An F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter takes off on a training sortie at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., on March 6, 2012.US AIR FORCE/Reuters
Turns out it's too risky to fly the world's most expensive warplane, the stealthy, deep-strike F-35 – much-coveted by Canada's fighter jocks – across the Atlantic.
So the much-ballyhooed debut of Britain's first F-35 at a major air show this weekend has been scrapped. In fact, all 104 F-35s built so far remain grounded – including Britain's first F-35B, the model capable of vertical landing of hovering and then landing vertically on naval ships.
It's just the latest snafu in the sorry, long-running, saga of the Joint Strike Fighter.
The Pentagon grounded all F-35s after a June 23 engine fire, which fortunately occurred while the aircraft was still on a runway. Engine failures are especially critical in single-engined aircraft.
The still-unexplained but major engine fire likely dooms plans to show off long-delayed, vastly-over-budget, next-generation warplane at Farnborough, the world's biggest air show later this month. The Pentagon had intended to send three U.S. aircraft and Britain's first F-35 to Farnborough but until the cause of the engine fire is sorted out – and whether it was a unique glitch or a fleet-wide defect – the F-35s aren't going anywhere.
The latest woes haven't dented the Obama administration's unswerving support of the world's most costly weapons program. But foreign buyers – including Canada – have balked at the delays and soaring costs. Ottawa has deferred deciding even as it remains unclear what role a stealthy, deep-strike warplane would play in Canadian defence policy.
Earlier this week, U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said "we not going to put the F-35s in the air and send them anywhere until we are absolutely convinced that it is safe to fly," but added the F-35 "is the future for our fighter aircraft for our services."
It's the one-size-fits-all warplane program that may be a too big to fail.
The Pentagon wants 2,440 Joint Strike Fighters that will fly for half a century. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office; the total program cost will reach more $1.5-trillion before the last one leaves service.
But eight years after it first flew, the F-35 still isn't operational. Costs for what was once sold as a cost-effective all-purpose warplane have ballooned more than 70 per cent to roughly $400-billion. Lockheed Martin's initial price for 2,872 of the various versions of Joint Strike Fighter was $233-billion. That's now zoomed to $397-billion for 409 fewer aircraft. Meanwhile, myriad software problems, a helmet that delivers reams of data but leaves some pilots disoriented, and now a crippling engine fire, have dogged the F-35.
The original promise of an economic, multi-role warplane with 70-per-cent commonality across the three variants has vanished and they are now so different that a Rand study suggested it would be cheaper to have developed completely different aircraft.
But the F-35s have managed to avoid any hits from massive defence spending.
Lockheed Martin has farmed out work to more than 1,200 companies employing more than 133,000 people scattered across 45 states. The F-35 biggest protection's isn't stealth, it is that it politically invincible.
Senator John McCain, a Republican hawk, and a former naval aviator – the only member of the Senate to have flown combat missions over Vietnam, where he was shot down in a A-4 Skyhawk – calls the F-35 a "classic example of the military-industrial-congressional complex."
"It's too big to fail, … it's a debacle," says Sen. McCain.
So far the F-35 is safe on Capitol Hill, even if it's too risky to fly, at least this week.
The biggest threat may come from the U.S. Navy, which slashed its five-year purchase plan from 69 to 36. The navy is already testing unmanned stealthy warplanes; both launching them from and landing them on board aircraft carriers. With relatively modern fleets of advanced F-18s strike aircraft and a preference for the extra safety twin-engined aircraft provide, any significant scale back of the navy's planned order of 480 F-35s could upset the entire program.
Officially the U.S. Navy remains committed to the F-35. But it faces tough choices in maintaining the size of its carrier fleet, renewing its nuclear submarine fleet.
With foreign orders also lagging the F-35 may yet follow the F-22, the hugely expensive air superiority fighter that was the Pentagon's last major warplane program.
Originally 750 of the all-weather, twin-engined, F-22s were planned. Costs more than doubled to more than $400-million each. The program was slashed to 187 aircraft. Production ended two years ago.