By Angela Evancie July 22, 2021 Brave Little State takes on a question about the complex, controversial decision to base the F-35 fighter jet in Vermont’s most populous county. Bobby Arnell lives in Winooski with his wife and 5-year-old daughter. Recently, he recorded some audio on his smartphone while an F-35 fighter jet flew over […]
By COLIN FLANDERS JULY 07, 2021 A sudden roar announced that the military jets were taking to the sky again. Julia Parise’s son had developed a routine for whenever this happened: He would look to his mother and assess whether it was “one of them” — the F-35 fighter jets that had become such a […]
By: Melissa Cronin May 5, 2021 Since my husband and I moved to North Hero Island last November, I wake each day well-held by the still morning. Tranquility is our neighbor. With a population of a little more than eight hundred, uninvited noise is a rare occurrence. That can’t be said for the greater Burlington […]
By Grace Elletson April 27, 2021 When the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in Vermont in April 2020, it forced Burlington and Winooski residents to self-isolate. And some who began working from home within the flight path of the F-35s became acquainted with a new experience. “During the beginning of lockdown and the stay-at-home order was […]
A film by Duane Peterson III & Patrick McCormack Jet Line is a short film that employs an anonymous hotline to elevate the voices beneath Vermont’s F-35 flight path, the first urban residents to live with one of the military’s most controversial weapons systems overhead. Tranquil scenes of unassuming neighborhoods near Burlington International Airport are […]
by Winslow Wheeler & Dan Grazier April 07, 2021 Official support for the F-35 program has quickly eroded during the first three months of 2021. In the waning days of the Trump administration, Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller called it a “piece of s..t.” The Air Force chief of staff, General Charles Brown Jr., […]
By Grace Elletson March 30, 2021 In the past few months, flyers around Burlington have invited people to chime in on an issue they can’t avoid: the noise made by the National Guard’s F-35 fighter jets. “Seeking F-35 comments,” the flyers and posters read. “All anonymous. Leave a voicemail.” They included a phone number that […]
By: Smriti Chaudhary November 24, 2020 The U.S. Air Force along with Sandia National Laboratories conducted the first-ever test with the B61-12 bomb featuring the F-35A fighter jet. A mock B61-12 was used to strike in the Nevada desert, from a height of about 10,500 feet, with “full-weapon systems demonstrations designed to increase confidence the […]
By The Editorial Board March 12, 2021 Last week, the new head of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Adam Smith, said in an interview that the F-35 fighter jet was a “rathole” draining money. He said the Pentagon should consider whether to “cut its losses.” That promptly set off another round of groaning about […]
The Pentagon has spent about $1.7 trillion on a jet that Trump loved to talk about. But the military never got its money’s worth. MSNBC’s Brian Williams explains. Aired on 02/25/2021.