F-35 Cancelled, then what ?

[kbrockman]

We have an expression over here; "no more eggs from that farmer"
I think it's safe to say that people like Tom Burbage are one of those farmers,
He's been pretty much death wrong or wilfully deceptive in almost all of his statements concerning all things F35.

Trustworthy info is hard to get by on things like the F35 (or most other defence projects), the only thing we can put faith into are rapports from neutral overseeing boards like eg. the GOA or the defence commission or even people involved in the past that are no longer tied to the program and have nothing to benefit from it or those not directly involved that worked on similar programs.

Problem is that exactly these people are very critical about the way the JSF program is evolving, and more worryingly , what it will ultimately turn into and what price will have to be paid for this wonderweapon.

Hearing statements like today's , 'the F35 will basically outperform every 4th generation fighter' are questionable even if we only go by the raw data that is available, it all just doesn't add up.

Anyway, I'm getting rather tired about all this,we seem to rehash all this again and again and every time we actually see neutral rapports there just seems to be way too many problems and chronic performance shortfalls.

Maybe this whole program is indicative of the deeper problems in our societies and economies.
It has become a work-scheme and profit-scheme too big to fail, a bit like one of these massive banks or corporations that need to be bailed out at all costs destroying the fabric of what it was supposed to serve in the first place.

// my final rant.

PS; I hope we Belgians look at our empty pockets before committing to this atrocity and choose something a little more sensible, I'm not getting my hopes up though.

PPS I've been in the engineering sector basically my whole life and the idea that big projects like this are bound to run overtime, overbudget and out of spec is a fallacy , non politicised big projects can be executed within acceptable limits when only objective data and criteria are used.
just my two cents.