no-one has been killed flying an F-35 yet. Not saying it won't happen, accidents do, but it's a bit rich to start throwing that around just yet.
I never said anyone has, I was talking about the F22...the hypoxia death trap that caused the death of an F22 pilot in Alaska and has had some of its pilots choosing to no longer fly it, for their own safety.
With the B off probation and already being delivered to the USMC this will not happen.
The B coming of probation was pure politics
not technical qualification, many of the fundamental problems that landed it on probation, still exist unresolved.
The F35 still has c.75% and with it, the most challenging aspects of its flight testing still to finish. If that or the 90% of its mission codes yet to be written and/or verified throw some sort of curve ball that proves to be prohibitively expensive to fix, then the fact that the USMC have stood up a handful of jets in a skeletal OCU along with another few hundred million invested in airfield modifications, isn't going to stop congress pulling the plug.
I completely agree that a complete cancellation of the whole programme isn't going to happen, but the US navy withdrawing and/or a cancellation of the B after say 100 aircraft, is highly possible. Remember, the defence sequester is only 5 months...the clock is ticking with no sign of a compromise.
With the Netherlands openly talking about a withdrawal, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing ends up the same way as the F22; the original plan called for well over 1000 F35s to have been produced by 2018 and the current and most optimistic estimate is to have c.360 built by then...