About That F-35 Bill

The F-35 programme has been underway for, well, eleven years.   Current plans call for completion of testing in 2019.   Here's a sobering look at F-35 development taken from Aviation Week.

The U.S. bill for JSF development and production has increased about $40-million a day, in 2012 dollars, since the program started - while 400 fewer aircraft are planned.  As far as the IOC (initial operating capacity) goes.. Initial Operating Test and Evaluation (IOTE) - which is necessary for IOC - will not finish until August, 2019.   That would put IOC in 2020.

Will the F-35 be up to snuff when it finally, eventually does turn operational?  Quite possibly not.   The US military, AW warns, "is constrained by the decade-old decision to bet the tactical air farm on one paper design, which now makes major change to the JSF trajectory frighteningly difficult.   ...in this case the customer is like the homeowner with a half finished kitchen and a mailbox full of excuses."

"Even without more delays, more than half the USAF's fighters in 2030 will be F-15s, F-16s and A-10s, the majority of them more than 40-years old.

"Patience is a virtue.  But you reach the point where living on take-out pizza is playing hell with your hypertension and you are spending too much time washing coffee cups in the bathroom sink." 

What is particularly worrisome is that F-35 customers will be buying an aircraft fixed in a time 15-years past.   It's almost impossible to modify to meet the changing realities that have swept in since the aircraft was conceived.   It's a great idea that was horribly executed.