It may look good, but the F-35 Lightning II has some serious issues, and it has a long way to go before it can be rolled out for combat missions.
It's gone through 20,000 tests of its systems, but has about 40,000 more to go.
Despite this, it's not likely that the F-35 will ever be scrapped. As we reported back in November, there are simply too many countries that have invested time and money into the program.
It is, quite literally, an aircraft that is "too big to fail" despite facing lifetime operating costs of $1 trillion.
We've gone back and looked at the biggest problems with the F-35 program, according to an official Pentagon report.
Developed by Lockheed, the fighter has three variants: the conventional F-35A for the Air Force; the F-35B for the Marine Corps, which can take off and land vertically; and the F-35C for the Navy, a carrier version.
If all goes to plan, the Pentagon is on track to spend a huge figure of $396 billion on the jets, including R&D. It doesn't help that the cost to build each F-35 has risen to an average of $137 million from $69 million in 2001.
But more horrifying is not the cost of buying F-35s but the cost of operating and supporting them: $1 trillion over the plane's lifetime. Ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain, described that estimate as “jaw-dropping."
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