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The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

forbes.com

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Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#81

Post by arka2147483647 »

tyingq wrote: post #61

Given the type of both recent and predicted conflicts that the US has been involved with, it's not 100% clear to me that the US needs yet another aircraft. That is, fighting in proxy wars or fighting in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria don't need anything new. And fighting a sophisticated enemy would probably ramp up to nuclear deterrents and diplomacy anyway...fighters wouldn't make a notable difference in…

One could argue that is the precicely the problem.

If there is no specific credible enemy to fight, there are no strict reguirements that MUST be met, so one makes the plane do everething, because you dont really know what you need.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#82

Post by nvoid »

kcb wrote: post #52
danjac wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I can't really see much benefit to that 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...

But how do you translate that into hitting something going Mach 1 at 40k feet? A UAV capable of attacking a jet can exist. My point is that it would need to be a fully capable aircraft not something that can be produced cheaply and deployed in swarms. There's a lot of space in the sky.

Makes you wonder, is there a time for an unmanned jet?

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#83

Post by rootusrootus »

madhadron wrote: post #40
fallingfrog wrote: post #34

Interestingly enough Wikipedia says that the request for proposals for the F16 happened in January 1972 and the first completed fighter was accepted in January 1979. That’s 7 years, without the use of computers.

The F-16 is as very interesting case and it's worth reading about it. It was intentionally built to be a single role aircraft and the people who wanted an effective airplane in that role effectively bypassed most of the politics that would have diluted it. So, yes, the F-16 is one of the great success stories of fighter plane development.

I have an interesting old book (which is falling apart, sadly) about the F-16 and it's an interesting comparison with the main competitor at the time, the YF-17, which ultimately became the basis on which the F/A-18 was developed. Both very successful designs.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#85

Post by missedthecue »

rayhendricks wrote: post #72

It did not fail at providing money to the military-industrial-congressional complex. But of course we need more fighter jets instead of Medicare for all and UBI. China is not going to send fighters over to Bomb the us mainland, this thing is totally unnecessary.

The total costs to keep all F-35s in the air until 2070 (likely after you and I are dead and in the ground), would not even cover 6 months of Medicare for all or UBI. Not sure how you can draw such an equivalence.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#86

Post by misiti3780 »

The saddest thing about all of this IMO is they have been working on this for 14 years, and how much money was spent/wasted? Now, read about Skunkworks - they were able to build the SR71 (without supercomputers) in less than half that time and for a fraction of the cost.

This isn't just planes, this seems to be everything nowadays. Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chance we could do something like that in this toxic environment of today.

I know Peter Thiel is not popular here, but his conversations about technological progress seem to be spot on: we just cant build cool shit anymore. I really did want a flying car, and all I have is 140 characters and promises of AI that never come true.

Maybe, you could say there are some exceptions like CRISPR, but that is TBD.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#87

Post by einpoklum »

> The Air Force a generation ago launched development of an affordable, lightweight fighter to replace hundreds of Cold War-vintage F-16s

If that was the goal, then the moment the price tag on the F-35 was set, failure was admitted.

According to this: https://www.investors.com/research/f35-fighter/

the price of an F-35 is about 80 Million USD.

An F-16 goes for 30 Million USD: https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/08/24/lockheed-martin-sc...

Although it seems you can buy it used for 8.5 Million USD?? : https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/news/the-latest/2020/07/24/...

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#88

Post by antattack »

digi59404 wrote: post #7

“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…

It's a fail because we are moving into unmanned fighting vehicles. Something that F-35 program has failed to foresee.

Basically F-35 is the fighter of tomorrow fighting threats of yesterday.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#89

Post by cwhiz »

rayhendricks wrote: post #72

It did not fail at providing money to the military-industrial-congressional complex. But of course we need more fighter jets instead of Medicare for all and UBI. China is not going to send fighters over to Bomb the us mainland, this thing is totally unnecessary.

You could take the entire defense budget, and the defense budget from every other country in the world, and you would be less than 50% of the funding you would need for a single year of Medicare for all. The US spends about $3.6 trillion per year on health care. I have no idea what UBI might cost, but I know we don’t have the tax revenues to get even close.

Maybe the money printer can go brrrr a little bit faster.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#90

Post by StLCylone »

supernova87a wrote: post #63

I guess along the way, the activity of designing and building the plane became more important than the outcome / functionality of the plane itself. You see it all the time in projects. People look busy and seem like they're building things, so some progress must be happening. Or is it? Blink an eye, and in a couple years you unwittingly accumulated a platform that served to fulfill every random team's desire to load…

"the activity of designing and building the plane became more important than the outcome / functionality of the plane itself."

Yes. After a while was it about building the plane or keeping the aerospace industry employed and engaged? The design tried to do everything for everyone and fulfill every Colonel's dream feature and mission. Its the ultimate story of feature creep.

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