More: The UK is holding a big airshow (Farnborough) this month but the Pentagon's favorite lemon will not be going to show off. The entire fleet of expensive duds is grounded due to an unexplained engine fire at Elgin AFB, Florida. The aircraft's development has been plagued with problems and cost overruns from the start. The current per unit cost is now $398.6bn or a $49bn increase per year since work began in 2006. That price will undoubtably rise as cutbacks in the number of plane orders is inevitable. The life span of the jet is estimated at 55 years; operation and maintenance of the high-tech fighter over its life will cost the US over $1trillion. The entire Manhattan Project cost about $55bn in today's dollars; every homeless person in America could be provided a $600,000 home for the same amount of money. But support for the aircraft is so strong on the Hill that there is even a bipartisan fan club of 49 members called the Joint Strike Fighter Caucus dedicated to keeping the program going. Some of those congressmen are die-hard fiscal radicals, but when it comes to the JSF, they bow before its altar of waste, fraud and abuse. Fetishes do come in all shapes and sizes. The Pentagon will be saved one embarrassing moment however, the superior Russian Su-27 will not be going to Farnborough either due to tensions over the Ukraine. Cost for a new Su-27sK is $37m
29.06.14 The Pentagon has its pocketbook open for the super-expensive and supposedly stealthy F-35 "Lightening II" (@$300m+ea.) This ill-conceived, multi-role jet is supposed to be unbeatable in the air, guaranteeing air superiority for US this century as well as perform close air-support and fighter-bomber missions. The truth is a 1950's Mig-21 can out maneuver the F-35, and as a close air support platform it is laughable because it has such high fuel consumption and flies too fast. Low frequency radars built in 1942 can detect modern stealth fighters. Serbia shot down a supposedly stealthy F-117 ("Vega 31") during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign. Russia sells improved, mobile versions of these radars to any country with cash. Stealth is a largely a myth, but used as justification for huge non-competitive procurement awards to major manufacturers, in this case Lockheed-Martin. So says Pierre Sprey, a designer of the successful and much less expensive F-16 Fighting Falcon, the result of a competitive procurement process. Sprey also developed the specifications for the A-10 "Thunderbolt II", a widely respected ground attack jet: