Expanded talk on what a delay or loss of the F-35B would mean for Marine Corps

Flickr user AereiMilitari.org

Late last night I spotted a piece over at The Navy Times about what the announcement that one Marine Corps program would be canceled and one more, the F-35B, was being on probation meant for the Corps.

The piece shows a few things:

1) That Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had originally pushed to outright cancel the F-35B.

2) That evolving factors will likely push the Corps to begin using some  F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets.

3) That when the F-35C is ready the Corps will likely have to use that along side any F-35Bs it may ever get.

Read the Times' piece over here.

All this is still developing so it's hard to imagine how it might effect operations and the much lauded training program at the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, but it's beginning to get harder to imagine that it won't.

But, for what it's worth, the locals are still saying that it won't change anything.

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