LONDON, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Local media on Monday accused Britain of paying hundreds of millions of pounds in hidden costs for a next-generation warplane which will be unable to work properly due to defense cuts.
The claim, made by The Times after an investigation, said the expensive F-35 lightning II, which has been described as the "most powerful and comprehensive" fast jet in history, will cost Britain between 77 million pounds and 100 million pounds each.
The Times report said the British taxpayers face spending more than 150 million pounds for each of the high-tech fighter bombers, with the extra pay for items such as software upgrades, spare parts and cost reduction initiatives, being buried in U.S. defense contracts and have not been included in the published figures.
The report quoted military insiders as saying that they have fears about the aircraft which continues to suffer setbacks described by one of the former senior officer as "utterly pathetic."
It also quoted independent experts as saying that the F-35 Lightning II is way over budget, unreliable, full of software glitches and potentially unsafe. (1 British pound = 1.31 U.S. dollars)
