Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 1001 posts

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

#211

Post by onepointsixC »

hef19898 wrote: post #144
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…

Well, it failed to replace the F-16, for starters. And the A-10. It failed in becoming the NATO / Western end-all jet. It is expensive, there aren't that many. The stealth capabilities are lacking by modern standards. Maintenaince if expensive and the combat aircraft equivalent of an iPhone. Compare that to the cold war fighters. High numbers, used by the majority of US allies and even comparable cheap. Desiged to be…

How has it failed to replace the F-16? It is objectively superior to the F-16 in just about every performance parameter. It costs less than 4.5 Gen peers like the Eurofighter and Rafale, while having more build at a total of 600 thus far with over 100 more built per year now.

As for losing them, yes it would be bad, but it's the most survivable jet being produced today. Recent conflicts have shown just how lopsided a conflict is if you have a technological edge over your adversaries.

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

#212

Post by jboog »

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…

~1.7 Trillion dollars so we can have a bleeding-edge Ferrari while our "enemies" in the PRC and Russia are still driving around in Yugo 45s

So many people seem to still buy into the Cold War mindset that we just need the latest bleeding edge platforms or the Soviets are going to invade and we'll all be reading Trotsky.

The US and NATO militaries are so far ahead of the Russians and China it's comical to claim another 1.7 trillion dollars for a "ferrari" is a prudent use of taxpayer dollars.

China can't even field a blue-water navy yet. I guess they're only about a century behind the US there lol

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

#213

Post by grecy »

LegitShady wrote: post #195
grecy wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. How in the world to other countries pay for Healthcare? The USA has tax revenue per capita very similar to New Zealand, the UK, Italy and Canada - all of which have good Healthcare for all. [1] The USA has more tha…

Many countries have far worse standards of care than the US. I live in Canada, and waited more than a year for a specialist. It took me 2 years to find a family doctor with decent reviews who was accepting patients . I needed an MRI once and the wait was measured in months. I waited four months for just a cortisone shot, before the pandemic. I'm not claiming one system is better than another. Certainly if you're weal…

> Many countries have far worse standards of care than the US.

I'll need a citation for that.

When a country has 29 million people without health insurance [1], and medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy, I think it's safe to say the average standard of care is way, way lower than Canada, Australia, Germany, etc. where literally every person gets care.

[1] https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-th...

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

#214

Post by hef19898 »

woeirua wrote: post #202

This is just another sign that the US defense establishment has opened its eyes to the reality that the US could lose a war of attrition against a major power. We have focused too much on high tech weaponry, and we're now vulnerable to being overwhelmed by large numbers of low tech enemies. It doesn't matter if your fighters have a kill ratio of 10:1 if your enemy can replace those 10 fighters faster than each one of…

And afford to replace them. Just take the UH-1, one engine helicopter of the Vietnam era. One engine, because a second one was considerd waste given the short service live of these birds in Vietnam. And now we have 100 million dollar jets...

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

#216

Post by twic »

CivBase wrote: post #102

> This is our ‘high end’ [fighter], we want to make sure we don’t use it all for the low-end fight. What exactly is a "low-end fight" when it comes to the USAF? Seems to me like the real problem is the F-35 was built to be a do-it-all plane when it would make far more sense to have a more varied fleet of more cost-effective, purpose-built aircraft.

It's a light attack / armed reconnaissance aircraft:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Attack/Armed_Reconnaissa...

The Tucano several other comments have mentioned was a strong contender. The Scorpion also looked pretty great, and went from concept to first flight in just over two years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textron_AirLand_Scorpion

I don't know why it was disqualified.

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

#217

Post by ghaff »

VectorLock wrote: post #186
zdragnar wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than that, thr SR-71 was purpose-built. That means fewer hands on thr steering wheel, and fewer compromises to achieve multiple missions. The F-35, by comparison, was a platform vehicle, with the base suited to adapting to a variety of capabilities and missions. That means more voices demanding priority of features, more expensive engineering to get a variety of polygon pegs into the same round hole, and many fi…

Exactly this. Hyper specialized boundary pushing things are easy compared to general purpose good for everything projects.

The basic concept isn't even a terrible one. It was a reaction to the many functionally-overlapping aircraft that the various service branches were having designed and built. But it seems clear at this point that the F-35 tried to be too general purpose.

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

#218

Post by ProAm »

tyingq wrote: post #191
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, so we can defend Taiwan without having to go nuclear to do it. Russia, over the rest of the Ukraine. Perhaps Iran, if we have to stop their nuclear program by force, or some other contingency.

I just don't see the US fighting China or Russia in a direct, conventional weapons conflict. How does it not escalate?

Doesn't matter if its direct or another proxy war, its still war.

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

#219

Post by Synaesthesia »

ktln2 wrote: post #185

F-35 is not expensive if you consider the alternatives: Brazil bought 36 JAS-39E for $5.8 billion. [1] Taiwan ordered 66 F-16V for $8.1 billion. [2] Korea is going to get 20 F-35A for $3.3 billion. [3] [1] https://www.flightglobal.com/saab-brazil-finalise-gripen-ng-... [2] https://nationalinterest.org/feature/taiwans-f-16v-fighter-j... [3] https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2019/10/10/s...

Militarism is a colossal waste of taxpayer money.

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

#220

Post by dbreunig »

VectorLock wrote: post #186
zdragnar wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than that, thr SR-71 was purpose-built. That means fewer hands on thr steering wheel, and fewer compromises to achieve multiple missions. The F-35, by comparison, was a platform vehicle, with the base suited to adapting to a variety of capabilities and missions. That means more voices demanding priority of features, more expensive engineering to get a variety of polygon pegs into the same round hole, and many fi…

Exactly this. Hyper specialized boundary pushing things are easy compared to general purpose good for everything projects.

Our vaccine effort is a perfect example of this. We got heroic, efficient results in developing vaccines because the requirements were so clear.

Distribution is much, much harder!

Post reply on HN