Pentagon chief fires head of F-35 aircraft programme

Pentagon chief fires head of F-35 aircraft programme

news.bbc.co.uk

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has sacked the marine general overseeing a $40bn (£25bn) project to build the next generation strike fighter jet.

Mr Gates said the F-35 programme had been plagued by problems and failed to hit performance targets

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Why has this chief been fired? Are the planes not good enough?

Is this saying that planes the the US has are not at the quality desired by the US? I dont know why it took Gates so long to realize that these planes that are to be developed are not as per the performance targets.

US has to keep it's dominance in the defence world, and a good next generation fighter is one step towards it.



news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm pretty sure the F22 owned the skies.

So did the F-18

and the F-16

and the F-14...

I'm pretty sure that the F-18 is still a world class fighter.

The F22 is beyond that...

Why discontinue when our old stuff is still the best of the best?

reply to post by DaMod


I have to agree as well. Our current fleet of aircraft is more then sufficient to fight any fight for a while. The only reason we'd need a jet like the F-22 or F-35 is if we get in a conflict with another super-power.

Perhaps it has something to do with Russia's newly unveiled aircraft which may or may not have been modeled on the F-35... which they shouldn't have been able to do, no?

Just speculating folks... no answers here....

reply to post by Maxmars


They (Russia) had their maiden test flight a few days ago:

intellibriefs.blogspot.com...

Who knows how effective a bird she will be in the future

reply to post by Maxmars


I understand that the USA has rejected supplying the F-22 to both the UK and Australia.

Can somebody confirm or deny this ???

If true, what does the F-22 have that they don't want anybody to see ??

Yes it's true.

There is an export ban on the F22.

Australia officially didn't request it or something like that.
The previous Howard government went ahead and decided on the F35 without a competition for other aircraft.
I'm not sure if the new Rudd government had inquired about the F22's availability. But apparently Gates was in favor of exporting it to Australia, but Congress maintained the ban.

Japan wanted it, but was told no as well. They then announced they will develop their own. Who knows.

Israel was said to be interested too, but it looks like they will be getting the F35.
So as soon as they get the F35, expect China to get a good look at it like they have with a lot of other top of the line US tech sold to Israel.