2070 and more blue-sky marketing for a defective program

Block 4 for the F-35 needs to be minimized and/or stopped. It is being used by the F-35 program office to state alleged capability of the aircraft when, in fact, the end of the system design and development (SDD) phase is signified by a complete, and working, Block 3.

Source of this confusion is Bogdan.

Sullivan pointed to the F-22 Raptor modernization program as an example. Initially the Air Force planned to modernize the F-22 as part of the program’s existing acquisition baseline, much like the current plan for the F-35. But the resulting “comingling” meant that Congress could not distinguish between the costs associated with the new modernization effort and cost growth in the existing baseline, Sullivan wrote. Eventually, the Defense Department separated the F-22 modernization program from the baseline, in line with GAO’s recommendation.

Should not the Brewster Buffalo program have been extended to 2007? That would not add value for national defense?

Lockheed F-35 service life extended to 2070.

If you take a gagillion dollars and spread it out over more decades it looks better?

Maybe Flight Global will wake up someday and decide they are helping to promote a turkey. Maybe they should use 'journalism' and look up the definition of DOD Procurement Milestones B and C.

All that blue-sky marketing and fanism is deadly. Here is only one reason.

"If we really had a manning crisis, from my perspective, we would really tell people to put down the tuba and pick up a wrench or a gun" stated Representative McSally.
CDI Military Advisory Board member retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Tony Carr hits the nail on the head in his column on this public dressing-down of a chief of staff. “[General Welsh] can’t admit in open court that [A-10 divestment is] tied to [the] service’s desire to free itself of traditional Close Air Support, which it views as a costly luxury falling outside the core of what it does (or wants to be doing) for the nation’s defense,” wrote Carr. “When times get tight, it’s the first thing to go. Before staff cars, personal servants, bands, show choirs, bloated VIP fleets, and new headquarters buildings … it’s the first thing the Air Force wants to kill. Every. Time.”

H/T- Michael Wunderlich

Also I want to take a bit of time to say thanks to readers: Blacktail, Don Bacon and Shadow Darkness. The work they have gone looking into the F-35 program (as well as other topics) has been really well done. So, thanks.

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