11 years after F-35 contract award, DOD issues a cry for help

The F-35 journey up to this point has been a fraud.

“It’s about $37 million for the CTOL aircraft, which is the air force variant.”
- Colonel Dwyer Dennis, U.S. JSF Program Office brief to Australian journalists, 2002-

All the PowerPoint slides; all the marketing hype, all the claims of being "affordable and sustainable."


(grossly misleading excerpt from 2007 Lockheed
Martin briefing to Israel)


All the misleading statements to the U.S. Congress and Foreign Parliaments.

Just a few days ago, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a cry for help.

After all those misleading statements for years, the U.S. Department of Defense office that manages the F-35 program, (known as the F-35 Joint Program Office or "JPO") does not know how to make the F-35 "affordable and sustainable". And, it would appear that the new F-35 JPO boss has little to no confidence in what Lockheed Martin has been telling the DOD all these years:

3. OBJECTIVES
The F-35 JPO has not yet determined the acquisition strategy for F-35 sustainment, including the competitive approach; solicitation, evaluation, and award methodology; contract vehicle; socio-economic considerations; scope or hardware/services; delivery schedule/period of performance; rough order of magnitude/budget; intended number of contract awards; or acquisition timeline. The F-35 JPO intends to use information provided in response to this RFI, in addition to other market research, to refine its acquisition strategy and to evaluate alternatives that will deliver the best value, long-term F-35 sustainment solution. This supports the broader F-35 JPO goals of increased affordability, transparency, predictability, and accountability for sustainment costs and performance.

What have these people been doing with our billions all these years?

Not much.