Tool

Not so much an endorsement as a sign of how screwed up things are for those depending on such a fragile program.

“I believe this aircraft is the future for our fight aircraft for our services. This is as big a project…as we have at the Department of Defense, and we’ve got a lot riding on this aircraft, as well as eight partners around the world who have invested in this aircraft,” Hagel told troops at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

And...

The engine used to propel the plane is manufactured by Pratt & Whitney. An alternative engine produced by General Electric and Rolls Royce, was cancelled by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2011 to save money because of lobbyists.

Desperation #2:

“The secretary's visit, particularly at this time, sends a strong message to our international partners that the United States remains fully committed to the F-35 program,” Kirby said Tuesday when the trip was announced.

Desperation #3:

The jet is touted by Pentagon leaders and Lockheed Martin as a “fifth-generation” fighter that that can perform a wide variety of missions, including penetrating strike, air defense, close air support, and electronic warfare. Officials have said that the F-35 is needed to counter new military technologies being developed by other powers like China and Russia.

Only the F-22 has a hope of doing that.

Desperation #4:

Marine Corps Lt. Col. Matthew Taylor, the deputy commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin, said the aircraft’s stealthy design will be its key capability.

Idiot #1:

“We can see the bad guys a long time before they can see us,” he told reporters.

Idiot #2:

Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Smith, the commander of the operational support squadron with the 33rd Fighter Wing Operations Group, believes the plane’s sensors and information gathering and sharing capabilities are revolutionary.

“It is command and control type brains inside…a fighter body” Smith said.

Dual award winner:

Hagel said that F-35 pilots he spoke to while he was visiting Eglin voiced confidence in the aircraft and praised its capabilities.

“You are defining a new dynamic of world affairs of security, and this platform is going to help do that as much as any platform we’ve had in recent times,” Hagel told troops at Eglin while standing next to two static displays of the Joint Strike Fighter.

More likely to lose air supremacy. Which means an increase in coalition casualties; lost battles; lost wars.

WIN!!!!

Officers at Eglin said that training pilots do not carry out live-fire exercises and actually destroy targets because the planes they are using don’t yet have the software needed to actually drop munitions.

Extreme long-shot analysis?

This is Hagel's 're-baseline' tour.

Months from now, if he is told something wildly different, he will get all the backing he can from the administration to kill the program.

All of it.


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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013 
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-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
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel