The USA has grounded its entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets

[naveed]

The USA has grounded its entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets after a crack in the engine was found.

 

[drjean]

Really?

Maybe we should have kept those F 16s we sent to the Egyptian muslim brotherhood to bomb Israel with???

 

[IanCG]

Really?

Maybe we should have kept those F 16s we sent to the Egyptian muslim brotherhood to bomb Israel with???

...What.

 

[hopeful321]

The F-35 like all new aircraft has some glitches to work out. They will find the problem and work it out. As for the F-16, I would check , but I don't think we sold Egypt our latest and greatest. However, this does change the balance of power in the region. Keep watching and praying for peace.

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Just remember that not too long ago problems that were discovered on new airplanes were often found in wreckage. Having to ground a fleet of planes occasionally is nothing.

 

[hopeful321]

I have seen the FA-18 Super hornet, F-35B Lightning, H-60R, H-53E, E-2C and P-3C flying and it is awesome. Grounding occasionally is good because I don't want to see parachutes and lawn darts especially with single engine aircraft like F-35A/B/C.

 

[I love Justice]

The USA has grounded its entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets after a crack in the engine was found.

Really ?

 

[dakine]

The USA has grounded its entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets after a crack in the engine was found.

It would be even better news if they were grounded permanently, ripped apart, and the parts sold as scrap.

 

[Autumnleaf]

It would be even better news if they were grounded permanently, ripped apart, and the parts sold as scrap.

You'll be glad we have them when the comuniss attack us.

 

[Yoseft]

Just a hello from a newbie, and sharing.

I live 10 miles from Langley Air Base.

I am retired US Army and go there once a week.

Point, I love to watch the Raptors train when I am there.

What an incredible aircraft / jet that is, seeing them live taking off, landing, and training.

Hope this is not a derail.

I have lots of, "I am a newbie excuses." Left I hope.

 

[hopeful321]

I prefer freedom and freedom is not free!!! We need to balance social programs and defense programs I am praying for leaders who can do both!!! Pray for our leaders and peace of Jerusalem.

 

[Dusky Mouse]

Watchdog report deals another blow to F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (23 hours ago)


Pentagon cites progress in fixing Lockheed F-35 business system September 16, 2013

 

[RDKirk]

This isn't even the first time the F-35 has been grounded for problems. It's a horrendously problematic aircraft, hugely over budget.

Interestingly to me, an old friend of mine in 1996--who was then the last commander of the Air Intelligence Agency (which was being disbanded at that time during an Air Force restructure), voiced the opinion that the F-22 would be the last manned Air Force general purpose fighter. He predicted drones would take over most manned fighter roles and that the F-15 and F-22 would extend as long as it took for drones to develop.

He might still be right.

 

[RDKirk]

Really?

Maybe we should have kept those F 16s we sent to the Egyptian muslim brotherhood to bomb Israel with???

The US has been giving Egypt 5 billion dollars per year in cash and military aid (mostly military equipment) since 1979. This was just another of those annual payments.

 

[Cooch]

Grounding an entire model of aircraft is not unusual. It often happens when a fault is detected in one aircraft or component. Usually only lasts as long as it takes to determine what caused the failure and remedial action has been taken as required.

Better than killing pilots or busting aircraft until you work out what the problem is....

 

[eclipsenow]

Australia’s 4 Corners absolutely condemned the whole F35 program. (45 minutes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DNyZckMqbU

They documented how Lockheed Martin hooked various Departments of Defence into acting as their marketing spokespeople and sales advocates *before* the plane had left the paper.

* Cannot fly within 25 miles of a lightning storm because lightning might ignite the oxygen in the fuel tanks. They say they already have ‘fixes’ for it.

* Riddled with ‘single points of failure’ that each have the potential to destroy the aircraft.

* Vital computer systems fundamentally flawed right from the start with 10,000 lines of software code to sort through on the plane, and 10 million outside the plane in servicing systems.

* Chris Mills air warfare strategist with Australian Defence modelled how the F35 goes DOWN against Russian Sukhoi’s!

* It’s simply too confused. What is it? A bomber, stealth advance attack, air to air, air to surface, air-force, navy, missile carrier, what? It doesn’t know what it is and so is over-priced, over-large, and over-budget. I’m worried that if it came up against a fleet of dedicated air-to-air fighters that they’d ALL be blown out of the sky!

Basically, it’s a dud and I’m wondering if America (and my home of Australia) would be safer if we specialised in building SPECIFIC PURPOSE planes. What happened to the days of fighters escorting bombers? Why not build double or triple single purpose planes, like heaps of fast FIGHTERS bursting with ammo and missiles, and also have a bunch of simple fat BOMBERS that do their job very well? My hunch is that if we did that, we wouldn’t see the disastrous modelling of the likes of Christ Mills (Australia) showing only 10% of the F35’s make it home.

I’ll let wikipedia have the last word:

“Furthermore, Maj. Richard Koch, chief of USAF Air Combat Command’s advanced air dominance branch is reported to have said that “I wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of the F-35 going in with only two air-dominance weapons” with an 'Aviation Week' article casting an extremely skeptical eye over the (USAF) source of claims that the F-35 would be '400% more effective' than projected opponents.[26]”
Joint Strike Fighter program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

F35
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russian Sukhoi fighters “Flanker E”
Sukhoi Su-35 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[singerc]

Keep heart, Austriali and US still have FA-18F, EA-18G and B-52 bombers all which are made of metal and has been struke by lightning and safely landed repaired and returned to service. Also, the earth is the Lords and all that is in it. Clean energy will be the future in time because thier is limited oil. Keep telling your leaders.

Our hope is the Lord and in his timing.

 

[eclipsenow]

Keep heart, Austriali and US still have FA-18F, EA-18G and B-52 bombers all which are made of metal and has been struke by lightning and safely landed repaired and returned to service. Also, the earth is the Lords and all that is in it. Clean energy will be the future in time because thier is limited oil. Keep telling your leaders.

Our hope is the Lord and in his timing.

Sure, but God's sovereignty is not an excuse for poor government decisions. Our government was conned into acting as the salesman for Lockheed Martin, and signed up to spend around $25 billion on these duds! That's a lot of money for Australia: something like half our annual health budget. For a plane that doesn't work.

 

[High Fidelity]

Sure, but God's sovereignty is not an excuse for poor government decisions. Our government was conned into acting as the salesman for Lockheed Martin, and signed up to spend around $25 billion on these duds! That's a lot of money for Australia: something like half our annual health budget. For a plane that doesn't work.

Yeah we wasted a bunch on them as well.

Brilliant. Nothing like unnecessary military spending.

 

[Biblicist]

It would be even better news if they were grounded permanently, ripped apart, and the parts sold as scrap.

Even though I just posted the following material in another thread under "military" I think that it also has a lot of relevance here. Sadly, Australia was one of those gullible countries who was hoodwinked into buying this piece of scrapmetal.

A few months back I attended the International Avalon Air Show in Melbourne Australia where I had a rather interesting discussion with the Lockheed Martin representative (with photos) regarding the F-35 that Australia has unwisely decided to buy.

I raised the point that from what I am reading that all these sources are saying that the Russian Sukhoi T-50 will outclass the F-35 in virtually every category. Now I have no qualms with Russia having these aircraft but I am certainly concerned that Russia will be supplying Indonesia with about 50 T-50's.

As hard as I tried, I could not get the Lockheed Martin rep to say that the F-35 would outclass the Sukhoi T-50. I said that my understanding is that if Australia were to send our 50 F-35's against 50 Indonesian Sukhoi T-50's that it would be unlikely that any of our planes would make it back home where he had no answer.

His final remark was "Well, we've got Australia's back with our F-22's so if you get in trouble we'll be there". My reply was, that's great, so when we need you in a hurry you will somehow send over your F-22's to help us and don't forget it's a long way from the US to Australia.

Essentially, once the US replaces their current stock of fighters with the already out of date F-35 that the US will not have an effective air cover against those countries that will be equipped with the Russian T-50.