Failing Upward: PR Stunt Backfires

by | Nov 12, 2024

j35pao

The genius public relations mandarins at the Joint F35 program office apparently can’t identify the aircraft they have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on.

The picture above appears to be the Chinese J35 facsimile of the F35.

You can’t make this up. The chaos avalanche is increasing in severity weekly.

We have many questions. Mainly: Where did those twin engines on the JPO image come from? The F-35 uses a single Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofan engine (in two different variants, depending on the aircraft), whereas the fighter in the JPO tweet appears to resemble the twin-engine Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) J-35 fighter jet more than anything else.

Unfortunately, this sort of public affairs flub happens all too often. For July 4th last year, the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s official account tweeted a photo that appeared to show the silhouettes of a Russian Kashin-class destroyer and five Sukhoi-27s fighter jets against the backdrop of an American flag with the command’s Independence Day message. Back in 2021, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service used a photo composite showing an American flag alongside a Russian Kirov-class battle-cruiser to wish the U.S. Navy a happy birthday, the very same mistake Republican Rep. Brian Mast also made back in 2019.

Still, this is quite embarrassing – especially on Veterans Day. But between missed readiness goals and rising costs, it makes sense that the F-35 JPO has other stuff to focus on other than accurately representing its primary aircraft on social media.

f35$

https://www.military.com/off-duty/pentagons-f-35-office-has-no-idea-what-f-35-looks.html

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

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Bill Buppert

Bill Buppert

Bill Buppert is the host of Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast and a contributor over time to various liberty endeavors. He served in the military for nearly a quarter century and contractor tours after retirement on occasion and was a combat tourist in a number of neo-imperialist shit-pits around the world.

He can be found on twitter at @wbuppert and reached via email at cgpodcast@pm.me.

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