Because when the program gets even worse it may be too late for those that were foolish enough to stick around to get out safely.
If only the program was building the right aircraft.
Italy will likely see 20-30 less F-35s due to program problems and the fact that the country is in financial trouble.
I figure they will probably lose more orders. Just a hunch.
The following quote from Flight Global about Italy's final assembly and checkout facility is interesting.
The site is earmarked to assemble and deliver around 80 F-35As for the Royal Netherlands Air Force in addition to those for Rome. It will also have the capacity to develop a maintenance, repair and overhaul and upgrade capability at a later stage.
A make-work jobs project of little benefit. The Netherlands will never see 80-some jets.
That is a lot of standing around and doing nothing for the final assembly and later refurb work.
But for now, the deluded faithful will follow the church in Cowtown.
10 comments:
Netherland budget situation is pretty dire. I for one thought they would cut F-35 first before Italy.
As for Italy, I for one think they will stop buying current fighters plane and put all bet on next Euro Fighter design.
Europe has no money, even Germany is going broke trying to shore up the PIIGS countries. The consequences of no money, coupled with the huge delays and escalating costs of the F35 program will create a nightmare for any Euro politicians. Unlike the US,Can,UK, AUS, Euro countries do not have a Central Bank anymore, which further exasperates the problem.
There is no reality in any Euro country purchasing anything large for the foreseeable future.
There is an oversupply of fastmovers in Europe anyway. And once all these pooling & sharing schemes start to come online, accelerated by budget problems, national acquisition is a thing of the past. Look at the EDA MHW, look at Euro airlift group, look what the Benelux are doing in things maritime. And this will also mean "buy European".
With more Typhoons purchased to be delivered to Italy over the next few years, I don't see how a politician justifies an F35A expenditure of any kind given the debt scenario and social program cuts.
Replacement of the small Harrier force on the carriers is another story, but only 12-14 units.
Numbers.
The often published figure of 80 - 85 F-35A's for the Dutch Air Force. Has nothing to do with the size of their future F-35A fleet. This number is used to justify the relatively high Dutch contribution of USD 800 million to the SDD phase. In 2002 the RNLAF was planning a fleet of 52 - 67 F-35's. Currently this figure has fallen to 36 - 57 Thud II's.
If we estimate the F-35 system price at USD 200 million. Then with the present budget of EUR 4.5 billion - EUR 102 milion F-35A related infra-structure. The RNLAF can only buy approx 25 F-35A's!
We have seen the planned UK F-35 fleet going from 138 till 66 copies, and maybe even 40 F-35's.
The same development we will see in Italy.
They could cut ALL of them and it wouldn't affect Italy's national security at all. After, who's gonna attack them (Or any of the other Western European nations, for that matter...)? Tunisia? Croatia?
What little money still remains would be better spent on things other than gold-plated toys good for nothing but making American corporations and military adventurists happy.
Forgot to sign off on the preceding post...
JRL
The part where it will get really interesting?
...when the Euro begins to fall against the US dollar due to the European debt crisis.
Prediction: The Euro will fall versus the USD, making the F35 even more expensive.
To JRL,
You ask a flawed question: 'Who's gonna attack Italy?'
If you know history, you'll know that is not the complete or sufficient question to ask, when deciding on competent national defense acquisition requirements and decisions, not to mention ongoing alliance responsibilities.
Simply, you don't make today's recapitalization decisions based on the current day threat matrix alone. You base it on the need to replace outgoing equipment and modern requirements as they are estimated.
Perhaps additional Euro Fighters will suffice for Italy, instead of F-35 and perhaps Italy doesn't require a replacement for Harrier Jets. But these are very specific decisions to make and evaluate and don't take your question into account.
That being said, does the world need a Yalta II type 'Final End to the Cold War' summit? So that the world can begin negotiated global disarmament and global trust for a new world cooperation? I will agree with you on that, if you say yes.
Europe has to stabilize internally, plus has to stabilize its periphery, before expanding its area of influence > supremacy. For one this will still take some time, and once it does it will be in confrontation with U.S. interests, which makes the choice of a carrier-based fighterbomber from U.S. production rather questionable.
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