Friday's order was the second time in two months planes from the F-35 range have been grounded.
Shoulda bought the Boeing. Seriously, though. Lockheed has some hilarious bugs. My favorite is the one where the F-22 fleet was grounded because the fuel and nav systems crashed when the planes crossed the International Date Line.
Or how the planes oxygen system killed two pilots and was responsible for 8 crashes of the F-22. There is even a thing called "Raptor Cough" as a result. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor#Ope...
It is a kickass machine. Its basically invisible in the air and the pilot can look around as if there is no plane in visible and infrared.
Hopefully these are just kinks of the new project and they iron them out. If the F-35 turns out to be as big of a hangar-queen as the F-22 it's going to be another money-pit of a military project.
I think it's already a larger money pit than the F-22. The planes now cost more than twice what the original pricing would be. And the project as a whole is (as of April 2012) 17 Billion over budget. -EDIT- According to a Bloomberg article two days ago, it is 70% over it's original cost estimate and currently expected to cost $400 Billion. source: Flawed F-35 Fighter Too Big to Kill as Lockheed Hooks 45 States
This really sucks because we need them to dog fight with al-Qaeda's 5th generation fighter jets.