admiral david venlet, in charge of the f-35 project at the u.s. department of defense, told a military magazine that many cracks and other defects have been found in the fuselage of an f-35 in metal fatigue tests over the past year. he said most of the problems are small, but the cost burden of fixing them all will be very large. he has suggested slowing down production of the jet for the next several years. already there are doubts whether the plane will be ready by 2016, when the defense ministry plans to introduce it. there are also fears that history may be repeating. past delays and other procurements have led to much higher price tags or a forced reduction in quantity. when the defense ministry first set about buying the f-2 fighter in fiscal 1996, for example, the price was 8 billion yen per plane, but hold-ups in development led to costs to balloon to 13 million yen per plane and as a result, japan could buy only 94 planes instead of 130, as originally planned. the defense ministry hopes to purchase 40 to 50 f-35 planes and has earmarked 5

admiral david venlet, in charge of the f-35 project at the u.s. department of defense told a military magazine that many cracks and other defects have been found in the fuselage of an f-35 and metal fatigue tests over the past year. he said most of the problems are small but the cost burden of fixing them all will being very large. he has suggested slowing down production of the jet for the next several years. already there are doubts whether the plane will be ready by 2016 when the defense ministry plans to introduce it. there are also fears that history may be repeating. past delays and other procurements have led to higher price tags or a forced reduction in community. when the defense ministry talked about buying the f-2 fighter for example, the price was 8 billion yen per plane but holdups in development led costs to balloon to 13 billion yen per plane. as a result, japan could buy only 94 planes instead of 130 as originally planned. the defense ministry, 50 f-35 planes and earmarked for the 2012 budget for the initial purchase of four aircra

admiral david venlet, in charge of the f-35 project at the u.s. department of defense, told a military magazine that many cracks and other defects have been found in the fuselage of an f-35 in metal fatigue tests over the past year. he said most of the problems are small, but the cost burden of fixing them all will be very large. he has suggested slowing down production of the jet for the next several years. already there are doubts whether the plane will be ready by 2016, when the defense ministry plans to introduce it. there are also fears that history may be repeating. past delays and other procurements have led to much higher price tags or a forced reduction in quantity. when the defense ministry first set about buying the f-2 fighter in fiscal 1996, for example, the price was 8 billion yen per plane, but hold-ups in development led to costs to balloon to 13 million yen per plane and as a result, japan could buy only 94 planes instead of 130, as originally planned. the defense ministry hopes to purchase 40 to 50 f-35 planes and has earmarked 5

so admiral venlet, who oversees the program for the pentagon is basically saying that even after the program was restructured two years ago by secretary gates, to add $7.3 billion and 33 more months to development, there's still too much concurrency baked into this program. in other words, the overlap between development and production is still too great to assure taxpayers that they will not have to continue paying for costly redesigns or retro fits due to discoveries made late in production. in that context, ramping up production, even under the program's revised schedule, would be -- would not be a move in the right direction, and i absolutely agree. when the head of the most expensive, highest-profile weapon system program in u.s. history effectively says hold it, we need to slow down how much we are buying, we should all pay close attention. so what does this mean in terms of the pending negotiations for the next production lot? as i said a few days ago during my opening remarks on the senate consideration of the fiscal year 2012 national defense authorization act, i strongly su