to me he was talking about capabilities or lack thereof, he was just talking about USAF troubles because we have to make do with older Teen series fighters for longer.
ELP, how out of touch or just head up their asses is USAF leadership when you can't field new equipment and you have a budget of $160 billion?
"how out of touch or just head up their asses is USAF leadership"... Read Richard Coram's book on John Boyd,("Boyd, the Fighter Pilot who Changed the Art of War") and you'll find that the current situation re the USAF leadership is nothing new.
http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316881465
It's just the same old "All Eggs In One Basket" mentality that brought us the A-12 debacle (which is *still* being litigated, by the way) without checking first if the eggs have intact shells ... and believing that the making of omlettes is distasteful.
Heretic
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/builder-admits-concerns-over-jsfs-costs/2253592.aspx
At least Austrlia gets them at a bargain price
Yes, even if it is a complete illusion.
http://www.f-16.net/news_article4404.html
I know.
Sarcasm
The total grounding of all F-35's in what was obviously a highly destructive mechanical failure and the equally bad implosion of the US stock market are a harbinger of things to come for the JSF Program.
Considering how in debt the US Government is and how expensive the F-35 has become, the statement that this may be the last manned fighter may be true for reasons that few of the DoD leadership considered.
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