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This was supposed to the be the F-35's big month.
The troubled next-generation fighter jet was going to make its international debut at the Farnborough Air Show in England. The U.S. and its partners would have something to show for their years of delays, setbacks, and cost overruns.
They would have nothing less than a functioning version of the most advanced warplane in history.
This potential breakthrough has hit an all-too-typical stumbling block.
The Air Force temporarily suspended all F-35 flights after one of the planes caught on fire before takeoff at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Even if the plane does debut later this month, it still has some serious issues, and a long way to go before it can be rolled out for combat missions. Already, the plane is expected to be delayed for over a year beyond its projected mid-2015 delivery date.
Despite this, it's not likely that the F-35 will ever be scrapped. As we reported back in November of 2012, there are simply too many countries that have invested time and money into the program.
It is, quite literally, an aircraft that is "too big to fail" despite facing lifetime operating costs for the U.S. Fleet of $1 trillion, and cost overruns of $167 billion before a single plane has flown a single mission.
We've gone back and looked at the biggest problems with the F-35 program, according to an official Pentagon report.
Developed by Lockheed, the fighter has three variants: the conventional F-35A for the Air Force; the F-35B for the Marine Corps, which can take off and land vertically; and the F-35C for the Navy, a carrier version.
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If all goes to plan, the Pentagon is on track to spend a huge figure of $396 billion on the jets, including R&D. It doesn't help that the cost to build each F-35 has risen to an average of $160 million from $69 million in 2001. The project is an astounding $167 billion over-budget.
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More amazing than the cost of fabricating the F-35s is the expense of operating and supporting them: $1 trillion over the planes' lifetime. Ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain, described that estimate as “jaw-dropping."
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See the rest of the story at Business Insider