Representing 2-7% of the Pentagon’s annual budget, and with a projected lifetime cost of over $1 trillion dollars, the Joint Strike Fighter program with its three variations of the F-35 airframe for the US Air Force, Navy, and Marines and over a dozen partner countries is the most expensive weapons system in history. For point of contrast, World War II cost the United States an inflation-adjusted $4 trillion, and was finished in four years, less time than the initial phases of development for the JSF, which has taken over 20 years. Critics of the program are numerous, but when faced with the choice of scrapping the program and potentially having to spend even more money versus attempting to fix what is already existing, the US government has decided to stay the course. Tonight we are joined by a former Lockheed employee and F-35 representative to discuss why the program has run into so many problems, what could have been done better, and how this fits into the overall war fighting capability of the United States and its allies.
— Brought to you by —
Very special guest Matt
The Myth of the 20th Century – Episode 129 – F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – a Lockheed Insider’s Story
— References —
– Battle of the X-Planes, Nova (2003) – https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/xplanes/
– The Costly F-35: The Saga of America’s Next Fighter Jet, Thompson (2010) – http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1975139,00.html
– F-35 Lightning II – An Air Warfare Revolution (2014) – https://www.docdroid.net/eik5/f-35-lightning-ii-an-air-warfare-revolution-2014-uk.pdf
– Pierre Sprey’s Anti-F-35 Diatribe Is Half Brilliant And Half Bullshit, Rogoway (2014) – https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/pierre-spreys-anti-f-35-diatribe-is-half-brilliant-and-1592445665
– Skunkworks – Lockheed’s Legacy, Myth of the 20th Century (2019) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/skunkworks-lockheeds-legacy/
– America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military, Stoller and Kunce (2019) – https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-monopoly-crisis-hits-the-military/
Myth of the 20th Century 
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