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In this image released by the U.S. Navy, the Navy variant of the F-35 conducts a test flight on February 11, 2011.
February 22nd, 2013
03:04 PM ET
U.S. military grounds F-35 fighter jets
The Pentagon's most expensive weapons system is going to spend some time on the bench.
The U.S. military on Friday grounded the F-35 fighter jet due to a crack in an engine component that was discovered during a routine inspection in California. The fighter is currently being tested.
The Pentagon said in a statement that it was too early to assess the impact on the nearly $400 billion fleet of jets designed for use by the Navy, Air Force and Marines.
The program has been beset by cost overruns and various technical problems during development.
Currently, there are 51 planes in the F-35 fleet.
.......Darn....THIS jet is NOT the one Boehnor REQUIRED the AF to buy..........HIS .....UNNEEDED................UNNECESSARY.....................UNWANTED..........DUPLICATE..............ALTERNATE JET ENGINE..........................
Zzzzz....
Our tax dollars at work.
Pass the pork please!!
Great piece of journalism here, you guys. Wow so much detail this would be great dinner conversation. I think you need to learn the line between at "tweet" and and actually "story".
Agreed. You'd think they could do a LOT better.
"This story is developing. We'll have more shortly." Learn to read and write before you post nonsense comments.
Go look up the history of the project for yourself. There is nothing of importance to detail here that isn't already stated. The only reason it is making the news is because of it being a too big to fail lemon.
We were going to buy these Jets. and then the price got higher... and higher.... and higher...
And the red tape too, oh my gosh!
Just write F-35 or F-35 fighter – readers know it's a jet. And, the reporter and editor won't sound like such amateurs.
Sound like good national security to publicly announce all of our major fighter jets are out of service.
They are not yet a major portion of our defense. Besides grounding of an entire type of aircraft is rather hard to keep concealed.
Scott
Those jets were never in service. This is the new fleet that's going to be phased in over the next decade. Our current fleet of light fighters (F-16s for air force and F/A-18 for navy) are all still flying. The only thing this may change is how soon those will get replaced.
Notice that the F16 was from the 70's as was the A10. The A10 was one of the most useful aircraft, along with the 1950's vintage B52, In Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yes, both of those airframes are timeless but you also have to realize they have different requirements. An A-10 is a ground attack platform and cannot perform its duties without air superiority. The same goes for the B-52. I love both of these aircraft but fighters and F/A aircrafts will always have to continue to be upgraded. Fly by wire won't work against a J-20.
Majority of our air superiority fleet is the F-15 and other legacy aircraft. Article says 51 F-35s, if a majority of the US air fleet is 51 fighters I'm concerned. As it stands not really a big deal or particularly surprising. I wouldn't put a whole lot of weight on foreign designs until something concrete can really be established, the J-20 is not a production aircraft for China nor does any other country have numbers of an advanced fighter, much less reason, to make this a real issue
Not unusual for new technology. Given the complexity of this aircraft it has had very few design issues.
Scott
and higher..... and higher....
See: Boeing, 787.
agreed. it's still working out a couple kinks which is to be expected on a jet fighter
Why not cancel $85 billion worth of these (~20%) and avert the March 1st automatic funding cuts?
Because military spending has basically morphed into a giant corporate welfare / jobs program.
hello... and what? Write that money off? Start again at zero? And use what to replace the aging F-16/F15 fleet? Those birds are rapidly reaching their service life, and something new is needed to replace them (option is to but more 4th generation craft new, but they don't have a great combat life against existing technology. Keep in mind the F15/16 is 30+ yrs old technology wise). It takes over a decade to design, build, test and get to IOC in-use at bases. Do we have that luxury?
One crack can be just that, or it could be a design issue. Time will tell.
The cost of these fighters is high(er) due to congress axing the original number, which drives up the cost per aircraft.
I served 27 yrs active duty in the USAF and have a bit of knowledge about our birds, let alone the acquisition headaches (both AF caused and congressionally hosed).
Glad I waited for the 2014 model. 🙂
The F-35 is the worst aircraft that any western nation can get. It has not lived up to promises and even if it did, it would be too expensive for its home nation to put on the front line. FA-18 Super Hornet is older but can perform the duties required effectively and much cheaper than the F-35 Flying Lemon
The F18 is no match for an F35 – the F18 has 30 year old technology.
A plane that is grounded is no match for a plane that actually flys.
All the F-35 can do is be a flying target. The Super Hornet is old but can take down the F-35 with ease, if the F-35 can fly
So I do understand why CNN or any other News org would publish the story. It's news! What I don't understand is why the US Military feels it needed to tell us. Telling us (the USA citizens) also tells THEM – Them that hate us, would hurt us etc. Them that need not know this is China, Iran, N. Korea and others. A secret is only a secret if no one knows. If I don't need to know why do we need to tell THEM? If any of these country's mentioned had or have a similar situation, trust me we would not know! Loose lips sink ships and much more!
Its western ideology, everyone knows everything and secrets are apparently bad
The cuts are not all going to happen this year. It's over a 10 year period. It nort as bad as the media is making it sound. The military will still increase there spending by 100billion each year.
Respectfully, this is a great example of wasteful, inefficient spending. We need strategic cuts across the government and someone to enforce reasonable efficiency, which is lacking...one clear example the massive wasteful spending spree at the end of each federal budget year by almost all agencies.