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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

#571

Post by wongarsu »

hef19898 wrote: post #374
sandworm101 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> The US subsidizes military costs for all of our allies. Speaking as one of those allies... not really. Often times US allies spend money they really don't want to in order to keep the US happy. Canada and the UK probably wouldn't have invaded Afghanistan if not for their obligations as US allies. That certainly wasn't cheap. Canada is soon to replace its fighter fleet. Will it buy to cheaper Saab Grippen? Or will…

Why do you think Germany is looking at the F/A-18 to replace parts of their aging Tornado fleet?

Because the Eurofighter can't carry the nuclear bombs that the US has stationed in Germany, and Germany wants to be the one providing the pilots and aircraft that deliver them.

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

#572

Post by Aunche »

greedo wrote: post #392
Aunche wrote: post #287

Is there any benefit for a multi-role fighter to have stealth? It seems like any applications where stealth is important, you might as well have a specialized air-superiority fighter.

Every aircraft can benefit from stealth. Stealth helps to protect you not just from other fighters, but from SAMs etc.

That's a good point about the usefulness of stealth in general, but I don't think that applies for multi-role fighters. From what I understand, the main benefit of multi-role fighters is one of cost. You don't need to pay for a bunch of specialized planes during peacetime. The trade off is that they're not particularly great at anything, but that doesn't matter when your enemy is much weaker than you. In the F-35's case, stealth completely cancels out any cost-benefit of being multi-role.

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

#573

Post by jodrellblank »

mountainb wrote: post #257
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #250

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.

You ever fly over a mountain? It saves a lot of time.

Top Gear did a race from Italy to the UK. Clarkson driving a Bugatti Veyron, Hammond and May flying in a Cessna 182. They couldn't fly over the mountains, and May wasn't qualified to fly at night. It didn't save a lot of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoK4QYwixDc

Not sure which bits you could cut with a flying car - the safety checks, air traffic control involvement, runways, refuelling stop, qualifications/licenses, but it would have to be a lot to make a large difference.

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

#574

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

johnzim wrote: post #442
sandworm101 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> The US subsidizes military costs for all of our allies. Speaking as one of those allies... not really. Often times US allies spend money they really don't want to in order to keep the US happy. Canada and the UK probably wouldn't have invaded Afghanistan if not for their obligations as US allies. That certainly wasn't cheap. Canada is soon to replace its fighter fleet. Will it buy to cheaper Saab Grippen? Or will…

This argument would be more persuasive if more countries actually met their recommended NATO spend. In reality it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Take for instance Germany. The federal republic increased their spend to $63.8b last year but that's still a shortfall of ~$27b relative to what a 2% spend would be. Aggressive estimates (above official estimates) of the UK's (a similar sized ally) spending on Afghanistan in 2…

And that argument would be more persuasive if so much NATO spend wasn't funnelled back to the US in both direct and indirect ways.

The UK has Trident and was supposed to be buying F-35s. A number of UK military and civilian aerospace projects were either cancelled (various examples) or crippled commercially (Concorde) because of US interference.

The Afghanistan and Iraq misadventures are still causing significant political costs across Europe. Meanwhile the US has failed to protect the EU against some obvious and immediate threats, including political interference. (Although to be fair it hasn't even protected itself - which is a different problem.)

In any case - the US really isn't a credible victim of exploitation in any of this.

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

#575

Post by throwanem »

015a wrote: post #568
throwanem wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick because I used to live there: the Memphis Pyramid, aside from being a miserable goddamned eyesore, is actually an arena. I think if anything that would make it more legible to a lot of ancient cultures, which also took sport seriously and invested heavily in their own venues for it. Bass Pro Shops just pays upkeep to put their logo on it, just like with every other stadium in the country - Camden Yards here i…

I believe the Memphis Pyramid used to be a basketball arena, but that was shut down a few years back, and now it just serves as a Bass Pro Shop storefront.

Oh wow, OK. Wikipedia:

> In 2015, the Pyramid re-opened as a Bass Pro Shops "megastore", which includes shopping, a hotel, restaurants, a bowling alley, and an archery range, with an outdoor observation deck adjacent to its apex.

I was going to make a Laser Moon joke [1], but then I read further down in the same article and saw that the Pyramid does in fact now also have laser tag, and I just don't know how to top that.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu9dUG3_KNA

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

#576

Post by mathgorges »

qzw wrote: post #271

Is it better for the prospect of peace if the U.S. and its adversaries all have large fleets of cheap warplanes or small fleets of expensive ones? I would argue that the F-35 is not only very expensive for the U.S., but has actually increased the cost of fielding fighter jets (as well as air defense systems) for the entire world. And therefore it has made it more expensive to fight a war for every country. Now ask yo…

This is an interesting point, but I'm not sure I follow.

I get how the F-35 has raised the cost of air war for the NATO countries which have bought into the F-35 program.

But how has the F-35 program raised the cost of air war for other countries?

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

#578

Post by jeffreyrogers »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #509
centimeter wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you blame Thiel for bureaucratic bloat in the US government? NASA, the canonical example of a formerly productive organization becoming hopelessly turgid, was dysfunctional by the time he was a teenager.

Thiel believes that rent seeking monopolies are desirable and necessary to enable innovation. He's plainly wrong about that as a mater of economic science. Lockhead's use of regulatory capture to extract as much money as possible is directly in line with how Thiel thinks business should be done.

I don't think Thiel thinks this. I think Thiel's argument about monopolies is that good businesses act like monopolies because they have no competition, i.e. it's better to be Tesla[0] than to be starting a fast food franchise. I don't agree with Thiel on this, I think you're more likely to get rich in an area where there is already demand, but Thiel is more focused on people that pioneer new industries.

[0]: Yeah, I know there are other EV manufacturers, Tesla is really not competing with them at this stage and never really was.

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

#579

Post by toddh »

newsclues wrote: post #428
toddh wrote: post #12

The time of planes has ended and the time of drones has begun it has.

The horse and the automobile were used in two world wars last century.

And how did the work out for the british in WWI? They could have invested in tanks and used the Blitzkrieg one war early, but the officers loved their horses. Using horses was not a sign of health, it was sign of backward thinking and nearly cost them everything.

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

#580

Post by jboog »

paganel wrote: post #523
jboog wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~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 Ir…

I'm talking about the conventional fight.

Once you get into nukes it's another ballgame.

How does the F35 or its cool successor prevent MAD?

Iraq and Afgh were counterinsurgency fights. Any China or Russian fight will not be the same.

And the US absolutely crushed the Iraqi military within a matter of days in both Desert Storm and OIF. The problem was the "nation building" COIN fight.

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