JSF PO down! We lost him

We lost him. He was supposed to represent the taxpayer and not go native to a faulty program.

Sad.

Navy Vice Adm. David Venlet, program manager for the F-35, also said the program now is on track. “The F-35 has schedule and budget realism now going forward,” he said. “It is transparent in the discovery and correction of issues arising in test that are typical in all fighter aircraft development.”

Venlet told the Congress members he believes the F-35 “is a critical presence in the combined force battle space. It makes many other systems and capabilities and effects better because of the presence of the F-35’s sensors.”

Venlet called the F-35 a “critical presence” to many nations, as well as being a bond of joint strength across all U.S. military services.

“It is a bond of capability and a bond economically across many nations that raises the level of technology benefit in our militaries and our industries,” he said.

Venlet called the F-35 “the best possible growth platform to incorporate future advances in weapons, sensors and networks.”

The F-35 also is an assurance to service members that “they will succeed in every mission and return home safely to their loved ones.”

Build and test was 'miscalculation,' DOD F-35 boss says production must slow

The head of the DOD F-35 program has stated production of the F-35 must slow down.

The reasons are those that the critics have already mentioned for years: the concurrency built into the original F-35 business plan is just too much to handle.

The original F-35 business plan is officially…officially dead.

Richard Whittle over at AOL Defense has the breaking story. Read all of it.

For some of us, the idea that the F-35 program had troubles with hair on them is not news.

What is news is that somebody with responsibility is starting to tell it like it is.

In my opinion Admiral Venlet still has some work to do. For instance: understanding that even as- delivered, the F-35 doesn’t bring enough for real U.S. tac-air value. However, I understand he is also a prisoner of the DOD project management system.