By Renee Parsons

April 19, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - Fresh off what the MSM is celebrating as a surprise victory for a Bernie Town Hall on Fox News, lurking in the background is his inexplicable support over the years for basing the highly controversial F35 at the Burlington International Airport. We now know, thanks to a conscientious citizen who bothered to read the fine print, that those F35’s will be nuclear-capable and of immense explosive power.

In September, as the fall colors begin to change in Vermont, City of Burlington  residents may not be in the streets waving American flags as eighteen F35 Lightening II radar-evading stealth fighter jets land at the Burlington Airport.   As part of a Pentagon plan to deploy 2,500 jets nationwide, the F35’s will join the 158^th Fighter Wing, a unit of the Vermont Air National Guard, affectionately known as the Green Mountain Boys as its aging F-16 jets are replaced.   

Not just known for its foliage, cheese and maple syrup, Vermont is also host to an active aerospace industry which already supplies 2,000 jobs.  The jet’s bay door and GAU-22 gun system will both be produced in Vermont.  With the Air Force spending $84 million per jet from Lockheed Martin, the DOD will spend $100 Million for infrastructure improvement and a new training center at Burlington where they will share one runway with commercial air traffic.

Basing more than a dozen F35’s in Burlington will bring a totally new generation of aircraft to  Vermont as new high tech jets, not yet fully mature with all of its kinks and safety issues worked out, normally  experience more accidents and ‘incidents’ in a shake down –  and the F35 has had more than its share.   

The F35 was commissioned by the Pentagon in 1995 at a cost of $1.5 Trillion, becoming the most expensive weapon system in US history as well as providing significant technical challenges including a “catastrophic engine failure” with total damage estimated at $50 million, a “life threatening ejection seat malfunction”  and a crash in South Carolina due to a faulty fuel tube.   The new controversial bomber jet fighter planes will be located in a dense area surrounded by public schools, a college and residential neighborhoods.