Report: F-35 Behind Schedule and Over Budget

[unhappycamper]

Report: F-35 Behind Schedule and Over Budget
November 16, 2009
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Work on the F-35 joint strike fighter program is far behind schedule and over budget despite the completion Saturday of a milestone test flight.

Reports prepared by the Defense Contract Management Agency for Defense Department officials show that Lockheed and other contractors are months late on deliveries of test airplanes and components for future production aircraft.

The program is even farther behind on testing, and the reports say Lockheed could exhaust its development budget within a year.

Problems cited in the documents, obtained by the Star-Telegram under the Freedom of Information Act, support a recent Pentagon assessment that F-35 development will require two more years and billions of additional dollars.

The Pentagon's top weapons buyer has called a meeting for this weekend to address the reports' conclusions and prepare recommendations for Defense Secretary Robert Gates.


Rest of article about this $239 million dollar pig-in-a-poke at: http://www.military.com/news/article/report-f35-behind-schedule-and-over-budget.html

[NecklyTyler]

1. A big budget military program over budget and behind schedule?

I'm shocked, truly shocked!

:sarcasm:

[unhappycamper]

2. Wait until we get the bill for the Ford-class aircraft carriers.

$11.5 billion sans planes and people provided there are no cost overruns.

[Crowman1979]

5. They didn't even take into consideration that wing pylons would be used!

Hell, don't they know that the USMC is gonna require an attack aircraft to be loaded to the max? Hell, let's just make modified versions of aircraft we made 20-30 years ago. Screw all this Stealth BS!

[Sherman A1]

3. Another boondoggle weapon system

and I continue to support the concept of simply building and replacing F-18's, F-15's & F-16's as they have already the development cost paid. Certainly they will be more expensive than they were originally, yet I don't know of any credible threat to these aircraft at present or for the immediate future.

[unhappycamper]

4. Current costs for F-16s, FA-18s, F-22 and F-35:

F-16 = $30 million dollars
F/A-18 = $69 million dollars
F-22 = $355 million dollars
F-35 = $239 million dollars