Trump's F-35 tweets have Fort Worth on edge

Source: Texas Tribune | December 23, 2016 | Abby Livingston

President-elect Donald Trump’s recent tweets criticizing a plane manufactured in Fort Worth has many in the city rattled.

FORT WORTH — New York has Wall Street. West Virginia has coal. Los Angeles has Hollywood. And Fort Worth has the F-35 plane. 

For more than a decade, this aircraft has served as the economic lifeblood of the west side of town, where it is manufactured. Yet, the F-35 is deeply unpopular elsewhere in the country, thanks to a series of cost and scheduling overruns.  

And unfortunately for its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin — and Fort Worth — the F-35 is now in the crosshairs of President-elect Donald Trump. 

Is Cowtown rattled? 

“Oh, absolutely,” said U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat. “Everybody’s talking about it.” 

“It was something that I would say sent fear through the people that work for the plant, Republicans that are longtime, proud Fort Worth residents,” he added. “It was something that got everybody’s ear.” 

It started this month, when President-elect Donald Trump tweeted: “The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th.”

He since met with executives from Lockheed and rival Boeing and added to the anxiety on Thursday with a follow-up tweet, indicating he might pull back on the F-35 manufacturing in lieu of a Boeing aircraft.  

“Long term, it would be catastrophic,” Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price said of the economic impact of canceling the F-35.

Veasey and many analysts say there is no comparison to the F-35. Pointing to the plane’s ability to evade radar detection, he said the fighter can do things that military aircraft from the previous generation can’t do.

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