The engine of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (AKA the Jet that Ate the Pentagon Budget) suffered a “catastrophic failure” recently, according to the Commander of Naval Air Systems Command, quoted by AOL Defense. A low pressure turbine of the F-35’s single jet engine cracked. This could potentially destroy the engine itself and bring the F-35 down.
This is not a mere design flaw, dozens of which are uncovered during an aircraft’s test phase (which is normal for any aircraft). This is a catastrophic defect which could bring the entire F-35 fleet down.
This comes on top of all design flaws uncovered in the F-35 so far – a plane that will not enter service until the end of this decade, has completed only 25% of its flight testing, and costs $200 mn per copy (and will cost $1 trillion over the next 50 years, i.e. $20 bn per year, to maintain).
Considering that the DOD’s budget is to get hit by sequestration in just a few days, this is something the DOD can ill afford.
It is time to put the F-35 out of its misery. Not only is it a badly flawed airplane, but it’s also totally unsuited to any one and every one of America’s current and future military aviation needs:
Against each one of these needs, the F-35 is an utter failure.
The F-35, in addition to being unsurvivable, unaffordable, underarmed, underranged, underengined, understealthed, and too slow and sluggish, is redundant. There is nothing it can do that cannot be done better by true air superiority fighters (such as the F-15 and the F-22) against enemy fighters, the F-22 and the X-47 drone in the tactical strike domain in contested airspace, or by any legacy aircraft in benign airspace.
As for the most important mission – long range strike – the F-35 is a nonplayer here, as is every aircraft other than the B-2 and the NGB.
So what should the US military do?
The Marines might want to retain the F-35B, but they should preferrably resume Harrier production and develop a Super Harrier.
The Navy should bail out of the F-35 program immediately, zero-time and structurally strengthen its Hornets, order some Super Hornets for the short term, and, for the long term, develop and procure the F/A-XX unmanned 6th generation fighter.
The Air Force
https://defense.aol.com/2013/02/22/jsf-fleet-grounded-after-turbine-blade-cracks?icid=rfy/
Schedule Summary: President Joe Biden will deliver remarks at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday evening.…
Many of us have been watching the images of the protests on the Columbia, Yale,…
A parental rights organization filed civil-rights complaints against two school districts in Colorado on Friday,…
President Joe Biden received the lowest 13th-quarter approval ratings in modern history heading into an…