An F/A-18E Super Hornet Source: LT Colin Crawford/U.S. Navy
Bloomberg: Lockheed’s F-35 Stealth Fighter Is Here to Stay
Trump has assailed the jet’s cost, but only a modest order by the U.S. Navy is really in question.
As president-elect, Donald Trump wasted little time publicly questioning the Pentagon’s most expensive combat platform, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter from Lockheed Martin Corp.
“Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!” Trump wrote on Twitter in December. Days after Trump took office, the Defense Department began a formal assessment to determine the costs and capabilities of a modernized F/A-18 Super Hornet, a fighter that has figured famously on television and film whenever a carrier battle group steamed by.
The proposed upgrade, a suite of modifications Boeing Co. has been pushing as orders for new F/A-18s slow, is now suddenly in play.
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WNU editor: Even though President Trump's talk on buying some Super Hornets instead of the F-35 will not impact the Air Force buy .... Trump’s call to compete F-35 vs. F-18 won’t involve Air Force (Dayton Daily News) .... even hinting his preference for having some competition in the process is making Lockheed Martin executives and their political backers worried .... Granger says Trump’s plan to pit F-18 vs. F-35 ‘doesn’t make sense’ (Star-Telegram).
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