Congressional critical thinking of F-35 progress led by uniformed service's side-shows

Defence Aerospace has a very good read on more to-do about the F-35B and USMC. ( H/T to Solomon )

It starts out with the folly of F-35B "austere basing" and then moves on...

"This may be one of the reasons why the Marine Corps is giving Exercise Steel Knight such intense public relations coverage, with so far four press releases and over a dozen photographs – a very unusual public relations effort, especially for an event that is generating little newsworthy content."

See the chart and timeline toward the end of the post. Timing !

Also from a now retired Winslow who still observes these things...

"Find below the description of the new appropriations measure in the House of Representatives here; this bill will be law before the end of the week.

EVERYONE GETS MORE F-35s: The omnibus also includes an additional $1.3 billion for 11 more F-35 fighters above the Pentagon's request, with all three services getting a boost. The House had included more F-35s for the Navy and Marine Corps, while the Senate Appropriations Committee had funding for more Air Force and Marine fighters. In the end, the omnibus gives the Marines an additional six F-35s at $780 million, the Navy two more fighters at $255 million and Air Force three more F-35s at $294 million."

Everything surrounding the program is a sham.

A few well timed press releases and more money is still being handed over by Congress.


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Note- Some of the content links below (my F-35 reference page which only highlights some of the issues on the topic) have been updated for accuracy. One of my cloud services no longer works well with embedded PDFs. Those have now been turned into hyperlinks.



-Defence covered up chemical contamination at RAAF Williamtown in order to pass $1B F-35 upgrade
-When will Marine Air leadership stop misinforming the public over the F-35?
-DOT&E Report: The F-35 Is Not Ready for IOC and Won't Be Any Time Soon
-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) 2011-2013
-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
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
-Congressional Research Service--Through to FY2013, F-35 has received $83.3B in funding
-F-35 choice gives Dutch a shocking high cost per flight hour
-More indications that the F-35 is a failed program
-From the year 2000. Very insightful. The JSF: One More Card In The House (PDF) 


“It will be affordable because already there are 3,000 aircraft on the order books.”
—27 June 2002, Air Marshal Houston, Defence press announcement, Australia joins the F-35 program—




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