The F-35 Lightning II, the most expensive weapons program in human history, has officially entered its "we swear it works now" era.
After decades of development and roughly $1.7 trillion in lifetime costs, the Pentagon's favorite flying money pit is still finding creative new ways to disappoint.
Specifically, the F-35's single powerplant has a nasty habit of running too hot and wearing out faster than expected, which is a fun sentence to type about a jet that costs around $80 million per copy before you even fuel it up.
According to recent reporting, the engine's thermal management issues mean the military has to replace components more often, which translates to more downtime, more maintenance hours, and more money flowing toward defense contractors who are definitely not losing sleep over it.
Now, before the internet's resident Lockheed Martin defenders fire up the replies, yes, the F-35 is technically the most advanced fighter jet ever built.
It's stealthy, it's sensor-fused, and it can do things a 1970s F-16 could only dream about.
It's also the aircraft equivalent of a luxury car that needs a $3,000 oil change every 400 miles.
The Government Accountability Office has been waving red flags about the program's sustainment costs for years, noting that the Pentagon spends more just keeping the F-35s flying than it does buying them.
That's not a bug, that's the business model.
Critics point out that the jet was supposed to be the affordable, all-in-one solution for the Air Force, Navy, and Marines.
Instead, it became a cautionary tale about what happens when you let three branches of the military, a dozen allied nations, and a defense industry with zero incentive to finish on time all share a single project.
The engine troubles are just the latest subplot.
Earlier issues have included helmet-mounted displays that cost more than a house, ejection seat problems, and software that occasionally decides to do its own thing.
Each fix gets announced with a confident press release and a new price tag.
Here's the part where someone inevitably says "but Russia and China have stealth jets too." Sure, and their programs have their own dumpster fires.
It just means everyone's playing the same broken game where "it flies" counts as a win.
For the pilots who actually strap into this thing, the stakes are real.
For the taxpayers footing the bill, the math is less fun.
And for Lockheed Martin shareholders, well, business is booming.
Engineers will keep patching it, and Congress will keep writing checks because canceling it now would mean admitting the last 20 years were a group project where nobody did the reading.
Final Thoughts
So the next time you see a headline about the world's most advanced fighter jet, just remember: advanced and reliable are two very different words, and America has always been better at the first one.