Poor Peter MacKay (note the US GAO report near end at link) might do well to read this post by CDN Aviator at Milnet.ca:

…
The December issue of “Air Forces Monthly” summed up the issues with the F-35 program pretty well i think. In summary ( i dont have a digital copy, sorry) :

- A rapid and major redisign to save weight occured in 2004-2005 led to an 18-month delay and follow-on issues;

- Prototype AA-1 is now unrepresentative of the planned production model

- AA-1 suffered a critical electrical failiure on may 3rd, 2007 and has remained dogged with problems inducing further delays in the tet program;

- All versions of the F-35 are suffering from cooling nd thermal management issues. This resulted in the F-35B requiring a major re-design of the lift-fan doors;

- The F-35C was designed with a hamilton Sundstrand power generator that, reportedly, supplies only 65% of the required electrical output;

- The F-35 is now at tyre-limiting speeds due to an increase in T/O speed;

- The US defence Contract management Agency has found that the project is in serious disaray with design changes and on-time delivery by 3rd party suppliers;

- In August 2010, LM admited to production problems where key parts of the wing were delivered well after the wing had already been installed. This required the wing to be partially disassembeld and forced LM to slow production;

- F-35 flight testing has acheived less in 4 years, with more aircraft, than F-22 testing accomplished in 3 years;

- F-35 OT&E is 13 months behing schedule. This is 13 months behind the schedule established in May 2008, a schedule that was already 18 months behing what was established in 2001. this means a 4 year program delay;

- Flight testing has failed to hit its objectives in 2008 and 2009;

- Most of the SDD aircraft are at least 6 months late flying;

- Mission system test aircraft delays have been more serious despite the use of the B737 CATB;

- There are growing concerns that the F-35 will enter service well before OT&E is completed. This has obvious follow-on effects and will likely result in lenghty modifications programs;

- The US Congressional research Service identified a cost growth of 38% for the F-35 between 2001 and 2007. This put the cost of an F-35 ( minus R&D) at 81.2 million dollars 9 original LM estimates were a $50M flyaway cost). Further GAO evaluation put the F-35 cost ( without R&D) at $112M;

- Only certification by the Sec. Def. that the F-35 was essential to national security (and that no other alternatives exist) has allowed the program to survive N-M cancellation;

- RAND corporation estimates cost of an F-35A at $108.7M, the F-35B/C at $127M. This is very close to the $138M production cost for an F-22;

- F-35 operating and support costs will be significantly higher that the fighters it replaces ( in stark contrast to what L-M was promising). The USN now estimates that the costs of F-35 ownership will be 40% higher than that of the “legacy” Hornets and harriers;

- There are still serious concerns WRT to exactly what will be delivered to international JSF partners;

- The F-35′s small weapons load is of growing concern to USAF officials;

- The F-35B will not be able to operate in the same conditions that the AV-8 could.

Anyways, not advocating anything here, just posting a bit of a summary of issues.

Mark
Ottawa