I cannot see the F35 being 100% cancelled, what I do not understand though is how the Pentagon thinks that it is going to afford to run thousands of F35s, there is sequestration going on and the USAF is / was hoping to retire early fleets of aircraft that the F35 was meant to replace on a one for one basis, vis A10.
We have seen that the sizes of future air forces in Partner countries has reduced dramatically due to reductions in available resources in these nations, not helped by late IOC and over target acquisition price and higher than expected running costs, this is resulting in lowering of the total build for the F35 allegedly.
Can anyone explain why the Pentagon is still so gung ho about the F35? Or is the plan changing to: -
A) We will eventually get the plane sort of working declare IOC, get plaudits etc
B) Then like the F22 and B2 decide that we cannot afford nearly as many as we thought that we wanted so will only procure say 25-40% of the number that we initially said that we wanted.
Move along nothing to see here, what was that 6th generation project.....
