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The time of planes has ended and the time of drones has begun it has.
You still have to shoot down a fighter jet to disable it. An enemy can't hack the pilot remotely and safely land it on their own air strips, which has happened with drones.
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I can't comment from the perspective of the F16 specifically, but from experience working on upgrade efforts of military and IC ground processing systems, the challenge is the legacy systems are very tightly coupled to the hardware. They make strong assumptions about register size and number, bus bandwidth, filesystem block size, all kinds of things that software developers rarely think about any more, but things tha…
Worked around F16's and F22's when I was in and can attest that this is the source of the issue for upgrades. Everything in the software is so tightly coupled to the hardware that updating the F16's would be a monumental effort. The difference between a 4th and 5th generation air frame are night and day in terms of software capabilities. Hell, even the different between 5th generation jets can be massive on the softw…
“The F-35 has failed” is a strong statement that depends on what your definition of success is. Did it fail because it couldn’t replace the F-16? Did it fail because it’s expensive and bloated? Do those things even matter? I’m not defending the F-35 but anyone deeply and intimately familiar with the platform knows and understands that it is a Ferrari. You don’t bring your Acura TSX to a Formula 1 race track to win a…
The F-35 failed because fighter jet airframes aren’t particularly relevant anymore. You can stick the same sensor systems and missiles on just about anything. Improved stealth etc is useful, but F-35’s are only slightly better than 40+ year old jets. Thus hardly worth the price vs cheaply manufacturing a minor update of an older design. Or as the saying goes “quantity has a quality all it’s own.”
Now is that 35 worth the price? If our policy continues to insist for preparing against an impossible push peer adversary landmasses, then maybe. Personally I don’t see those pushes happening, but that’s more due to the tyranny of distance and having like 10 minutes of play time before needing to refuel.
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>So did the F35 fail because we spent too much? Depends on how much it saves us later. It might not be a lot. The concept of flying Corvettes is strong, culturally and industrially, but it might be on the verge of becoming like cavalry with the advent of drone swarms.
Drone swarms that can counter fighter jets is a concept that makes no sense. At best you can make something like a guided missile that can loiter. But I can't really see much benefit to that. It would still require the same the avionics and performance as a guided missile. Not to mention stealth aircraft counter the concept even further.
Look at the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to see how much UAVs are a game-changer:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/air-and-missile-war-nagorno-ka...
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You still have to shoot down a fighter jet to disable it. An enemy can't hack the pilot remotely and safely land it on their own air strips, which has happened with drones.
That seems like all the more reason to invest more in our cyber-warfare/security capabilities instead of dumping the money in machines designed to carry meat-bags.
The time of planes has ended and the time of drones has begun it has.
You still have to shoot down a fighter jet to disable it. An enemy can't hack the pilot remotely and safely land it on their own air strips, which has happened with drones.
It’s fashionable to hate on the F-35, but let’s face it: if the allies have to establish air superiority somewhere in the world, they will be using F-35s to do so, and I’m not aware that anyone has the platform to stop them.
The test of a combat aircraft is in combat. Nobody will give a fuck what the programme cost or that it couldn’t do X if it gives you a decisive advantage in war. It’s fashionable to hate on the F-35, but let’s face it: if the allies have to establish air superiority somewhere in the world, they will be using F-35s to do so, and I’m not aware that anyone has the platform to stop them.
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You still have to shoot down a fighter jet to disable it. An enemy can't hack the pilot remotely and safely land it on their own air strips, which has happened with drones.
If the plane is connected to anything else, it can be hacked. Just because it hasn't been reported yet doesn't mean it's impossible or even that it hasn't happened.
And if that's a realized threat, the planes can be disconnected and still function at a reduced capacity. That's not true for drones.
It's like GPS. It's a really nice technology, but warplanes and weapons also have IMUs, so they'll still be effective if GPS has been jammed/knocked out.
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You still have to shoot down a fighter jet to disable it. An enemy can't hack the pilot remotely and safely land it on their own air strips, which has happened with drones.
If the plane is connected to anything else, it can be hacked. Just because it hasn't been reported yet doesn't mean it's impossible or even that it hasn't happened.