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Joint Strike Fighter
In normal times, the defense secretary's support for his department's biggest weapons program would be taken as a given. But these are not normal times. The federal government is borrowing billions of dollars each day, and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was put in charge of the Pentagon with
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Date:
8/26/2011
On July 6 the Center for American Progress (CAP) issued a policy paper entitled "Sensible Defense Cuts" that provided recommendations for saving $400 billion in defense spending through 2015. Some of the recommendations really are sensible, and the authors clearly are correct in their view that
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Date:
7/8/2011
The Pentagon's recent estimate that it will cost a trillion dollars to operate and sustain the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter through 2065 is very misleading. First, the estimate exaggerates an already big bill by using imaginary inflation rates that are unknowable. Second, the estimate fails to note that
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Date:
6/27/2011
Actually, this posting is about the F-35 fighter. But the headline is correct -- the nation's military services really are going to spend over $25 billion on music bands in the coming years. In fact, if you add inflation and indirect costs like retirement benefits, the "then-year" cost of military
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Date:
5/17/2011
It is like Banquo’s ghost is haunting the Department of Defense. Actually, it is two other ghosts: that of former senator and defense expert Sam Nunn and former representative Dave McCurdy. What haunts the Pentagon and stands as the lasting legacy of these two former defense experts and leading
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Date:
4/18/2011
As the Pentagon moves towards negotiating for the next lot of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, it is doing so with a sense that things are moving in the right direction. Pentagon acquisition chief, Under Secretary Ashton Carter, publicly stated that he was more confident in the program. There is also
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Date:
4/15/2011
The current Libyan air operation may be the last of its kind. What I mean by this is an operation involving fourth-generation aircraft against Soviet-era defenses or single-digit surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). To date, the campaign has been as much an air show as combat operation with an array
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Date:
3/31/2011
Flight tests of the tri-service F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are running well ahead of the plan for 2011, with 181 flights completed as of March 25 against a plan of 133. In addition, the productivity of each flight test is increasing, with an average of 7.7 unique test points achieved per flight. The
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Date:
3/28/2011
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the keystone to the future U.S. tactical aircraft fleet. For this reason and because the program has had some challenges, any time an institution as influential as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns of problems with the program people -- particularly
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Date:
3/18/2011
The much maligned F-35 program recently received a vote of confidence from two of its three major constituencies, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. A revised interservice agreement between the two envisions the procurement of 680 F-35s. The Navy will buy 260 F-35Cs, specifically designed for carrier
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Date:
3/15/2011
The debate over the imposition of a no-fly zone is paralyzed by the specter of the U.S. having to attack Libyan surface to air missile (SAM) sites as a precursor to such an operation. Secretary of Defense Gates effectively shut down discussion of the no-fly option when he asserted in testimony that
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Date:
3/7/2011
If you work in Washington and rely on the major news outlets for your information you might be forgiven for having formed the opinion that the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program was fouled up. From the perspective of Fort Worth, where I recently went with a group of defense analysts to tour the
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Date:
3/4/2011
Last week, the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, announced that he had placed the short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on “double secret probation.” The prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, has two years to fix problems with the air frame and engine. It
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Date:
1/13/2011
Last week witnessed an interesting bit of political theater concerning the Pentagon's biggest weapons program, courtesy of Credit Suisse and Aviation Week. The two organizations hosted their annual aerospace conference in New York, and the audience was treated to surprisingly complementary
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Date:
12/8/2010
The Navy has made its latest run against the Marine Corps version of the F-35 joint strike fighter, and for something like the twentieth time, it has been rebuffed. The latest failed assault came after the United Kingdom decided to switch its buy of joint strike fighters from the Marine vertical-takeoff
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Date:
11/15/2010
Five years ago the Pentagon had a plan for how it was going to keep the cost of each F-35 Joint Strike Fighter low. The plan was all about economies of scale. Basically, the more planes you produce each year, the less each plane costs. Sort of like building cars. So back then, the plan was to
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Date:
10/21/2010
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program could be the single largest and most complex aircraft acquisition program of the 21st Century. The current plan is to produce some 2,440 planes to equip the US military and around 1,700 for as many as two dozen foreign customers. An international consortium
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Date:
10/13/2010
There is so much misleading information about the F-35 joint strike fighter in the public record that I feel a need to return to the subject periodically in an attempt to provide some balance. I'm happy to say this time around, though, that for the first time this year the political prospects of
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Date:
6/24/2010
Initial reaction to the selection of aviator James Amos as the next Commandant of the Marine Corps has been almost entirely positive. There is also much support for the apparent decision to make the charismatic Joe Dunford Assistant Commandant. Some insiders suspect that Amos will serve for two
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Date:
6/16/2010