Navy Sees Few Anomalies in F-35B Ship Trials

You're correct about the first flights of each aircraft and their respective dates, however these were the flights of the prototypes, not the test program aircraft nor the first aircraft deliveries to the active duty Wings (ie. in the inventory).

The F-16 program has had continuous development upgrades all along, from the very first Block 10 Vipers (F-16A/B) to the latest Block 52 (F-16C/D) with the latest inclusion of the newest Pulse Doppler radar and avionics technologies. If I remember correctly, Lockheed-Martin has not closed down the production line to date (I may be wrong on this). The same development path has happened the F/A-18 Hornet program, from the initial F/A-18A/B to F/A-18C/D. and then we can't forget the newest of them all, the F-18E/F/G Super Hornet being flown & operated by the USN and USMC....the Super Hornet is a brand new aircraft design, not a rehashed old F/A-18C. It's bigger, faster, has a larger operational range and weapons load, and is more capable. Let's not forget that it's only been in the USN/USMC inventory for the last decade.

The AV-8B is another story altogether, as the USMC really needs to upgrade it significantly, but as we all know the Marines have historically never had the $$$ to upgrade any of their weapons systems....basically they're the "Poor Cousins" of the USN and get repeatedly crapped on by the Pentagon brass and Congress.

Although I love the F-35 Lightning II for it's technological advances I feel we as a nation can't afford then @ $132M per copy. And the cost overruns continue to spiral ever upwards, and the Pentagon's weapons procurement system is broken (so what's new?) and needs a serious overhaul.

As a US Taxpayer, I'd rather see the USAF get more F-22A Raptors at $65M per copy than pay out that outrageous $132M/copy for the Lightning II. Frankly, it really pisses me off that Congress and the Pentagon let the cost spiral continue as it did. I have nothing against new weapons programs as long as the costs are reigned-in, as we need the tactical advantages of the new technologies to thwart present and future enemies.

I've said my peace and added my 2 Cents worth!

You make a lot of good points, though I think you are extremely in error in the cost of the F-22. When all of the funding is accounted for, per plane it is about twice the cost of the F-35. It's a superior plane in most aspects, and therefore costs more. The only way to reduce the per plane cost would be higher volume, and I don't see any chance of that.

My thoughts about long-term costs involves maintenance and logistics. Consider the cockpit. The F-16 uses 4" x 4" displays for its primary instrument; the AV8B uses a 5"x5" display; the FA-18 uses 6"x6" displays. (Unless these have all been recently updated.) None of these are interchangeable, and it is expensive to maintain these in inventory and to maintain the supply chain for replacements and/or repairs. On the other hand, all version of the F-35 have the same cockpit with the same primary panoramic 8"x20" display. And this is just one example; there are dozens, maybe hundreds of unique parts in the existing fleet that need to be maintained. All that will go away with the deployment of the F-35 and the eventual retirement of the current fleet.

BTW, I'm pretty sure LM is no longer producing the F-16; that Fort Worth factory is building the F-35. However they've sold the F-16 design to the Japanese and Japan will be making their own version of it.

Usb, all valid points and have to agree w/ most of them.....but the cost of the F-35 is not sustainable @ $132M per copy. I like the F-35 concept and would like to see our country's 3 services equipped with them, but I really hate the costs. When an Lockheed-Martin (formerly General Dynamics design) F-16C Fighting Falcon costs less than $20M per copy it's a fantastic bargain and still fully capable of taking everything out of the skies that an enemy can throw at it. We can buy a lot more upgraded F-16's, say for the same money than a single F-35. BTW, I used the $20M/copy figure above just for argument sake as I don't know what the latest costs are/were, but that's besides the point as the figure is in the ballpark.

Something is terribly wrong with the US Defense Dept. weapons procurement system that let's defense contractor's get away with every escalating cost overruns.....there's no guaranteed cost caps like there used to be, or even prototype fly offs between aerospace contractor's (like the early 1970's YF-16A vs. Northrup's YF-17A Cobra....the Cobra design eventually transformed into the USN's F/A-18A Hornet). Anyhow, we can't afford the F-35 at it's current cost, not in this day and age with a shitty economy w/ over 9% unemployment rate....and that's only the persons that the Gov counts and not fallen off the Teet or stopped looking for work). It's high time for the US Government to reign-in the uncontrollable spending in regard to defense spending. You don't see this type of "hogs-at-the-trough" kind of spending in other sectors in the US budget, and in fact they're trimming everything back and eliminating programs.

I have to agree with the DoD procurement program. I went to a 4 week acquisition course given by the Defense Systems Management College back in the early 90's. What a cumbersome beast! And it has only worsened since then. The Federal Acquisition Regulation is a tome of books that no one can know what all is in them, yet they are expected to be followed. Then each branch of the service has to add their two cents to it. It used to be a FYDP, or five year defense plan. That is, if you want something in the budget for a weapons system, it's going to take at least 5 years. It later became a future year defense plan as 5 years wasn't long enough to procure it.