WASHINGTON: Everyone now knows Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon placed far too much faith in the benefits of concurrency — that is, building production model aircraft while finishing ground and flight testing. But we’ve had relatively few data points to illustrate the issue. Thanks to a Request for Proposals issued Dec. 16, however, we now know… Keep reading →

  CAMERI AIR BASE, Italy: The Italians have been significant innovators since the beginning of the airpower era and they continue to innovate with the launch of the F-35. Their facilities here provide support not only for Italian aircraft, but mark the start of an ability to support an allied F-35 fleet operating in the Mediterranean… Keep reading →

  USS WASP: The Marines and Navy have spent most of the last three weeks putting the new F-35B through its paces here, executing more than 90 short takeoffs and vertical landings, including 19 at night. More than 1,200 Marine test pilots, engineers, experts from the Joint Program Office running the program and Navy and… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: During the 10 days of testing aboard the USS Wasp, the Marines will fly the F-35B carrying air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons to mimic combat conditions. But they won’t be blowing anything up because they will carry inert warheads. The Marines also will be exploring how they can expand the “vertical envelope” around the ship… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: By combing through the assumptions — some of them deeply questionable — undergirding the Defense Department’s official cost estimates for the F-35B and refining them, the Marines say the plane should cost 16.6 percent less per flight hour than the current estimate. Since the F-35B is the most expensive plane to operate, lowering these… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON:  Fewer F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, MV-22 Ospreys, AH-1 Cobras, and UH-1 Hueys. No Marine Personnel Carrier. Maybe no Joint Light Tactical Vehicle to replace the Humvee. 8,000 fewer Marines on active duty. The Marine Commandant has put all that on the table as part of his proposal to the Defense Secretary’s Strategic Choices and… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The Pentagon’s most expensive conventional weapon program emerged largely unscathed from perhaps its most intensive review before the crucial congressional subcommittee that controls military funding. As over budget and behind schedule as the $391 billion, 2,443-plane F-35 program has fallen since initial promises of a low-cost, multi-service Joint Strike Fighter, two high-powered panels… Keep reading →

PARIS AIR SHOW: The top Marine aviator, Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle, announced a “very aggressive program” at the world’s largest airshow to bring down the costs of operating and maintaining the Marines’ F-35B model of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. His choice of Paris as the venue for the announcement spoke volumes. The international partners in… Keep reading →

Watch the F-35B, the Marines’ fighter of choice, execute a very cool maneuver in this video, taking off straight up into the sky. While very cool, this is not something the Joint Strike Fighter is actually expected to do very often. For one thing, it requires enormous amounts of fuel. Instead, the B model is… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: What homemade roadside bombs could do to Army and Marine ground vehicles was the ugly surprise of the last decade. What sophisticated long-range missiles could do to Navy aircraft carriers could be the ugly surprise of the next. “I think it would almost follow like the night to the day,” Rep. Randy Forbes told… Keep reading →