F-35 ett fiasko? Läckta Rand rapporten och annat kul

The estimated cost just to develop and buy the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is around $382 billion, but that number could increase somewhat when the Pentagon reports the cost of its major acquisition programs to Congress next month.

Defense officials say the cost of the program will increase somewhat since the Pentagon is postponing orders for 179 planes for five years to allow more testing and limit the number of costly retrofits to already produced planes.

The delays and budget pressures at home are prompting eight international partners who are helping fund the F-35 development -- Britain, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, Canada and the Netherlands -- to rethink their orders as well.

The Pentagon's chief weapons tester said in a December report that the mean flight hours between critical failures on the Air Force version of the F-35 were about 2.65 hours, but Robling said that number was "ridiculous" since it was based on the low number of hours flown during developmental testing.

Robling said the F-35 was also the first big Pentagon weapons program to be evaluated using a 50-year lifetime cost estimate -- about 20 years longer than most programs -- which made the program seem artificially more expensive.

Daniel Goure of the Lexington Institute has said that using the same methodology over the same period, the current fleet of tactical fighters such as the F-16 and F/A-18s would require spending $4 trillion on operation and sustainment.

The Pentagon estimates it will cost about $30,000 per hour to operate the F-35, in large part due to the cost of fuel.

The Pentagon's high-level Defense Acquisition Board met last week to review the F-35 program and its sustainment cost, but the F-35 program office is still working on a comprehensive review of the operation and maintenance costs, Robling said.

On Feb. 22, six days after the first F-35A CTOL (Conventional Take Off and Landing) had flown with external stores, even the STOVL (Short Take Off and Vertical Landing) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, flew for the first time with external weapons.

Noteworthy, along with the AIM-9X carried by the CTOL, the F-35B carried a never seen before (at least in photo) white 25 mm gun pod on the centerline.

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — The best fighter pilots from the Air Force, Marines and Navy arrived in the Florida Panhandle last year to learn to fly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive, most advanced weapons program in U.S. history. They are still waiting.

Concerns about the stealth jets' safety, cost overruns and questions about the entire program's feasibility have delayed the training and left about 35 pilots mostly outside the cockpit. The most the pilots do with the nine F-35s at Eglin Air Force Base is occasionally taxi them and fire up the engines. Otherwise their training is limited to three F-35 flight simulators, classroom work and flights in older-model jets. Only a handful of test pilots get to fly the F-35s.

Decisions on the program's longer-term future and the expected total procurement amount were still a long way off, Robling said. "Over the next couple of years, maybe even five years, 10 years, I think the program will mature to the point where we go, 'OK, this is where we're going to stop.' Or we'll decide to continue because we see them getting the price lower."

Her er grunnene til at Ørland og Brekstad vil bli utsatt for mer massivt støy enn i dag:

• I dag står mange F-16-fly til enhver tid på bakken. Av en flåte på 57 er ifølge Luftforsvaret rundt 20 tilgjengelig for oppdrag i Norge på en gjennomsnittsdag. Resten står på bakken grunnet vedlikehold, reparasjoner eller i påvente av reservedeler.
• F-35-flåten, på rundt 50 fly, vil bestå av «friske fly».
• F-35 er historiens tyngste og kraftigste i sitt slag, og bråker deretter. Den bråker mange ganger mer enn F-16.
• I dag skal hver av F-16-pilotene fly 180 timer årlig, som er et NATO-krav. Ifølge sjefen for Luftforsvaret, generalmajor Finn Kristian Hannestad, vil F-35 kreve at pilotene de første årene må øke til 240 timer.
• På toppen av dette kommer fellesøvelser med utenlandske jagerfly, som har en lang tradisjon for å øve på Ørland. Det vil i fremtiden ikke bli færre slike øvelser, snarere flere.

''Natolandet Norge har gjort tvärtom och köpt det amerikanska flygplanet Joint Strike Fighter. Förmodligen det mest realistiska alternativet till uppgradering av Jas.'' För det finns ju bara 2 flygplanstillverkare i världen SAAB och Lockheed Martin.