Bag man

AOL Defense is happy to be in the bag for the F-35 Just So Failed. Yesterday they published a propaganda piece with the real message that it does not matter if America follows a flawed force-structure policy centered around the F-35 and loses a battle or a war, as long as the F-35 survives in the thousands.
I put the following comments under the post:

“Misleading and, showing a complete lack of understanding of the Joint Strike Fighter Operational Requirement Document (JORD) which is now effectively obsolete. And, the F-35 will not be able to stand up to emerging PacRim threats by very definition of the JORD. Reference threats are now the Su-35, PAK-FA and high-end SAMS not present in ALLIED FORCE 99 or any thinking in the JORD at the time. Also, back then it was assumed we would have several hundred F-22s to do the big threat work. Now...that idea...like the JSF JORD, is worthless. The carrier air wing is at high risk of being obsolete to the threat. Any USMC amphib with the F-35B (if it ever sees operational use--(watered down block definitions or not) will be dead meat to the emerging threats. Lesser threats? Well, the F-35B won't even have blue-force-tracker and ROVER in finished Block 3 form. All we hear about that (like all the other failed promises) are notional Block 4,5,6 hopes and dreams. Completely worthless for a Joint Operational Commander. In order to make the F-35B even useful for its first all-show-no-go deployment, they will have to put an external SNIPER pod on it because the EOTS field of view (OK for strategic strike ...if the aircraft doesn't get shot down) is not as wide of a field of view as an external SNIPER-XR pod (right or left turning while observing) for CAS......DAS not proven to work to effect at this time. The jet will also need a HUD with the failed helmet. Yeah, I can see the USMC-air (under its marketing director General Amos, who conned the current DOD boss into dropping a year off of the F-35B probation) doing nothing more with an early F-35B deployment than image over substance. "But what about STOVL?" Says the model-airplane-glue-sniffing brigade... Over-hyped http://goo.gl/UbKOW But first things first. All those defects. And all the thermal problems associated with semi-working / faulty mission systems that have a long way to go before proof of life...along with a mountain of other defects. All this unaffordable to own ....and operate with a cost per flying hour projected to be double that of a Hornet. What........a.........sham....”

Further reading:

-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Aviation Week (ARES blog) F-35 posts (2007 to present)
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program