As the F-35 fighter program continues to make successful progress, critics of the joint strike fighter procurement are unrelenting in their attacks. In a recent commentary , Dr. Daniel Goure—a Vice President with the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia—takes issue with the hysteria and injects some realism and balanced perspective back into the debate:

According to Goure, “few of the individuals conducting the various F-35 program reviews and almost none of those reporting on the results to the public have the experience or capacity to put their findings into a meaningful context.”

Somewhere along the way, government auditors and the Washington press corps got the mistaken idea that the program to design and develop the most complex fighter aircraft in history must go off without a hitch. Somehow many observers, including some with oversight responsibilities, seem unable to grasp the idea that the developmental phase of a major acquisition program is intended to work out the bugs in various technologies, ensure systems integration, explore the aircraft’s performance envelope and improve the quality and performance of systems and parts. This is also the period when the supply chain and the production line ramp up, the effects of the learning curve on quality begins to become apparent and initial performance data is fed back to the engineers in order to improve the quality of parts and systems.

Goure takes particular issue with how the F-35’s engine has been unfairly maligned in the mainstream media, and also in a recent General Accountability Office (GAO) report which claimed the engine was unreliable. As Goure notes, “in fact, what the data shows is that the limited number of engines produced to date have not met their projected reliability levels. What GAO doesn’t bother to tell its readers is that this is par for the course in the development of any new jet engine. If you go back and look at the reliability figures for the F-100 engine that powers the F-15 or the F-110 engine on the F-16 at the same time in their development and testing processes, the results would look the same as they do for the F-135.”

Equally shoddy analysis was also highlighted by Goure with regard to a recent Department of Defense Inspector General report:

The Department of Defense Inspector General’s (IG) report is, if anything, even less impressive. It has virtually nothing to say about the Joint Strike Fighter or its engine. Rather, it found 61 instances of nonconformity with various management processes. Kind of like your camp counselor hassling you because you didn’t make your bed with hospital corners.

“What is remarkable is not that there have been problems with the F-35 program but that so many of them, including serious technical challenges, have been resolved,” says Goure, “The lift fan on the STOVL F-35B now works like a charm. The problems with the Helmet Mounted Display have been resolved and the pilot can use any of the six cameras to look through the aircraft. The tail hook has been redesigned for the carrier version of the F-35 ... both the Marine Corps and Air Force variants are back on track to meet their projected 2015 and 2016 initial operational capabilities.”

Goure’s conclusion is that “perhaps the problem is too many auditors, reviewers and assessors chasing too few programs. They have to find something if only to justify their own relevance.”