fcooke
Posts: 1156
Joined: 6/18/2002 From: Boston, London, Hoboken, now Warwick, NY Status: offline
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The F-35 program I think we would all agree has been badly managed but that does not the F-35 is meat on the table. It does mean as mentioned in an earlier post that it was to do too many things. Sometimes it is cheaper to to have multiple specialized platforms than 1 trying to do everything. Procurement and program management in the military has been crud for decades, with huge cost over-runs and huge scope creep. And crazy long development cycles. As a result ambitious programs like the B-1, B-2, F-22 all got cut way back, and we will see that with the F-35 as well. I have always thought trying to replace the A-10 with the F-35 was a fools errand. But the generals like their shiny new toys, not the 'old' ones. When I was working I saw the same thing with some of our tech guys - they lost sight of the business requirement because they wanted to play with the coolest new software, hardware, and platforms (don't get me started on 'cloud computing'). Define a spec and stick to it. And then get it done in less than 15 years.
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