Good News! The F-35 Is Two Years Behind Schedule

You remember the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, don't you? It's the plane that is so awesome and just around the corner that we can stop "wasting" money on that "outdated' F-22 Raptor.

Except...it's not going to be ready on time and no, the Obama administration didn't want to talk about that before killing the Raptor this week.

Now, senators and aides are lamenting that the Pentagon oversight panel’s more pessimistic view on the F-35 program was not publicly released during the F-22 debate and are calling for more open disclosure of the problems with the development of the F-35.

The Pentagon’s Joint Estimate Team (JET), which was established to independently oversee the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, is at odds with the fighter’s Joint Program Office, the aides said. The oversight panel’s calculations determined that the fighter won’t be able to move out of the development phase and into full production mode until 2016, rather than 2014 as the program office has said. That’s assuming there are no further problems with the program, which has already faced cost overruns and schedule delays. The Government Accountability Office said the delay could cost as much as $7.4 billion.

The most transparent administration ever strikes again. But hey, everyone will be invited to the roll out of the JSF in a few years so that about covers it, right?

Until then, we can just stick some more duct tape and chewing gum on those F-15's and everything will be fine.

Via Michael Goldfarb

posted by DrewM. at 05:02 PM

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