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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

#521

Post by wcarron »

weaksauce wrote: post #463
christoph wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average person does virtually no regular maintenance / checking of their car, even basics like tyre pressures and oil levels not being checked regularly, happy to leave as much as they possibly can for an annual check at the garage. There’s a shocking amount of people also happy to drive around ignoring warning lights flashing. Imagine that scenario with tons of metal that could fall out of the sky when something…

> There’s a shocking amount of people also happy to drive around ignoring warning lights flashing. ...or can't afford the basic maintenance

In other words, can't afford to own/operate a car.

Note, that's not a put down on said people. I think it's a shame such situations exist. But, if you can't afford to pay for insurance/gas/maintenance, then you can't afford the vehicle.

But, regarding flying cars: I absolutely do not want more people operating airborne spinny death machines capable of destroying considering we've already established many people don't/can't perform basic maintenance on a much simpler and safer mode of transportation. It wouldn't go well.

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

#522

Post by WalterBright »

Take a look at how John Boyd upended the Air Force dev process, but of course that ended with his untimely death. Nobody else was able to do it.

He ran the "Fighter Mafia" which was responsible for the F-15 and F-16 aircraft.

https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/031...

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

#523

Post by paganel »

jboog wrote: post #212
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…

> 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.

Russia and China don't need a Yugo to out-speed the US's Ferrari, they have ICBMs and the Russians have nuclear subs that work well enough.

And the US's Ferrari did a really, really poor job in the off-road terrains of the Middle East, with Iraq at best a draw (and a huge loss for the local population, but who cares about that?) and a definite defeat in Afghanistan.

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

#524

Post by cwhiz »

tele wrote: post #107
cwhiz wrote: post #89

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. 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.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... "Taking into account both the costs of coverage expansion and the savings that would be achieved through the Medicare for All Act, we calculate that a single-payer, universal health-care system is likely to lead to a 13% savings in national health-care expenditure, equivalent to more than US$450 billion annually (based on the value of the US$ in 2017). T…

There are dozens of these studies. Vermont tried to implement a single payer system to realize these costs, and it was an epic failure. Read up on it.

https://www.vox.com/2014/12/22/7427117/single-payer-vermont-...

What people don't seem to understand is that you can't just vacuum money out of a giant industry. The money we spend in health care doesn't go into an incinerator. There are approximately 16.5 million people working in the health care industry. This study assumes we'll save 13%, a wildly optimistic figure, but we'll go with it.

Pick the 2.15 million people to fire.

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

#525

Post by kqvamxurcagg »

nerdponx wrote: post #398
notional wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than just a jobs program too. It's a reelection plan for senators/house members. Look at what states and districts get these big DoD contracts and then look at what committees the congressmen/women are sitting on. They approve plans that benefit them then direct the funds right into their districts so they can campaign on it. I mean it's not the worst form of corruption but it's pretty shitty when you reali…

But imagine if we put people to work building useful stuff instead of useless stuff. Power grid infrastructure, new bridges, new rail lines, etc.

Defence equipment isn’t useless. In the event of war it becomes essential. Spending has to continue on these programmes in peacetime to retain capability.

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

#526

Post by hef19898 »

greedo wrote: post #499
hef19898 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were mutiple reason, citing from top of my head as I don't find he old paper anymore. Reasons were: - Reliability and insurance costs - limited number of launches - refurbishment costs of boosters ompared to new ones - heavier and more expensive boosters to make them reusable This paper was way before SpaceX tried that. And whther or not reusable boosters are really a financial success is impossible to tell wit…

If you're seriously arguing that F9 reuse is not a financial success, then you're not paying attention. Flight insurers "like" the F9 since it has proven itself reliable. Otherwise you're arguing that SpaceX is either a welfare queen, or a ponzi scheme.

I am citing an old paper from EASA. Again, how the true financials are is impossible to tell without SpaceX finances. Which we don't have. Except for really old leaks. And even with these numbers, we would have to account for Starlink launches.

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

#527

Post by WalterBright »

brazzy wrote: post #475
nerdponx wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But imagine if we put people to work building useful stuff instead of useless stuff. Power grid infrastructure, new bridges, new rail lines, etc.

That would be communism, and we can't have that. The reason why the USA uses the military as a jobs program is that it's the only thing that gets bipartisan support.

Communism does an even worse job of allocating resources.

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

#528

Post by PicassoCTs »

Guthur wrote: post #400
PicassoCTs wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ok, you head on out to the desert, we'll be right behind you... promise.

I do not get it- why is exponential powerful tech, such a serious matter if somebody wants a nuke (Iran, North-Korea) or even just proliferate per-existing ones, considered a serious issue. But once a entity with clear interests in venturing outside the sphere of law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup) and the monetary/organizational power to acquire such tech, ventures towards something similar classifiable, such a threat is a joking matter?

Also if you stream a movie tonight, like millions others, who just have a roof, food and a flickering screen that sand in the dessert might be very fine integrated - and already have gotten everywhere. So nobody is asking you or me, might as well discuss the scenarios.

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

#529

Post by estaseuropano »

323bn spent.

There are 331 million Americans.

= every American paid around $1000 for this failure.

These funds could have gone into schools, roads, social programmes, ... Instead they served to enrich the small crowd owning the defense industry, with little to show for it all.

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

#530

Post by bpodgursky »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #464
misiti3780 wrote: post #86

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…

The next-gen bomber program (B-21) as far as I'm aware is also going well. Fast purchase of an a platform intentionally only incrementally more advanced than the current model.
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