Senior U.S. officials liken their F-35 fighters to "rat holes"

The chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee recently questioned the expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, calling for "no more throwing money into that rat hole."

According to the US "military" website reported on March 5, Adam Smith, chairman of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, recently questioned the degree of conformity of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program with the future strategy of the US Department of Defense, and compared the Pentagon's most expensive project to date to "throwing money into a rat hole" .

The total cost of the 50-year F-35 fighter program is expected to exceed $1 trillion, but the fighter has been malfunctioning, including engine fires, structural cracks, and cooling line insulation falling off. Due to mismanagement and cost overruns, lawmakers also reviewed the fighter's maintenance, repairs and supply chain management.

F-35 fighter infographic. Source: Xinhua News Agency

According to the US "Forbes" magazine website reported on February 23, "the US Air Force admitted that the F-35 fighter jet failed." Senior Air Force officials say the Air Force wants to develop an affordable light fighter to replace hundreds of older F-16 fighters built during the Cold War and complement the fleet of costly and unreliable stealth fighters.

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown Jr. explained that the result of this plan will be a high-profile combination of the expensive F-22 and F-35 5th generation fighters and the 5th generation reduction fighter.

Each F-35 fighter, including the engine, is priced at about $100 million, which is expensive. Despite its stealth capabilities and high-tech sensors, the F-35 also requires extensive maintenance, is buggy and unreliable.

In a final interview before leaving office in January, Air Force Chief Acquisition Officer Will Roper offered the idea of buying a new F-16 fighter jet, but Air Force Chief of Staff Brown vetoed the proposal, saying he didn't want more older fighters. Brown explained that the 17-ton and non-stealthY F-16 fighter jet is difficult to upgrade with the latest software. He said the Air Force should not order the new F-16 fighter, but rather a "completely new design" for the new low-end fighter.

Brown's comments were a tacit acquiescence to the failure of the F-35 fighter program. Conceived in the 1990s, the F-35 was planned to produce thousands of fighter jets to replace nearly all tactical aircraft in the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps arsenals.

Fifteen years after the F-35 first flew, the U.S. Air Force was equipped with only 250 of the type.

It is worth mentioning that the news of accidents of F-35 fighter jets has been common.

On May 20, 2020, the U.S. website "The Drive" reported that an F-35A fighter aircraft deployed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida had crashed the night before, which was also the first time that an F-35A fighter jet of the U.S. Air Force had crashed.

In addition, on September 28, 2018, a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B fighter jet crashed near the Marine Corps air station in Beaufort, South Carolina, and the pilot escaped safely; on April 1, 2019, an F-35A fighter belonging to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force lost contact and crashed into the sea, and the remains of the fuselage have not been found.

Source: Global Network, Central Broadcasting Network, etc