John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY WILLIAM RIVERS PITT IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“The Shambolic F-35 Will Cost the Empire $1.5 Billion and That’s a Good Thing
“The Empire probably can't reform itself but maybe it can bankrupt itself — the heroic F-35 is sure doing its part”
https://www.checkpointasia.net/the-shambolic-f-35-will-cost-the-empire-1-5-billion-and-thats-a-good-thing/
“global nature of this program”
That's Washington-speak for: "intensely pressuring all allies to buy the plane so that its hideous costs are partly subsidized by them."
That has become a common Pentagon practice, common because the Pentagon develops so many unbelievably costly machines.
Apart from its immense acquisition cost, the F-35 also has extremely high operating costs, estimated by the Pentagon at thirty thousand dollars for each hour that it flies.
As I've commented before, one of the designers of the successful F-16 fighter explained a few years back just why the F-35 is such a flop.
It isn't just the glitchy hi-tech:
https://gizmodo.com/the-designer-of-the-f-16-explains-why-the-f-35-is-such-1591828468
Oh, and, it does appear that the over-hyped stealth of the F-35, a quality making it necessary to sacrifice other desirable qualities in trade-offs, is not at all guaranteed. Radars and computers for Russia's S-400 system may just be able to "see" it.
