Development of the Joint Strike Fighter, as it is also known, has fallen so far behind schedule, with huge cost overruns, the defense secretary ordered the firing of the F-35 program manager.

The risk in Gates’ decision is hammered home by this stark fact: the Air Force estimates it could be short 800 fighter-bombers by 2024.

Rowan Scarborough 03/15/2010 at Human Events reports:

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates rankled the Air Force’s fighter fraternity by terminating the top-line F-22 Raptor, he tried to sooth the hurt by promoting the slower, less-capable F-35 as a good fill-in.

After deciding to cap F-22 production at 187 stealth jets, he traveled to Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., that April 2009 to  assure the service’s future leaders at the air war college that America would maintain critical edge in air superiority, a must to winning any war.

“In assessing the F-22 requirements, we also considered the advanced stealth and superior air-to-ground capabilities provided by the fifth-generation F-35s now being accelerated in this budget,” he said.

oday, Gates has lost that gamble — at least for now. Development of the Joint Strike Fighter, as it is also known, has fallen so far behind schedule, with huge cost overruns, the defense secretary ordered the firing of the F-35 program manager.

The risk in Gates’ decision is hammered home by this stark fact: the Air Force estimates it could be short 800 fighter-bombers by 2024.

On Capitol Hill last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee heard the horror story for the military’s most expensive aircraft ever at nearly $300 billion for about 2,500 planes. The F-35, now at $112 million per copy, double the 2001 price, is no longer considered what it was supposed to be: an affordable.

FULL STORY

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