Birds of a slightly different kind

The U.S. Navy has announced that he U.S. Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 101 received the Navy's first F-35C Lightning II carrier variant aircraft from Lockheed Martin today at the squadron's home at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

The Navy says the F-35C is a fifth generation fighter, combining advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility, fully fused sensor information, network-enabled operations and advanced sustainment.

The F-35C will enhance the flexibility, power projection, and strike capabilities of carrier air wings and joint task forces and will complement the capabilities of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which currently serves as the Navy's premier strike fighter.

By 2025, the Navy's aircraft carrier-based air wings will consist of a mix of F-35C, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers electronic attack aircraft, E-2D Hawkeye battle management and control aircraft, Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) air vehicles, MH-60R/S helicopters and Carrier Onboard Delivery logistics aircraft.

Meanwhile according to those keeping track, empirical data from the Defense Department's CFO shows that F-35 unit costs are going up, not coming down. This is contrary to what Secretary Hagel and his F-35 program manager, Lt. Gen. Bogdan, are saying. Moreover, the current unit cost is immense at $219 million for each generic F-35. And, those costs are most likely to go up, not down, as the USMC Short Take Off/Vertical Landing (STOVL) and Navy carrier-capable variants come on line. 

Extended out to 2037, current F-35 program costs work out to a staggering $1.4 million dollars per hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  That's not flight hours, mind you -- that's clock hours.

To suggest that the F-35 is controversial would be a breathtaking understatement.  No less an authority than Frank Kendall, DoD's own Undersecretary for Acquisition, has called DoD's approach "acquisition malpractice."

For perspective, the cost to buy one F-35 -- that's buy, not fly -- will cost as much as the annual salary of 2,800 elementary school teachers.  Or 39,800 college Pell Grants.  Or a year of VA medical healthcare for 23,000 military veterans.  Or the purchase and protection of 48,600 acres (which equals about 76 square miles) of bird and wildlife habitat if that's what floats your boat.  (For purposes of comparison, the entire City of San Diego -- from San Ysidro in the south, to Rancho Bernardo in the north -- occupies about 325 square miles of land.)

Of course, that $219 million estimated unit cost doesn't include associated costs to modify aircraft carriers, enlarge and air condition hangars, beef up runways, specially outfit flight crews -- the price list goes on and on and on.  And on.

Nor has the DoD identified any adversary worthy of taking on the F-35 fighter.  But hey, this is what our "austerity" Congress has chosen to spend our collective weal on.  And who are we to question the powers that be?