Apparently Manchin was bought off…
By Chuck U. Schumer
The deal for a long-sought $6.6 billion natural gas pipeline in West Virginia is just one of the energy plums that Sen. Joe Manchin III has secured in exchange for his support of Democrats’ broader tax and climate spending bill.
Full article, HERE from the Washington Times.
And now the USAF is going back to congress wanting a new ‘Air Force’ engine for the F-35… I wonder how many congresscritters are going to back this, just to get production in their districts???
OBTW, this engine will NOT be for any other service, or country, JUST for the USAF…
Full article, HERE from Defense News.
Sigh…
Well, to be fair, the Navy and USMC wouldn’t want an Air Force engine anyways. It doesn’t have to withstand salt water corrosion, and doesn’t need to be VSTOL. The F-35 was a boondoggle from the beginning.
Almost all major military procurement programs are boondoggles. The F-35 just has worse optics as it involved Navy, Marine and Air Force boondoggling.
I wish I could say I was shocked that Manchin could be bought, but I’m not. I’ve seen the sun rise and set enough times to know that EVERY politician can be bought, you just have to find the right price.
Does he lose his seat now?
They gave him a bone.
He sold out for a bowl of porridge.
Not a lot of meat.
West Virginia will still be screwed.
They all have their price.
That gas pipeline will be cancelled by the Brandon Junta or allowed to be sued out of existence by the DoJ even if it is passed in a bill that Brandon signs. It is a normal political “promise” — all smoke and mirrors with no substance.
Exactly.
Local congress critters will likely go for the new engine – if GE is the manufacturer. The plant is within ten miles of my house.
Integrity? That is for suckers. We need tons more suckers.
So much for interoperability and commonality of parts. Pentagon never learns..
I am not surprised in the least about the engine upgrade for the F-35A (and F-35C from the article). Pratt & Whitney is doing what they did on the F-16; they are raking in the money while doing as little as possible in improving the engine. When General Dynamics now LM put an improved GE engine in the F-16, P&W “all of a sudden” started making improvements to their F-16 engine. Unfortunately the engine mounting is different between the two and they are not swapable.
A little background on this issues. Originally there were to be two different core engines for the F-35A/B/C. First was the F135 from P&W which was a modification, not necessarily improvement, on the modified F119 used in the X-35 for all configurations. When the Program was contracted, DoD contracted for P&W to build the F135 and GE to build the F136. The GE parts were to be the compressor section and hot section (burners and turbines); they would be plug-n-play into the airframe including the power take off for the lift fan in the F-35B and the P&W/Rolls Royce nozzles for all versions. Since the GE engine was a few years behind the P&W there were some normal developmental issues that P&W tried to blow up into total failure. P&W expended a great deal of “political capital” and finally got the F136 canceled. One thing a lot of people don’t know is that the DoD contracts separately for engines; LM just integrates the “government” engines into the airframe.
A little background on me and my insights. I worked on the F-35 program at a high enough level to know the program engine logistics lead, the P&W representative and the GE representative. I have to be very guarded in what I say. One thing that the program logistics lead told me from his many years experience in TAC/ACC maintenance and logistics, including headquarters level, is that GE builds better engines.
I should have changed that first paragraph third sentence based on what I said in the last sentence of the second paragraph.
“When General Dynamics now LM integrated the improved GE engine the government wanted in the F-16…”
OT: DoD etc. aside, I find it refreshing that, unlike so many comments on other blogs, BillB writes in coherent sentences and uses actual paragraphs. Yay, grammar and syntax and um, stuff.
A friend worked doing software testing for the F136 when GE initially continued development for a bit and hoped the government changed its mind. That never happened.
All- Thanks for the comments, no disagreement with anyone, and BillB is absolutely correct!
Nice to hear some measured, informed comments.
I will admit to being so frustrated at the amount of myth, hyperbole and antagonism in the average discussion of this program, that I’ve just switched right off.
Basic principle , for me, is understanding that in any program of this complexity , problems are to be expected and politics is going to affect outcomes, adversely. Same can be said for programs that eventually resulted in some adequate products.
Frustrating as the boondoggling is – and I don’t ignore that – my primary interest is whether we will get something that will do the job required of it, at a price that we (Australia) can afford.
Just give this a few more weeks. Schumer will renege on any deal he made with Manchin once he thinks it is safe for him to do so.
I just pray that Sinema decides to do what is right instead of licking party hack boots.
Peter- Concur with all! Y’all are having your own set of issues down there, most of which never makes the media up here.
Terra- Agreed!