Word: airness
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...just about the same time, its price tag was climbing in the other direction. A Swiss Army knife of the skies, it's designed for vertical takeoff and landing to please the Marines and their smaller ships, while more conventional versions are slated to satisfy the demands of the Air Force and Navy. All of a sudden, however, the F-35 is in big trouble. On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress that its recent cost and schedule snafus were "unacceptable." And while the Pentagon is not about to kill the program, the rush to push the plane down...
...being driven by Pentagon concerns over looming shortages of F-16 and F-18 jet fighters. And what's causing those shortages? Gates made it clear that the current planes must be retired in order to save money so the military can pay for the F-35. "The Air Force, in order to be able to afford the modernization, is going to have to retire some older aircraft," he said. "That's just a fact of life." Others in the Pentagon call it a self-licking ice cream cone: the U.S is now in an arms race with itself...
...There was a lot of concurrency built in," Air Force Secretary Michael Donley recently acknowledged, using the military's buzzword for the way the Pentagon builds weapons at the same time it drafts blueprints for them (just like the way you order work on your kitchen addition to begin when the architect is only halfway through her drawings). Carter has conceded that the overlap of design and manufacture on the F-35 is "unprecedented" and - even after Gates' latest changes - "worrying...
...nearly $3 billion more for the testing program (which completed only 16 of 168 flights slated for 2009). He also slowed production of the plane. Gates insisted that while the program's management had been poor, its technology was sound. "It will become," he said, "the backbone of U.S. air combat for the next generation...
...Thanks to a $28 million facelift, that all-inclusive hideaway, known as the Jumby Bay Resort, has reopened with 28 new ocean-side suites featuring 5.5-meter vaulted ceilings and outdoor tubs, two restaurants, a cooking school helmed by Le Cirque - trained chef Juan Pablo Loza and an open-air spa that overlooks the surf...