'F-35 is a Piece of xxxx’: Why Trump’s Last Defence Secretary Hated the Stealth Fighter - And Wasn’t the Only One

The latest of several high ranking U.S. officials to criticise the world’s largest ever weapons program, the last holder of the post of Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump, Christopher C. Miller, was far from positive about the stealth righter. A former U.S. Special Forces officer, Miller was appointed to his position on November 9, 2020, and stated regarding the F-35: 

“I would have loved to have gotten involved in the acquisition process and try…and you know, talk about wicked problem. I wanted to take that one on….F-35s, the case study. Although, I gotta tell you, yesterday we were talking to some guy, some lieutenant colonel, or colonel, said ‘what are you flying?’ Said ‘F-35,’ I was like that’s a piece of…and he was like…and he laughed, and I was like, ‘no seriously, tell me about it,’ and he was…an F-16 guy, F-35, he said…‘unbelievable aircraft,’ I’m not…I…that investment, for…that capability, that we’re never supposed to use, ‘well, we have to deter, blah blah bluh blah…Are we fifth generation? You know we…I think it’s hilarious, you know, right now, you know, ‘well we need to invest in the sixth generation,’ I’m like, we have created a monster, but you know that. The F-35 is a piece of…”

The Defence Secretary did not finish the sentence, at least according to the official transcript published, but he appeared frustrated that so much was being invested in a fighter which was far behind schedule, far over budget and faced continued serious performance issues when a far superior sixth generation fighter was already well under development.

The F-35 has been criticised by a number of officials in the past, with its questionable reliability, very high maintenance requirements and high operational costs being common targets for criticism. Although declared combat ready in 2015, and in late 2014 for the F-35B variant used by the U.S. Marine Corps, the stealth fighter is still very far from ready for high intensity combat and is not likely to be for many years to come. Former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain previously referred to the F-35 as “a textbook example’ of the country’s ‘broken defence acquisition system.” He further stated in a briefing to the Senate: “the F-35 program’s record of performance has been both a scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost, schedule and performance.” The platform’s underperformance was criticised by a wide range of sources from military think tanks such as the NSN and the RAND Corporation, to organisations such as the Project on Government Oversight (POGO)109 and individuals such as the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester Michael Gilmore and Marine Captain Dan Grazier. The Pentagon has itself repeatedly highlighted that the F-35 has suffered from poor reliability and that the aircraft’s high operational costs could make it unaffordable in the numbers initially intended to be purchased. Technical challenges have repeatedly delayed the Pentagon’s granting of approval for mass production of the fighter.