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| Pentagon May "Rethink" the F-35 Stealth Fighter. Doomsday for Lockheed Martin? |
| 2015-08-02 |
| [Motley Fool] In 2001, Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) won a stunning victory over its archrival in fighter jets, The Boeing Company. The Pentagon would award Lockheed Martin the right to build F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marines (and for our allies) for the next 60 years. Pundits predicted that Lockheed would reap immense rewards from these contracts: $1 trillion, $1.3 trillion, $1.5 trillion, or even more! Or less. Earlier this month, the same Pentagon that bestowed upon Lockheed a trillion-dollar franchise to build America's "last manned fighter" plane suggested it now may cut this franchise short, putting potentially trillions of revenue dollars at risk. Interesting problem, ain't it? After years of competition, buyouts, mergers, and what have you Lockheed and Boeing are just about all that's left of the aerospace industry. I guess Northrup's still around, but nobody else comes immediately to mind. Given another flub or two, our engineering sector is left with a single point of failure, which violates one of the basic principles of engineering. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #3 Next 60 years + Trilyuhns-n-Tilyuhns of Dollars, but the USMSC says its certified for only "limited" combat ops. The F-35 is supposed to be Light Fighter/Aircraft end of our mighty OWG PRE-SPACE, PROTO-UNITARIAN, HI-LO, HEAVY-LIGHT STEALTH MIX. For that price + timeline, etc. it had better be able to cook eggs + slumgullion inside the cockpit, + transform into OPTIMUS PRIME = ARMED MINI-SPACE SHUTTLE??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2015-08-02 22:58 |
| #2 Still relying upon the old M2 Ma Deuce. Sometimes somethings are good enough to last a long time. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2015-08-02 17:56 |
| #1 It's the Goldbricking method of disarmament: they've dragged out the development as much as they possibly can, time to make it dogfight with the engine throtle-limited in software along with the AoA, make it look worse than it is, and have an excuse to stop production, go on to another twenty years of R&D, while we rely on 30 year old F-15's. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2015-08-02 14:13 |