Will The F-35 Fly?

Will It Fly? -- Adam Ciralsky, The Atlantic

The Joint Strike Fighter is the most expensive weapons system ever developed. It is plagued by design flaws and cost overruns. It flies only in good weather. The computers that run it lack the software they need for combat. No one can say for certain when the plane will work as advertised. Until recently, the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, was operating with a free hand—paid handsomely for its own mistakes. Looking back, even the general now in charge of the program can’t believe how we got to this point. In sum: all systems go!

I. Situational Awareness

At nearly 500,000 acres, Eglin Air Force Base is not the most unobtrusive piece of real estate along Florida’s Emerald Coast. It is, however, among the best guarded. The base is home to top-secret weapons laboratories, swamp-training facilities for U.S. Special Forces, and the only supersonic range east of the Mississippi. Even from a great distance, bands of quivering heat can be seen rising from the miles of tarmac. At the end of May, I flew into Fort Walton Beach, a civilian airfield that shares a runway with Eglin, a fact that was driven home when the regional jet I was on ran over an arresting wire, a landing aid for fast-moving fighters, while taxiing to the gate.

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My Comment: Regular readers of this blog know that I have been very skeptical of the F-35 for years .... this is just another article confirming this view. On a side note .... my favorite place to read about the F-35 and it's problems is Eric Palmer's Blog. He predicted this mess years ago .... and his postings are a must go-to-place for news on the F-35.