Our F-35 jibes make international news

The Abbott gov's buying of $12billion worth of F-35 fighters, and the accompanying criticisms of it, is starting to make news overseas. Perhaps it's our very direct way of putting things (like "it's a fuckin lemon") is a better description than some people are a bit timid to say? Of course we deserve to feel ripped off, if only because our gov is buying these sparkly new things whilst claiming a "budget crisis" and ripping into everything else in the community to save money. But it's more than that. These planes seriously are fuckin lemons, and even despite local Australian politics we should never have bought them.

So here's from an article yesterday about the F-35's supposed stealth ability being not so stealthy (yes this is only from bloody yesterday FFS). RT has chosen to quote an Australian opinion piece at the very end of the article, from the Brisbane Times:

Others, however, have suggested that the number of future buyers may soon shrink as well: on Thursday this week, the Australian military was blasted in a harshly worded op-ed published in the Brisbane Times who condemned efforts to acquire F-35 for down under.

“Twelve billion dollars is a big wad of the folding stuff to drop on whizz bangs,” John Birmingham wrote for the paper, “And $12 billion probably won’t come close to the final cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters both mainstream political parties are committed to buying.”

“I got ten bucks says it’ll be more like twice that amount, but you’ll have wait 30 or 40 years to collect. That’s how long these things will be in the air. Assuming they shed their habit of shedding bits and pieces of equipment and airframe at inconvenient moments,” Birmingham added. “Like when they’re in the air.” more

Not to be outdone, here's a report from US Sixty Minutes on CBS over there, in which things like lights and tires were fucked, and at one point a plane was delivered with gaps in it's stealthy covering.