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F-35 looking more like white elephant
The F-35 fighter jet, set to replace a large part of the US warplane fleet, has become the most expensive weapons program ever, drawing increased scrutiny at a time of tight public finances. (news.yahoo.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
156 million a copy, even more expensive than the RAPTOR. i love the american aviation industry, but why in the hell cant we keep building the F16, or F18 at less than a 100 mil a copy. i do want the u.s. to have the best but not at the price we are getting here.
I agree with TTail. Or at least scrap the F-35 and go back to the F-22; I also don't like sharing technology with the rest of the world; or depending upon them for anything.
One big selling factor of the F-35 was its low cost compared with the F-22. Now that the contractor has its foot in the door, the sky's the limit. We seem to ignore the warnings from Ike about the military industrial complex.
We are sacrificing our own security for political reasons by ending production on a superior platform (the F-22) and sinking all this money into a so-called "Joint" fighter program where we pay almost all the bill, and everybody else involved gets the benefits. It's time to pass some of the cost overruns to our "partners" on the JSF, and use that money to build more F-22's that will provide true air superiority like it was designed. Otherwise we may be getting our asses kicked by the Chinese in another 8-10 years. We cannot afford to get behind.
the government is the problem. the ever changing target of requirements. the government seems to change the requirements daily. how the hell can lockheed build a plane on budget on time, if the target keeps changing all the time??
glenn parker. With all that US knowhow, and UAVs, in Afghanistan you cannot sort a load of ragheads. Besides the french are way ahead of you lot.
Like so many other major military contracts in recent years, this one was far too ambitious for its original budget. Seems to me that defense contractors always low-low-low-lowball their estimates and then put the squeeze on with the 'too big to fail' routine. Maybe since the F-35 will more than likely be one of the last major manned fighter aircraft programs Lockheed is trying to get everything it can from it.
Hopefully this plane lives up to its billing, and does it for quite some time. B-52's werent chreap either in the 50's and they are still flying.
Hopefully this plane lives up to its billing, and does it for quite some time. B-52's werent chreap either in the 50's and they are still flying.