This flimsy supply chain is actually Lockheed's intentional design
They made the aircraft more complicated than it needed to be, not to fulfill various performance requirements, but rather to distribute small and mid-sized parts manufacturing facilities into a very wide array of congressional districts. And thus distribute small handfuls of well-paying jobs. This was calculated to create pressure against the competing Boeing fighter project, and it worked.
Here's one source, there are others. I actually heard about this 10 or 15 years ago and this is a recent article about it:
Adding so much new technology serves a political purpose unrelated to any combat function. Each gadget added to a weapon needs to be built somewhere and so becomes a new subcontract to the whole endeavor. Spreading these subcontracts around the country guarantees support in Congress. As more congressional districts have a piece of the acquisition action, more members of Congress will have a vested political interest in seeing the program continue. The F-35 program takes this practice, sometimes called political engineering, to an extreme. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 website includes a page dedicated to the program’s economic impact: An interactive map shows suppliers in 47 states.
This flimsy supply chain is actually Lockheed's intentional design
They made the aircraft more complicated than it needed to be, not to fulfill various performance requirements, but rather to distribute small and mid-sized parts manufacturing facilities into a very wide array of congressional districts. And thus distribute small handfuls of well-paying jobs. This was calculated to create pressure against the competing Boeing fighter project, and it worked.
Holy shit. Can you reccomend any reading on this? I must know more.
Here's one source, there are others. I actually heard about this 10 or 15 years ago and this is a recent article about it:
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/has-the-pentagon-learned-from-the-f-35-debacle
Also: https://infogram.com/f-35s-1hke6098w1v565r