[Infowarrior] - Premier U.S. Fighter Jet Has Major Shortcomings

[Richard Forno]

Premier U.S. Fighter Jet Has Major Shortcomings
F-22's Maintenance Demands Growing
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 10, 2009

The United States' top fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-22, has  
recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in  
the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, a  
far higher figure than for the warplane it replaces, confidential  
Pentagon test results show.

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"It is a disgrace that you can fly a plane [an average of] only 1.7  
hours before it gets a critical failure" that jeopardizes success of  
the aircraft's mission, said a Defense Department critic of the plane  
who is not authorized to speak on the record. Other skeptics inside  
the Pentagon note that the planes, designed 30 years ago to combat a  
Cold War adversary, have cost an average of $350 million apiece and  
say they are not a priority in the age of small wars and terrorist  
threats.

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  Lockheed farmed out more than 1,000 subcontracts to vendors in more  
than 40 states, and Sprey -- now a prominent critic of the plane --  
said that by the time skeptics "could point out the failed tests, the  
combat flaws, and the exploding costs, most congressmen were already  
defending their subcontractors' " revenues.

John Hamre, the Pentagon's comptroller from 1993 to 1997, says the  
department approved the plane with a budget it knew was too low  
because projecting the real costs would have been politically  
unpalatable on Capitol Hill.


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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020_pf.html