Chuck Spinney on the F-35

It seems that Leon Panetta's plan to "save" money by making the F-35 more expensive (by delaying and stretching out production) didn't exactly impress Chuck Spinney, who has written about the problems in America's combat aviation for years and years.  He's seen it all before, and he has written so instructively about it that if you don't know Spinney's findings you don't know much about the problem.  One of many places to find Chuck's highly insightful work is at the website for "The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It."  That would be at http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/01/04.pdf and http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/01/07.pdf for just two pieces on the F-35 foreseeing today's problems a long time ago. 

 

Chuck has written a new piece at Time's Battleland blog summarizing the problems that are deep in the F-35's genes.  It makes for quick but informative reading, and he provides links to more for those who want t probe further.  He says he's going to write more on the F-35; I am looking forward to it: to understand why the F-35 is such a colossal failure degrading our defenses in a quite literal way is to understand our defense problems fundamentally. Winslow Wheeler.

 

WEAPONS

F-35: Out of Altitude, Airspeed, and Ideas — But Never Money

By CHUCK SPINNEY | January 30, 2012 

http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/01/30/f-35-out-of-altitude-airspeed-and-ideas-but-never-money/?iid=bl-article-latest