The picture above says it all.... I have been putting up article after article here at this blog covering this unmitigated disaster that is the so called F35 "Lightning II" flying POS program for years now, hoping that people would get it and be alerted to how this "program" is not only a giant waste of time, but has been bleeding so many taxpayers in so many nations to death now....The facts are simple: This "multi-task" so called 'fighter' can neither multi-task, nor fight... It is actually a serious step back in terms of fighting capabilities for the US armed forces that will weaken their capabilities for decades to come....I need not go into great detail here about the woeful and serious problems with this POS.... Many new readers to this blog can simply read my many previous articles and see for themselves how this POS is most definitely an unmitigated disaster... But for now, I came across the following important report that comes courtesy of the Southfront website, at www.southfront.org, where apparently Investigators are showing that the US Pentagon itself is covering up the serious problems with this F35 flying turkey... Here is that article for all to see for themselves, and I do have my own thoughts and comments to follow:#USAEditor's choice 30.08.2018 - INVESTIGATION SHOWS PENTAGON IS COVERING SERIUOS PROBLEMS WITH F-35On August 29th, it was revealed that the Pentagon is allegedly attempting to cover some serious problems with the F-35 joint strike fighter jet that could endanger troops, according to an investigation released by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO).The investigation discovered that in June, an oversight board that was looking at the development of the high-tech fighter jet decided to downgrade 19 of the aircraft’s most severe deficiencies without a plan to fix them. These included an emergency alert system for when pilots eject and a system for bombing coordinates that could protect troops on the ground from friendly fire. All of them were moved to Category II status. According to POGO: “This is not how the development process is supposed to work.”As reported by POGO, in acquisition programs, a deficiency is a design flaw that affects the weapon system’s performance or safety. During the test and evaluation process, the testing personnel identify and categorize design deficiencies based on severity, breaking them down into Categories I and II, with degrees of priority within each category. Category I deficiencies “may cause death, severe injury, or severe occupational illness; may cause loss or major damage to a weapon system; critically restricts the combat readiness capabilities of the using organization; or result in a production line stoppage.”A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that, as of January 2018, the F-35 program still had 111 of these. Category II deficiencies “could impede or constrain successful mission accomplishment.” The program had 855 of these significant, though less catastrophic, design flaws.Dan Grazier, a military fellow at POGO and long-time program watcher, said that the moves could help speed up the F-35 program, as it moves into a critical phase of development. The F-35 program is the most expensive one in the history of the Pentagon. “They want to be able to go up to Capitol Hill and say, ‘Nope, we don’t have any more Category 1 deficiencies,’” Grazier said.According to POGO, the next big challenge before the F-35 comes on September 15th. That is the deadline for the initial test and evaluation of the aircraft. The tri-service fighters are billed as the most advanced in the world and are chock full of new military technology. As reported by Washington Examiner, the Air Force and Marine Corps variants are already in operational use. The Navy’s version is expected to be deemed ready to deploy next year. “We are obviously just three weeks away from that, so the big rush to kind of clear up these paperwork issues is to try to meet that deadline,” Grazier said. “Having these deficiencies, it actually increases the likelihood that the program will not pass IOT&E.”However, according to POGO that can’t be further than the truth. Despite what the Pentagon claims, the average program unit cost for each F-35 has more than doubled, from $62.2 million at the program’s inception in 2001 to an average $158.4 million in 2018. It is also 12 years behind schedule. The F-35 program’s development phase will not be completed this year, or for many years in the future. As POGO’s investigation revealed “the F-35 Deficiency Review Board document reveals that F-35 Joint Program Office officials are not even attempting to deal with serious design flaws, just so they can claim to have finished this phase without busting the budget and the schedule yet again.” Instead of fixing the deficiencies, they will complete development work and fixes at a later point, with their “newly devised, amorphous “modernization” phase, free of the restrictions and accountability imposed by a budget and milestone baseline.”Neither the Department of Defense nor Lockheed Martin responded to requests for comment on this investigation.NTS Notes: I have no doubts that the critters in the US Pentagram..err.. Pentagon are covering up the serious problems with this POS, for many of them are controlled by the big bucks being sent their way by the criminals over at Lockheed Martin.... Money definitely does talk...In my last article on this flying turkey, I stated clearly that this entire program should be investigated and if the findings show that it is a disaster then the entire program should be halted and scrapped.... This disaster is going to cost the US taxpayers alone some $2 TRILLION dollars that is woefully needed elsewhere to fix what is ailing the United States.. And yes, there is a viable alternative to this hunk of junk in terms of the Boeing F15X program that is based upon the reliable F15 Eagle design, is an actual fighter aircraft armed to the teeth for combat, and costs a fraction of the F35!It is sad to say that this fiasco will continue... Lockheed Martin is making billions from this fiasco and is delivering a POS that is the laughing stock for every foreign adversary.... And sadly so many sheep in the US are none the wiser and will hand over their tax dollars blindly...More to comeNTS
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