05 August 2016 (01:36 UTC-07 Tango 01) 15 Mordad 1395/01 Dhu I-Qa’da 1437/03 Bing-Shen 4714
Hill AFB, Utah, hosting the F-35A Lightning-2s Initial Operational Capability Ceremony on 05 August 2016:
VEHICLE I-D: USAF FLORIDA ‘SURGE WEEK’ F-35A LIGHTNING-2
05 August 2016 (00:43 UTC-07 Tango 01) 15 Mordad 1395/01 Dhu I-Qa’da 1437/03 Bing-Shen 4714
Crews of the expensive, and long delayed, F-35 completed extensive mission training at Eglin AFB, Florida:
TAXPAYER PARIAH F-35A CALLS IDAHO HOME!
04 January 2014 (11:50 UTC-07 Tango)/02 Rabi ‘al-Awwal 1435/14 Dey 1392/04 Gui-Chou (12th month) 4711
“It was a pretty big deal and an unusual situation because there’s a prohibition on doing defense work in China, even if it’s inadvertent. I’d never seen this happen before.”-Frank Kenlon, recently retired senior DoD procurement official
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation revealed that U.S. military contractors have been authorized by the U.S. DoD to buy parts made in China, even parts for the super expensive (and total waste of tax dollars) F-35 Lightning II. This violates current federal law!
More than a decade ago the F-35 was envisioned as a mutli-platform aircraft for all the branches of the U.S. military, and promoted as a way of saving the DoD money. Ironically, it became so expensive that it became a multi-national project, in order to keep the already outrageous costs to taxpayers from going too much higher (and even that attempt was a fail). Now it’s been shown that the DoD took it upon themselves to allow contractors to violate federal law and buy parts for the F-35 from China, in another move to keep costs from going higher.
The GAO will make the conclusions of their investigation public on 01 March 2014. Reuters has already got hold of enough info to publish an article.
The GAO investigation was ordered by Congress, after U.S. metal suppliers complained they were being shut off from doing business with the DoD!
The F-35 is a prime metaphor for the exceptionally failing United States of America: It’s been dragging on for more than a decade, and more and more tax dollars are being spent with absolutely no end in sight, to the extent that public officials are willing to violate their own laws in the name of National Security!
(don’t blame China for the actions of your public officials, after all, the evil British empire is a major player in the F-35 program)
The controversial U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is once again causing problems. This time Japan’s Defense Minister, Naoki Tanaka, said no deal if there were anymore cost overruns, or delays in the F-35 project.
Japan had tentatively agreed to purchase four of the multi-million dollar aircraft. Currently each F-35 cost $123 million!
But, recently the Obama administration suggested that, in order to cut the Defense budget, development and production of the F-35 should be delayed. The F-35 has already see numerous delays over the past decade, and seen costs skyrocket.
Japan has yet to sign a contract to buy the F-35, but officials said if the price of the F-35 goes up, or it’s delivery date is delayed, they will not sign any deal to buy it.
Steve O’Bryan, vice president for F-35 business development at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, was in Japan, trying to push them to buy the controversial jet.
The main reason the F-35 is so controversial is that it’s taken far longer to develop, and it has cost U.S. taxpayers far more than originally estimated.
O’Bryan is hoping Japan will buy the F-35 to replace it’s aging F-4 Phantom 2 jets. Japan is one of the last countries still using the F-4. Also, some of Japan’s newer F-2 jets (a bigger version of the F-16) were destroyed by the March 11 tsunami.
Japan also uses the F-15 Eagle. In 2009 U.S. officials tried to convince Japan to buy the F-22 Raptor, but that deal fell through.
Lockheed Martin is selling the F-35 on the grounds that Japan needs to meet the growing threat from China’s latest aircraft designs. The problem is that Japan is already developing a stealth fighter of its own.
Lieutenant General Hideyuki Yoshioka says Japan’s prototype stealth fighter is expected to make its first test flight in 2014, about the same time that Lockheed Martin thinks it will be ready to finally mass produce the F-35. So much for the U.S. trying to sell the F-35 to Japan.