Hounded by controversy for much of the past two years, the F-35 has become the poster child for troubled, vastly overbudget military weapons programs.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other top officials have repeatedly complained about the performance of contractor Lockheed Martin and soaring cost estimates. Top military and civilian managers of the program were fired or changed jobs.
That's not a good track record now that the political dialogue is largely about cutting budgets and deficits.
The danger, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace industry analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va., is that if the F-35 doesn't show real and visible progress it will become more of a target.
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