Is the Joint Strike Fighter really in QDR trouble, or is talk of major cuts some kind of evil Pentagon negotiating ploy? These days, you can get arguments for either position. One straw in the wind, however, is a recent interview given by Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program manager. He confirmed in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story his concern about a possible DOD “agenda” to scrap one of the three F-35 variants. He added that he didn’t know what was going to happen in the end. Sounds ominous to us.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall doesn’t see great value in trying to break the Sentinel ICBM program off as a separate budget item the way the Navy has with its ballistic-missile submarine program, saying such a move wouldn’t create any new money for the Air Force to spend on other…