Ruth: Botching F-35 dwarfs ACA website

[unhappycamper]

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/ruth-botching-f-35-dwarfs-aca-website/2148965



Ruth: Botching F-35 dwarfs ACA website
Daniel Ruth, Times Columnist
Thursday, October 24, 2013 4:52pm

There isn't enough lipstick in the world to make the Affordable Care Act's website pig look like a Vogue model. Little wonder then Roget's Thesaurus is groaning under the weight of Washington's ire to describe perhaps the worst inept debut since The Lone Ranger.

~snip~

But the congressional crusade for fiscal accountability would seem to be somewhat selective. If the Beltway is going to fulminate over $300 million wasted to create a website, surely there must be some froth to spare for the $400 billion already flushed away to develop the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which after years of delays and cost overruns has yet to shoot so much as a pea against an adversary in combat.

The F-35, which was touted to become the most sophisticated combat aircraft in history, went into development in 2001. Fast forward 12 years to January, when J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, appeared before the U.S. Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. It wasn't pretty.

Gilmore told the committee that after 12 years and $400 billion, the F-35 can't fly at night. It can't fly in bad weather. It can't fly if there is lightning in the area. It can't fly in close formation. It can't be allowed to stall in training, which is an essential protocol for any aviator, even student pilots at the controls of a single-engine Cessna.

[Scuba]

1. I'd feel safer with healthcare than with another military jet.

[Berlum]

2. Republicon BOONDOGLES are special

Republicon boondoggles are occult.

As usual.

[madrchsod]

3. it has no mission....

it does`t have an enemy. the days of the fighter plane are numbered. even if there is a conventional war in the future this plane will be obsolete.

hell even the commercial airline pilots are having a difficult time flying the new generation of passenger jets.