Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Senate Stops Production of F-22!

Wow.

I'm inclined to agree with this decision, but I'm far from certain about it. What's really positive here--even if it's the wrong decision about the Raptor in particular--is that Congress was stopped from forcing the production of a weapons system that pretty much everyone else has concluded is not cost-effective. Lockheed intentionally farmed the production out to 44 different states in order to insure that it would stay in production even if it didn't deserve to. Apparently this made quality control virtually impossible, and forced Lockheed to employ a massive shim line to rectify problems with parts.

I'm hoping that this will show Lockheed et. al. that they can't just routinely ramp up production costs secure in the knowledge that Congress and the Pentagon will just suck it up and pay anything.

I was surprised when Rumsfeld managed to kill the Crusader, but I'm way, way more surprised by this.

2 Comments:

Blogger Protagoras said...

Why are you unsure whether it was the right decision? Because of the name?

11:01 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Well that's the main reason, of course.

But second on the list is: I'm worried about the JSF, too.

11:16 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home