The USAF's chief of staff has floated the idea of developing a new lightweight low-cost fighter to replace the air force's aging fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons, and complement their higher end F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lightning IIs.
This is all well and good, but there was a project years ago that was supposed to deliver this kind of aircraft. It was called the Joint Strike Fighter program, and was intended to deliver an affordable plane that could cover the needs of not just the air force, but the army and navy too. Twenty years and about $1.5 trillion later, what they've actually produced is the F-35 Lightning II, which is actually three different and very expensive variants. The F-35 is not a failure as far as the performance of the aircraft itself is concerned; each variant does serve some need for the branch that will use it, and it will be sold to other countries like Britain who need to replace their aging fleet of Typhoons and decommissioned Harriers. What it is a failure of is management, as the project has run over time, over budget, and well outside the original brief. The question is, now the air force has to start from scratch, will they learn their lesson?
This is all well and good, but there was a project years ago that was supposed to deliver this kind of aircraft. It was called the Joint Strike Fighter program, and was intended to deliver an affordable plane that could cover the needs of not just the air force, but the army and navy too. Twenty years and about $1.5 trillion later, what they've actually produced is the F-35 Lightning II, which is actually three different and very expensive variants. The F-35 is not a failure as far as the performance of the aircraft itself is concerned; each variant does serve some need for the branch that will use it, and it will be sold to other countries like Britain who need to replace their aging fleet of Typhoons and decommissioned Harriers. What it is a failure of is management, as the project has run over time, over budget, and well outside the original brief. The question is, now the air force has to start from scratch, will they learn their lesson?