{"id":24698,"date":"2024-03-11T02:43:21","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T07:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24698"},"modified":"2024-03-11T02:43:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T07:43:25","slug":"bug-prone-f-35-jet-given-nuclear-capability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24698","title":{"rendered":"Bug-Prone F-35 Jet Given Nuclear Capability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The US’ fifth-generation stealth aircraft has been dogged by a whole array of technical troubles since its maiden flight in 2006.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US-made F-35A fighter jet has been “operationally” certified to carry B61-12 thermonuclear free-fall bombs<\/strong>, a spokesman for the warplane\u2019s Joint Program Office (JPO) told the Breaking Defense news outlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The F-35A is the first 5th generation nuclear-capable aircraft ever, and the first new platform (fighter or bomber) to achieve this status since the early 1990s,” Russ Goemaere said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development provides the whole NATO bloc with a “critical capability” and supports the US\u2019 “extended deterrence commitments,” the spokesman claimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The certification, however, does not extend to the aircraft\u2019s sister variants<\/strong>, the short takeoff and vertical landing F-35B and the carrier-launched F-35C, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The F-35<\/a> is used by NATO member states, as well as Israel, Japan, South Korea, and Australia, with other countries also signing deals to buy the jets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, from the start of the F-35 program 18 years ago, it has been plagued by a variety of major setbacks, resulting in costly fixes. The F-35 is notoriously known for being not only costly but also bug- and crash-prone.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest problem was reported earlier this year when the new $14 billion software upgrade<\/strong> for the jets turned out to be “immature and deficient,” leading to “critical warfighting deficiencies” for the aircraft, rather than improvements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This came after a 2023 September report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that almost half of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that are supposed to be operational are not capable of flying, and it will cost a whopping $1.3 trillion<\/strong> to keep them operational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The F-35 fighter jet<\/a> remains the most expensive weapon in history, with a per-unit price between $78 and $95 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sputnikglobe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US’ fifth-generation stealth aircraft has been dogged by a whole array of technical troubles since its maiden flight in 2006. The US-made F-35A fighter jet has been “operationally” certified to carry B61-12 thermonuclear free-fall bombs, a spokesman for the warplane\u2019s Joint Program Office (JPO) told the Breaking Defense news outlet. “The F-35A is the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5783],"tags":[24461,27111,27112,9352],"class_list":["post-24698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","tag-f-35","tag-jet-aircraft","tag-nuclear-capability","tag-vulnerability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24700,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24698\/revisions\/24700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}