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The graphic above also assumes a working, reliable aircraft with complete, go-to-war mission systems.
At the time, USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz called the Navy numbers "suspect". He was worried that this could spook the Navy and that they would dump the F-35 leaving others with a higher unit cost for the troubled program.
Big Navy (like the other services) has to keep their post retirement options open. They have to fund big grey floaty things über alles as a reason for the boat-club to exist. Ships like $15B aircraft carriers, $3B flat-top amphibs without a well deck. $7 each "destroyers" the size of a cruiser and the failed Littoral Combat Ship porgram. As long as something can make an equal number of take-offs and landings aboard ship and not get in the way of funding big grey floaty things, Navy is OK.
A year later in 2011, the USAF agreed with the Navy warning and issued their own statement on higher F-35 maintenance estimates.
2011 was also the year it was reveiled that the Navy version of the F-35C, might never trap aboard ship. Today that still has not happened. The F-35C is 15 percent overweight compared to its 2002 design configuration. Hint for the Navy: if you want to build a dedicated aircraft carrier jet, do it from the ground up. The F-35C design is severely affected by design/manufactuering need "jointness" and here the F-35B STOVL has a severe negative effect.
At the time of the 2011 USAF F-35 warning on maintenance costs, the fan press explained it away that once the fancy F-35 global sustainment management system was working known as the "Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS)", that maintenance costs would be well, manageable. Alternate universe, faith, copy-paste talking-points and so-on.
Have a look at this 2007 Navy-League briefing for "proof":
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Today, via DOD test reports, ALIS does not work. Over 12 years after LM won the competition to build the Joint Strike Fighter.
The F-35 fan-club is scrambling for answers.
There don't seem to be any except that all maintenance assumptions that were made up to get Congress to hand over the money were feeble-minded fantasy.
Or outright fraud.
Just like many other F-35 program management assumptions.
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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013
-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
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
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