The F-35 is Not Too Big to Fail (excerpt)
(Source: Project On Government Oversight; issued Jan 12, 2017)
Donald Trump has shaken the defense industry to its very foundation with 140 characters.
On December 22, outraged by the F-35’s cost overruns, he took to Twitter to announce he had asked Boeing to price a comparable Super Hornet. Most in Washington have assumed the F-35 program is too to fail, so it is encouraging to see someone in power at least suggesting action to correct and hold accountable a program that has become a national disgrace. But Tweeting is not exactly governing.
Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2016
The usual chorus of F-35 advocates were quick to leap into action penning articles saying there are no alternatives, that the Joint Strike Fighter is the only thing standing between us and total annihilation at the hands of enemy forces poised for an invasion.
A prime example is a recent article in Breaking Defense which lectured, “No, Mr. Trump, You Can’t Replace F-35 With A ‘Comparable’ F-18.” In it, Doug Birkey runs through the usual industry talking points—amazing stealth capabilities, decreasing costs, ability to perform every mission—to try to justify the massive waste of tax dollars represented by the mounting failures of the F-35, which, at over $1.4 trillion, is the most expensive weapons purchase in history.
What to Do to Fill Airpower Hole Created By the F-35 Disaster?
In light of the realities of Washington, the Project On Government Oversight has long advocated halting further F-35 production until the program has completed the Initial Operational Test and Evaluation process. Besides the fact that federal law requires it, completing the testing before production is the only thing that will tell us if the F-35 is at all suitable for combat. Halting production now is critical because under the Pentagon’s current plans, the taxpayers will buy 798 F-35s before it’s known whether the design will actually be effective in combat.
Given Donald Trump’s statements, an opportunity exists now to drastically change the direction of this disastrous program. If the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin still can’t field a useable system after 25 years of development, it seems hardly likely that there is any hope for ever redeeming the F-35. Lockheed Martin’s CEO has pledged to bring down the cost, but these promises appear to be little more than an effort to knock off a few million dollars with a volume discount. In other words, taxpayers would need to buy more planes of dubious combat utility in order to bring down the costs. .
Now may be the right time to cut our losses and reinvest the money in some better-conceived fighter programs that quickly expand our decimated air-to-air and close air support forces—and to do so with planes that are demonstrably more combat effective than the F-35.
If the new administration is serious about this effort, we recommend immediately cancelling the Joint Strike Fighter program and doing the following:
1. To fill the near-term hole in our air-to-air forces, start a program to refurbish and upgrade all available F-16A/B/C/Ds and F-18A/B/C/Ds with the much higher thrust F-110-GE-132 (F-16) and F-404-GE-402 (F-18) engines, as well as with new lighter weight, more effective off-the-shelf passive electronics. This will give us fighters that are significantly more effective in air-to-air combat than either the later F-16 and F-18 models or the F-35. Add airframes from the boneyard if needed to bring pilot training hours up to the minimum acceptable level of 30 hours per month.
2. To fill the far more serious near-term hole in close air support forces, complete the re-winging of the 100 A-10s the Air Force has refused to rewing and then expand the inadequate existing force of only 272 A-10s by refurbishing / rewinging to A-10C standards every available A-10 in the boneyard.
3. Immediately undertake three new competitive prototype fly-off programs to A) design and build a more lethal and more survivable close air support plane to replace the A-10; and B) design and build two different air-to-air fighters far smaller and far more combat effective against competent enemies equipped with radar missile and stealth countermeasures, one to replace Air Force F-16s and F-22s and the other to replace Navy F-18s.
These programs should follow the model of the Lightweight Fighter and A-X Programs in the 1970s, particularly in regard to live-firing, realistic-scenario competitive flyoff tests. These programs resulted in the F-16 and the A-10, two indisputably highly effective aircraft that were each less expensive than the preferred Pentagon alternatives at the time. And they became operational after testing in less than 10 years, not 25. (end of excerpt)
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