re: #414 Dark_Falcon

Has to be tried, though. We can’t keep trying to build weapons this way. It doesn’t work and it makes us look feeble. Even if this mess can’t be cleaned up, procurement needs to be reformed to prevent future failures.

The first step is acknowledging that, when a program has gone on as long as the F-35, while failing to meet deadline after deadline, with an ever-increasing budgetary overrun, that pulling the plug is in the nation’s best interest. We need large numbers of affordable, reliable aircraft, not a small number of maintenance hassles. The F-35’s never going to succeed in replacing the F-16, certainly not on a 1:1 basis. And the Marines may be sold on it as a Harrier replacement, but the Navy was all but dragooned into the program from the word go.