For jets, yeah, always grumbling. Lots of complaining around the F-16, F-14 had early issues as well: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/

For jets, yeah, always grumbling. Lots of complaining around the F-16, F-14 had early issues as well: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/1977-when-the-f-16-was-americas-problem-child/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/197... Naval vessels have similarly eye-watering (or greater) price tags, but they usually don't fail so spectacularly that they sink or explode or are totally out of commission. Problems with fighter jets are more "dramatic." If there is a problem with a jet, it either (a) crashes or (b) is effectively nonfunctional, stuck on the ground. Fighter jets also just capture the public imagination. We mythologize fighters and fighter pilots. Jets are considered "sexy" and so articles about them generate probably 10x or 100x the traffic as articles about problems with boats or rail guns or artillery or other procurements. Also remember that there is fierce competition for those military contracts. Lockheed, Grumman, etc compete tooth and nail for them. Just a guess, but I bet the PR team at Company A is more than happy to seed the press with stories about failures by Company B.