The only reason for its existence is to serve as a money pit.

[kpete]

F-35 stealth jet 'will not be able to fire its guns until 2019'
Reported software glitch is the latest problem to dog state of the art fighter which is costing American taxpayers nearly $400 billion (£257 billion)

Amercia's much-vaunted new F-35 stealth jet has reportedly suffered the latest in a series of problems with the discovery of a software glitch which prevents the use of its on-board cannon.

The jump jets – 14 of which have been ordered by Britain – are costing US taxpayers nearly $400?billion (£257?billion) and are due to enter service next year.

But the Pentagon has been forced to deny reports in America that it will take a further four years before they will be able to shoot their guns.

............................

Billed as the world’s most advanced — and expensive — fighter jet, the cost per plane has doubled to $161.1?million and it will be six years late in entering full production.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11319455/F-35-stealth-jet-will-not-be-able-to-fire-its-guns-until-2019.html

[Fred Sanders]

1. I don't get it. Four years to solve a "software glitch"? And the outrage over the Obamacare software

glitch solved in a month was because............???

Did we just now come up with the idea of putting guns on a plane and making them shoot stuff?

Pull the trigger? Maybe we need a two year old in a Walmart shopping cart to show the manufacturers of this mother of all albatrosses how to do it.

[F4lconF16]

2. I almost spent 4 years training to become part of that industry.

While I still think that aerospace research and development easily is pretty much the coolest (see: landing a probe on a comet), the whole field is permeated by an unwavering allegiance to the MIC. I'm glad I will never be a part of this, and with luck, hopefully I'll be working to stop some of it.

It's a sad feeling, knowing that you could very easily have been doing something that some part of you would have hated.

Sadder still, when you think about what all those resources could have done. Always money for the darkness, the destruction, the profit, but nothing for the ones who need it, nothing for the people. The success of the rich on the backs of the poor.

Capitalism is failing, and how hard of a fall it will be.

[L0oniX]

3. +1

[3auld6phart]

6. Truth

Spot on. I like your post. It is sicking the way money is thrown at the MIC.

[kpete]

8. F4lconF16

thanks so much for your very thoughtful post,

I often think about what all those resources could have done

truly sad,


peace,
kp

[Duval]

14. Spot on, F4lconF16

Thanks for your post.

[MisterP]

20. oh yes, it's often written aero"space" for a reason: they pioneered reliance on cost-plus pricing

where the only solution for lack of results is even more dough into the money pit ("we're ten years away from fusion power! you won't be laughing once we succeed&quot

David Beers's autobiography notes that, besides the techno-utopianism and compartmentalization of mind, the MIC isn't even capable of retooling for peacetime any more, both avoiding any "peace dividend" and being able to let go thousands of white collars in their 40s-60s

[SoapBox]

4. Where are all those "fiscally conservative" Pukes and Baggers?

Dems maybe?

Oh ya...all rotten to the core.

[Auggie]

5. What's so outdated about our current fighter jets that we need new ones?

[AlbertCat]

7. What's so outdated about our current fighter jets that we need new ones?

The USSR doesn't exist any more??? Maybe???

We need new and hugely technical state of the art weapons to fight religious fundamentalists living in caves armed with ....wait for it.... old Soviet weapons!

Or something.

[Enthusiast]

10. I believe you nailed it.

Why should we produce the F-35 when the previous generation of fighter will outperform it by every measure?

The greatest problem faced by the MIC is justifying their enormous largess when have no worthy enemy. So, I suspect they are trying their best to create an enemy where none exists. I'm waiting for the new and improved (spectacular) false flag operation.

[Auggie]

21. Post #9

[Posteritatis]

17. Their per-unit price tag is frighteningly obsolete, apparently. (nt)

[Gumboot]

9. The F-35's only mission....

... is to deliver taxpayer dollars to Lockheed's (offshore) bank accounts.

And with no oversight at the Pentagon, this will continue ad nauseum. It's a $1tn boondoggle, and counting.

Shoulda bought the Eurofighter instead. A vastly better plane, at a fraction of the F-35's price.

[Enthusiast]

11. +1

[QuestionableC]

12. K&R

[benld74]

13. ALL the known costs don't even compareto

1) spare cost parts
2) training machine costs
3) repair costs

[tclambert]

15. We're gonna need to buy some cheap fighters, or drones, to protect these expensive planes.

If they cost over $100 million each, who would want to risk that pricy an asset in combat? Hell, who would risk letting them fly in safe conditions with perfect weather? Every little oopsy could cost $100 million.

[Posteritatis]

16. Hell of a "glitch" if it'll take them four years to debug

Never mind the silliness of locking the gun that rigidly to software in the first place.

Computer-run flight controls? Absolutely, with modern aircraft, but unless the thing swivels, aims, fires, and alters its own ballistics on its own I'm having trouble seeing why the cannon would need software anywhere near that convoluted.

[ileus]

18. I thought this was going to be about my Jeep. n/t

[Scuba]

19. Legalized larceny.