 |
| Adam D. Ince (flickr) |
Dump the F-35 program plagued with excessive costs and failing weapons
by Kevin Mooney | May 28, 2020 06:00 AM
Wasteful, counterproductive spending is a threat to U.S. military readiness that should be rooted out now before taxpayers are saddled with “sustainment costs” that will burden future generations.
That’s just one of several takeaways from a just-released government accountability report analyzing the many defects of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. With government spending proceeding at an unprecedented and dangerous level in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, now is the time for the Trump administration to search for ways to offset the impact of future stimulus efforts.
While it’s important for our military to exploit its technological prowess with an eye toward China and other rising threats, there appears to be a misguided effort to pack everything into one plane ranging from stealth technology to vertical takeoff ability.
At a time when the economy is in recession and the national debt is rising, defense spending must be smart and efficient. But since its inception in 2001, the F-35 has been bedeviled with cost overruns that are coming back to bite taxpayers without delivering any return on their investment.
The major findings from the Government Accountability Office report should give defense planners good reason to hit the pause button. They don’t need to go back very far into the history of the program to see that it has gone sideways.
From 2018 to 2019, the GAO reports the total cost estimate of the F-35 acquisition program increased by $22 billion from $406 billion to over $428 billion.
These costs are supposedly tied in with needed hardware and software upgrades. But where does it all end? The answer seems to be that it doesn’t since the acquisition costs are just the beginning. The sustainment costs, the costs needed to keep the program running once it's activated for its planned 66-year life cycle, are eye-popping. GAO reports costs will hit $1.2 trillion, bringing the total cost of the F-35 program to more than $1.6 trillion.
But what about military readiness? Is there an argument to made that the F-35 will give the United States the critical edge it needs in 21st-century warfare that justifies its exorbitant costs? Once again, GAO findings strongly suggest otherwise. In fact, the F-35 program is beset with thousands of “deficiencies” that directly affect its fighter capabilities.
“Through 2019, F-35 program test officials had identified over 3,200 deficiencies,” the GAO report says. “Deficiencies represent specific instances where the weapon system either does not meet requirements or where the safety, suitability, or effectiveness of the weapon system could be affected. The test officials categorize deficiencies according to their potential impact on the aircraft’s performance.”
The prospects for improving and altering the F-35 to the point where it can be transformed into a lean, mean fighting machine are bleak. A $17 billion Lockheed Martin Corp. diagnostic system used to analyze the F-35 and detect potential flaws in need of repairs is itself laced with flaws. Maintenance crews at military bases reportedly said they spent an average of 5,000 to 10,000 hours each year tracking information that the diagnostic system should have tracked automatically.
The runaway costs of the F-35 have not escaped the notice of President Trump, who tweeted about the fighter jet's many problems. Now is the time for him to pull the plug on the costly mess that subtracts needed resources away from other vital projects.
Kevin Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., who writes for several national publications.
No comments:
Post a Comment