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

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

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand the purpose the F35- it is a jobs and pork program first and foremost, like SLS. It has the side benefit of keeping people trained to build this sort of thing, so SpaceX can hire them. We can build cool shit, but our government and most companies don't optimize for that.

Fun fact, the DoD is the largest employer on the entire planet. 2.91 million total employees.

That doesn’t count the nearly 400k employed by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs

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

#482

It's quite simple. The successfull military programs are the ones building one thing to do one thing well. A-10, F-16, B-52. The Programs wanting to do everything in one System fail. F-35, Zumwalt, Eurofighter.

Two of my favorite craft in there - B52 and A-10 are two of the best aircraft ever made...

Its just sad how the B52 was abused by the CIA in LAOS.

The A-10 is just a robust vehicle, hence the namesake Wharthog

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

#483
post #343

Where's the quote from the Air Force saying the F-35 failed? There is none. As far as I can tell this article is just misrepresenting a quote to push a narrative.

It's an inference. The author is saying that because the Air Force is pursuing a new plane with the same fundamental goals that launched the F-35 program, then the F-35 evidently failed to deliver. He's saying they're really just asking for a do-over.

> Instead of ordering fresh F-16s, he said, the Air Force should initiate a “clean-sheet design” for a new low-end fighter. Brown’s comments are a tacit admission that the F-35 has failed.

(Emphasis mine. Tacit means "implied without being stated".)

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

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep seeing people say this. Maybe flying cars just don’t make sense? Wheels work really well when your engine dies. Have you seen people drive in 2d space? You want to add a z axis? What’s the efficiency of a small plane? Surely not better than a Prius. Edit: I looked it up and a Cessna gets ~15 mpg.

The reason you don't get flying cars, is the very same, you cant make a lot of other technology. People will want to invent the flying car parking house. And they kind of did - on the 11 of September 2001. You can not hand technology over a certain level to a infantile (nicer sound then retarded) species. Its that simple. Its already madness to allow wealthy citizens into space. Tesla and Amazon are one freight fligh…

I think you meant to say “tungsten rods”, rather than titanium. the composition of the drop weapons doesn’t change the gist though.

Titanium is used in airframes for its strength to weight ratio (it’s not very dense). Tungsten is used in weapons for its high hardness and density.

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

#485

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 chan…

While the US does have a problem with building civil engineering projects today, that dynamic isn't really what happened with the F-35. The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun on cost and time table. Ash Carter fixed that by telling Lockheed if they didn't agree to his new contract he'd kill the entire thing. And oh hey what a surprise sudden…

Thank you for bringing a structural, informed approach to this. I'm getting a little tired of the tendency to handwave blame "cultural decline" rather than actual looking into the policies and details.

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

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Title and author? Sounds really interesting.

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

#487

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 chan…

We want nuclear propulsion, not more boring jet engines. we can't have jets, so why should we care if the Army has better ones then 15 years ago.

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

#488

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 chan…

You misunderstand the purpose the F35- it is a jobs and pork program first and foremost, like SLS. It has the side benefit of keeping people trained to build this sort of thing, so SpaceX can hire them. We can build cool shit, but our government and most companies don't optimize for that.

Also the Air Force admitting it is a failure proves nothing, since the reason it’s a mess is because the US Govt were trying to make one airframe for many customers, weren’t they? One customer, even one collaborator, being upset doesn’t mean the program has admitted anything.

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

#489
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-f…

I think you have to actively ignore the last three sentences that I wrote to think this is a reasonable reply.

I live in Canada.... (and Australia)

Your reply is anecdotal with a sample size of one.

You need to look at how healthcare works for everyone in a society. It's not OK when the mega rich have it great, the middle class OK and literally 30 million people have nothing.

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