Air Force's F-35 "White Elephant" Has No Code to Shoot Its Gun......in the next four years.

Air Force's F-35 "White Elephant" Has No Code to Shoot Its Gun......in the next four years. (DailyTech).

Armed w/ only 2-10 missiles, the F-35 will be deemed "combat ready" in 2015, but won't have gun code till 2019, despite 20 million LOC

After burning through hundreds of billions in expenditures (over $300B USD to date) along its much-delayed development arc, the "joint strike fighter" (JSF) -- also known as the F-35 Lightning II -- has earned the dubious distinction of being the most expensive combat aircraft in history.  But according to a new report by The Daily Beast, the spoiled self-proclaimed "superjet" can't even fire its gun.  

I. Duck Hunt: Lack of Gun Leaves  JSF A Pricy Flying Duck

Yes, according to the report, which cites a number of Air Force pilots and senior officials as sources, the JSF -- with an estimated lifetime cost in the trillions -- after a decade of development the pampered project sports a gun that is currently little more than a decoration hanging as dead weight.

Notably, the report cites roughly half a dozen USAF sources as confirming that the JSF has been banned from using its machine gun in combat until it receives a software update.  And that update isn't expected to arrive until 2019.  Until then the JSF isn't quite a sitting (or flying, more aptly) duck, but it's close to it.

The gun is dead rate because after roughly 25 million lines of code it's written (code, incidentally, China might have stolen for free), Lockheed Martin apparently couldn't be bothered to write in code to connect the JSF's trigger to its gun.  Air Force officials say that Lockheed Martin is telling them that it's going to take another four full years -- until 2019 -- to integrate the seemingly simple code into its web.

In the meantime the "operational" jet will be a bit lame, officials warn.  But, it's a moot point many pilots say, as the craft's engine is too slow and clumsy for dogfights anyhow.

Bugs aside, it also appears Lockheed Martin has lost touch of the fighter's combat needs, in terms of prioritizing features.  According to the report, even with its well over 20 million lines of code, there's no code yet to connect the pilot's trigger to the rotary cannon, so the cannon is essentially dead weight.

The report  states that the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B variant (targeted at the U.S. Marines) and the carrier-based F-35C variant (targeted at the U.S. Navy) also have crippled guns.  And like the USAF codebase, it sounds as if the fixes for the variants are rather far away:

So the F-35 has at best, at present ten shots.  If the enemy is able to field more than ten fighters per F-35, the best outcome the F-35 can hope for is a hit-and-run.  That's a major concern, given that lifetime costs per jet are over $600M USD at current estimates.  Of that, about $170M USD is currently in the up-front purchase cost.  By contrast, Russia's Mikoyan MiG-29 has a per-unit cost of around $28M USD, based on recent purchases.

So you can buy six MiG-29s for the up front costs of one JSF.  Or if you prefer something a bit more modern you can get Russian Sukhoi Su-35 jets for around $40M USD (which would buy you roughly four per JSF).

The only problem?  Americans have to pay the bill for a supposed superfighter.  

Enter the JSF, the spoiled superfighter du jour. Hmmm.....The only great thing is that the Turkish air force bought 100 of these :) Read the full nightmare story here.