Drago Bosnic – Aletho News April 6, 2023
Last year, NATO officially declared that Russia is its primary adversary, officially restarting the Cold War. Since then, the belligerent alliance’s war machine has started revamping its strategic posturing towards Moscow, but after decades of numerous wars of aggression against relatively helpless opponents, NATO’s conventional fighting capabilities have atrophied significantly. This seems to be affecting all branches of major NATO militaries, including their air forces, particularly those operating the deeply troubled F-35 JSF (Joint Strike Fighter), a pan-Western effort to unify all NATO and NATO-aligned countries into “a well-oiled joint fighting force with near flawless coordination and battlefield information sharing”. At least that was the original idea.
However, the reality is much different. Publicly, the Pentagon is quite happy with “the best fighter jet ever made”. Privately, the situation is starkly different. For at least a decade, numerous reports on the F-35’s countless flaws have turned out to be not only true, but even overoptimistic, as the actual scale of issues plaguing the program is much worse. This has resulted in repeated delays in deliveries, as well as serious issues with modernization efforts. By the time many of the reported issues are resolved, the US Air Force already has new mission requirements that essentially nullify all the previous work and force the developers “back to the drawing board”. In short, the F-35 has proven to be unable to adapt to new threats despite being devised (and marketed) to do exactly that.
According to various sources, over 900 F-35s have been completed and delivered by April this year, but the fleet is still suffering from many of the same issues as when the jet was inducted into service nearly a decade ago. A plethora of maintenance issues and performance defects are causing disastrous availability rates. Back in February, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revealed that the F-35 fleet not only failed to meet the requirements for improving readiness, but has even managed to make them a lot worse than in previous years. Availability rates for both the conventional F-35A and STOVL (short take-off, vertical landing) F-35B fell by 11% in 2022, with only the naval F-35C variant making small improvements in this category.
“Between 2021 and 2022, F-35As’ availability fell by 11 percentage points, from 65 to 54”, CBO stated in a report, adding: “F-35Bs’ availability also fell, by 7 percentage points, from 61 to 54, while F-35Cs’ availability rose by 5 percentage points to 58.”
And yet, even these reports turned out to be overoptimistic as Lockheed Martin once again resorted to using semantics to make the performance of its products seem better than they actually are. According to Bloomberg, the percentage of F-35s capable of flying any mission at any given moment, otherwise known as full mission-capable rates, was just over 29%, manager of the program Air Force Lieutenant General Michael Schmidt said in written testimony for the March 29 hearing of the House Armed Service Committee’s aviation subcommittee. This is nearly 10% less than the full mission-capable readiness in 2020, which stood at 39% at the time. Such a drop effectively nullified possible advantages provided by deliveries of new jets.
“This is unacceptable and maximizing readiness is my top priority,” Schmidt said in his prepared remarks, adding: “[Our] goal is to increase readiness rates by at least 10% in the next 12 months.”
This is just the latest in a series of now well over a hundred scathing reports issued over the years by both military and civilian US officials. As there are currently close to 540 F-35s in service with the US military, the latest readiness figures indicate that no more than 160 are fully mission-capable, meaning it’s among the very lowest, “bested” only by the F-22 “Raptor” jets and the atrociously maintenance-heavy B-2 strategic bombers. Ironically, F-35s were designed to have low maintenance requirements and operational costs to replace F-16s and A-10s for USAF, F-18s for USN (Navy) and AV-8Bs for USMC (Marines). The jet’s many issues resulted in a spending “death spiral”, as the program’s overall cost is getting ever closer to the staggering $2 trillion.
A major issue with the F-35 is its troubled F135 engine prone to overheating, resulting in issues with its ability to fly supersonic, a feat considered standard practice for fighter jets ever since WWII. Defense Secretary under the Trump administration, Christopher C. Miller, was so frustrated with the jet that he referred to it as “a monster” and “a piece of… (well , you get the idea)”. Even the late John McCain, well known for anything but enmity towards the US MIC (Military Industrial Complex), called it “a textbook example of our broken defense acquisition system”, stating in one of his Senate briefings that “the F-35 program’s record has been both a scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost, schedule and performance”.
US vassals and satellite states have also found numerous issues with the F-35. For instance, during 18 months of operational testing (from January 2021 to June 2022), South Korea reported findings about nearly 250 critical flaws in the jets it acquired from the US in 2019. As late as December, Israel (one of the first F-35 operators) had to ground its entire fleet during preparations for a possible war with Iran. Others, such as Japan and the UK, have also suffered similar issues, even resulting in crashes and deaths. However, while the F-35 has certainly been a disaster, it might prove to be a major contributor to improving global security, as diminishing the political West’s ability to wage war is by far the best way to preserve peace across the world.
There’s a lot of samantics in this article.
First off, want more money, make the flying bathtub look worse than what it is. Sure, it’s a disaster, but many think it’s a better disaster that Russian or Chinese offerings.
The US Abrams tank entered service in 1980… It uses a gas guzzling turbine engine which runs so hot, its a very easy target.
When these tanks arrive on the outskirts of Fallujah, General Kimmits tanks ran out of gas, so couldn’t actually attack.
So more than 40yrs on, this tank hasn’t been fixed. The real reason for their delayed arrival in UKraine, is that the war will be over, and Amerika can save its embarrassment.
The F35 is under powered, slow, compromised fuel and munitions, due to this defunct slealth capability, and can’t dog fight. We’re also talking about 2 sorties and then a service, while comparable Russian planes can fly 6 or more sorties, before a service is required.
The F-35 has become a war-winning weapon. For the other side.
to impede further german arms production
NORDSTREAM BOMB was very good !
THANK YOU Mr BIDEN !
I guess made in Amerika isn’t all what it’s choked up to be?
But to be honest, a question was once asked ‘Why don’t we just scrap this cow?’
I don’t remember details, but parts are a major source of production-income for nearly 100 countries, and their economies would tank.
I have to say, the collapse of the dollar could be rather interesting…..
Three jeers for Affirmative Action in the the educational institutions and the work place.
I’ve always said of the F-35 since its failures became clear they would have been better off putting all that money into three new aircraft for a fighter role, a bomber role and ground-assault role. Instead they hoped to cut costs by commissioning a multi-role aircraft that was supposed to do them all but ended up not really being able to do any. On those days it can’t get off the ground they’re stuck with a plane that can’t fly ffs. With three new planes they’d have saved a lot of money on development, the makers would have made even more money and military chiefs across the world would have wanted to buy them – because with one specific role each and America’s history of producing top aircraft they’d have all performed as planned.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-tweet-ex-pm-barak-seems-to-confirm-israel-has-nuclear-weapons/
“In conversations between Israelis and Western diplomatic officials, there are deep concerns raised of the possibility that if the coup in Israel succeeds, a messianic dictatorship — that possesses nuclear weapons and fanatically wishes for a confrontation with Islam centered on the Temple Mount — will be established in the heart of the Middle East.” – Ehud Barak
Note: Christopher Bollyn has named Ehud Barak as the prime architect of 911 along with Bibi Netanyahu.
——————–
Another conspiracy theory confirmed, yes Israel has nuclear weapons, lots of them, actually.
And since Israel has not signed the NNPT and USA has, that means it is illegal for the USA to give Israel money.
The USA has sold Israel a but load of F-35’s, which have the capability to drop nuclear weapons.
THE UNITED STATES HAS ILLEGALLY ARMED ISRAEL WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND AIRCRAFT TO DELIVER THEM.
https://theaviationist.com/2021/10/29/new-video-f35-b61-ttr-released/
So of course Israel will be using nukes on Arabs, and in fact they already have.
Fact: Israel nuked Beirut
https://www.bitchute.com/video/IgGJuaJpiqAo/
WATCH THE B-61 NUKE IN FREEFALL – EXACTLY SAME AS BEIRUT!
Do not be fooled by the lying Jew mockingbird media cover story of ammonium nitrate – that was debunked fully. It was a false flag nuclear attack, and the patsy were some fertilizer bags.
TRUST YOUR OWN EYES, DOES IT LOOK LIKE A NUKE GOING OFF?
HELL YES IT DOES.
Despite all the problems with the F-35, that didn’t stop the idiot Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau of ordering I believe something like 60 of them if I’m not mistaken.
Joke Strike Fighter
F-35 = Starfighter Mark II………….