The F-35 Lightning II, the most expensive weapons program in human history, has reportedly discovered a new nemesis.
It is not the Chinese J-20, it is not the Russian S-400, and it is not even a swarm of cheap drones.
According to a recent report that defense officials are describing as "not great," the $1.7 trillion jet can struggle in certain bad weather, specifically when lightning is involved.
The plane named after lightning has a complicated relationship with lightning.
The issue is a lightning protection system on the jet's fuel tank, which in certain conditions may not fully do the thing it is named after doing.
The Pentagon has known about this since roughly 2010, which means this is less of a breaking news story and more of a "we have been quietly sitting on this for over a decade" story.
In the meantime, the F-35 has been restricted from flying within 25 miles of lightning, which is a fun rule for a fighter jet to have.
The jet is supposed to be the future of American air power.
It is a stealthy, sensor-fused, software-driven marvel that can do things older jets cannot, like share targeting data with other aircraft and cost more money than the GDP of a small nation.
Yet here we are, in 2024, learning that a $135 million aircraft is essentially grounded when the sky gets grumpy.
To be fair, every aircraft has lightning restrictions.
Commercial planes get rerouted around storms all the time.
It is a combat aircraft meant to operate in all conditions, and its entire brand is "we spent more on this than any weapon in history and it will do everything." When the everything machine has a weather caveat, people notice.
Critics, who have been dunking on this program since the Bush administration, are having a field day.
Supporters point out that the jet has performed well in real missions and that every complex system has teething issues.
The F-35 can be an impressive piece of engineering and also a punchline that writes itself.
What makes this extra spicy is that the Pentagon is now working on fixes, which will cost more money, which will be added to the pile of money that is already so tall it has its own weather system.
The program's total lifetime cost is estimated at $1.7 trillion.
That is more than the annual GDP of most countries.
The real takeaway here is not that the F-35 is bad.
It is that building the most complicated machine ever flown by humans turns out to be complicated.
You can engineer a helmet that lets a pilot see through the floor of the plane.
You cannot, apparently, fully engineer away the sky being the sky.
Closing opinion: The F-35 is a triumph of American engineering and a cautionary tale about American procurement, and it can be both.
If we are going to spend trillions on a jet, it should probably be able to handle a thunderstorm.
Final Thoughts
That feels like the bare minimum, and the bar is currently underground.