June 15, 2019
Report: Navy and Marine F-35 Fighters Become ‘Erratic’ While Performing Air Combat Maneuvers
What happens now?
by Sebastien Roblin
Early in June 2019, the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin struck a deal in which the former agreed to purchase 478 F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters for $34 billion. This could open the door for the sophisticated but controversial new stealth fighter to begin a 76 percent faster “full-rate†production status after eighteen years of troubled development and cost overruns.
Lockheed eventually hopes to sell over 2,400 F-35s to the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and over a thousand more to foreign operators. Already, over four hundred F-35s have been delivered under so-called “Low Rate of Initial Production,†many lacking the fixes and improvements implemented in later models. Theoretically, full-rate production should only be authorized once all major deficiencies being resolved.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/report-navy-and-marine-f-35-fighters-become-%E2%80%98erratic%E2%80%99-while-performing-air-combat
