America's "everything" fighter jet is a total disaster

Every time the F-35 project it goes beyond schedule, every time it costs more than anticipated, every time something doesn’t work, Americans are told it’s just a bug, it’s just a minor problem. Enough is enough.

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There’s a well-known trick by defense contractors to make sure a project is never killed and becomes a goose that lays golden eggs: spread the production of the thing over as many congressional districts as possible. But this time, the program took this old trick global. It’s even better if you put as many countries in on the action as possible, because if by any chance one government balks, the others will carry it on. Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35, is expertly practiced in the art of milking the U.S. government for cash.

It’s time to end it. The only reason left not to do it is sunk costs — which is exactly the reason why it should be ended. Sunk costs are gone. Many defense experts agree that an air force would be better off using current F-16s and F-18s than the fantastically expensive F-35. U.S. defense specialist Winslow T. Wheeler and aircraft designer Pierre Sprey have written that given the F-35’s astronomical costs and design flaws, any air force would be better off maintaining its fleets of F-16s and F/A-18s.

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