The problem is not about technical teething issues, it's all about the
money;
GAO Draft Slams F-35 On ?Unaffordable? Costs: $8.8B Over Legacy Fighters « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary
WASHINGTON: The F-35′s long-term costs may “not be affordable” and appear to be substantially higher than those of the existing combat aircraft fleets that the Joint Strike Fighter will replace, the Government Acocuntability Office says in a draft report.
....
The estimated gap between the F-35 sustainment costs and those of the F/A-18, F-15, F-16 and the Harrier fleets as measured in 2010 is impressive, about $8.8 billion, an increase of 79 percent. That estimate comes from the Pentagon’s authoritative Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office, the GAO draft report says. The draft says that costs for the legacy fleet were about $11 billion a year in 2010. Based on CAPE’s estimate, the F-35′s annual costs will be $19.9 billion in 2012 dollars.
one of the funnier quotes;
The GAO does say that the military “has begun some cost savings efforts and established sustainment affordability targets for the F-35 program, but DoD did not use the military service budgets to establish these targets,” so they “do not provide a clear benchmark…” As one example of that disconnect, the auditors say that the program “arbitrarily lowered” the estimate for F-35 fuel costs by 10 percent.
Now there's a neat accounting trick.