The US Defence Department announced Tuesday it would "most certainly" kill the troubled F-35 'stealth' fighter after getting final clearance from Secretary of Defence Ash Carter. With $1 trillion already sunk into development and initial production, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme is known as the aircraft that's "more expensive than Australia".
Initial reports suggest the decision to terminate the largest defence contract in history was a result of the threat from advanced versions of the Russian Su-27 Flanker series aircraft. "We just can't overlook the fact that in every wargamed scenario the Flankers have whipped the F-35," Pentagon spokesman Siphon Cash told USA Today. "Even without being stealthy, the Flankers are getting better with each new model."
The impending arrival of the T-50 Sukhoi stealth fighter could be another reason. In a worrying trend, several American fighter pilots have taken early retirement even as the Russians have started inducting early models of their fifth generation fighter. "My father, a former USAF fighter pilot in the early 1970s, was spooked by the MiG-25 Foxbat and spent years in rehab," said John Kwitter, who was an F-35 pilot at Elgin Air Force Base, Florida. "The Foxbat was a big scare word in the USAF those days and rattled many pilots of my father's generation. With the F-35 likely to be a sitting duck for the Russian fighter jocks flying the T-50, I have decided not to end up in a mental asylum."....Russia & India
US to kill F-35 fighter
Rakesh Krishnan Simha
(snark but pretty funny and with a grain of truth to it)
7 comments:
And speaking of Oz. If this happens I'd like to see what kind of fallout this has here.
If memory serves, the Howard Government (with Peter Costello, the world's bestest treasurer ever in the history of the galaxy; and, as one of his mates put it: "the best Prime Minister Australia never had") gave the F35 Lightning a lightning approval as the next gen RAAF fighter.
Rudd did not stop it and, I believe, they doubled the order. A couple of years ago (as Canada cut the money pipeline to the whole project), a report warned that the "Lightning" could not fly near an electric storm: it would short-circuit its electronic systems and the plane would fall like a stone. Lightning downing a bloody Lightning, so to speak.
Now, with our quasi-bipedal PM and Treasurer hysterically promising budget Sore-Plus (that's the Aussie pronunciation) and cutting spending left and right, they increased defense spending (and the F35 order: some 72 planes, if am not mistaken).
God, give me strength.
You Yanks should thank the Russians for bringing you to your senses.
One trillion, that's a lot of money, sure """the taxpayer""" ain't getting anything back out of it.
The ultimate example of a "bridge to nowhere."
I forgot. It's April Fool's Day.
Yeah, it's a great play on April Fool's. Who are the fools that have flushed a trillion and mounting with nothing operational to show for it.
Plus another few trillion in select middle eastern countries.
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