Someone trying to short Northrop? I see them flying over my house all the time
The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
851–860 of 1001 posts
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#852The 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…
F-35 is far from excellent and it had many engineering problems like massive software problems, fire hazards, structural weakness, engine problems, heating, high noise, low range, etc.
It failed to replace existing fleet of fighters, like the F-16, and on ground support, like the A10. That is not excellence.
All of the engineering problems of the F-35 have been well known from the early days of the project, I know because I have studied closely ever since Norway decided to buy it. But the massive propaganda from the weapons industry has clouded this debate from the start.
F-35 is a huge fiasco on multiple levels - policy, contracting, diplomacy, engineering, warfare, etc
Reason why it is even bigger failure than the F-22 is that the US decided to sell the F-35 overseas. This exposed the project to more scrutiny and increased the stakes. Can’t be hidden away like the embarrassing F-22.
If US decide to build a new fighter aircraft I predict it will be a failure too.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#853Putting aside the good-plane/bad-plane discussion, this program is the poster child for one of my pet wishes: that the costs of government programs would be expressed in $/tax-payer. There are about 100M tax payers in the US; this program is expected to cost about $1,500,000M; so the F35 program is expected to cost about $15,000 per tax payer. True: that's over 50 years; still, un-discounted, that's $300/year/tax-pay…
but why in the world does it need to cost that much? what's wrong with just using the jets we already have. I mean we have like a gazillion of those things. what percentage of the military/armed forces is currently being used or has been used over the last 10 years. I'm guessing it's a very small percentage.
Restarting production, long after all the workers have been laid off and moved to other cities, would take decades. If those workers don't keep working, the capability is lost. The timeframe for recovery makes this dangerous.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#854I would guess that the NGAD prototype[0] has given USAF leadership confidence to publicly alude to F-35 shortcomings. [0] https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a34030586...
Well, if USAF want a "cheaper 5th minus" fighter, the NGAD is going almost the opposite direction.
USAF has a history of choosing fast and good from fast, good, and cheap.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#855The 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…
>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? You think that's bad? In Canada my government funded the F-35 program but we're not buying any F-35 jets. Spending a bit less than $1 billion for nothing.
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Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#856Putting aside the good-plane/bad-plane discussion, this program is the poster child for one of my pet wishes: that the costs of government programs would be expressed in $/tax-payer. There are about 100M tax payers in the US; this program is expected to cost about $1,500,000M; so the F35 program is expected to cost about $15,000 per tax payer. True: that's over 50 years; still, un-discounted, that's $300/year/tax-pay…
> The Covid bailout last year was about $60,000 per tax payer ( https://www.covidmoneytracker.org/ ). How much of your $60,000 did you see? My stonks went up by way more than $60k (that figure is completely wrong and inflated anyway), so I saw plenty of it. I'm sorry, were you fishing for a different answer?
your stonks liquidity is dependent on constant injection, so your "making" more than $60k may be temporary
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#857Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll pay $300/year for global security any day of the week. Honestly, I don't give a shit if it costs $10,000/year, I want the U.S. being the global police because I am most comfortable with the status quo. Simple as that.
As a hardcore leftist, even I have to admit there are benefits of neoliberal policy to a strong internationally present military that at least pretends to uphold human rights and has a bunch of other countries that also pretend the same. It’s better than the alternative.
The alternative being... the same invasion of sovereign nations to keep the industry-military complex going, just without the pretense of caring for human rights?
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#858Fifteen years after the F-35’s first flight, the Air Force has just 250 of the jets.
This approach is very typical of the UK MoD as well. Buy fewer than planned of an item to "save money" without understanding that the R&D cost is the same and will be spread over however many of them you buy. Then fatigue them to death because they are too few to meet the commitment, driving up maintenance costs and bringing forwards the date at which they will need to be replaced. Rinse and repeat.
The UK looks to be cutting its order from 138 to 48 F35s, but who knows what will be in next month's defence review...
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#859Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always wished for (and wanted to develop) a calculator which would take in your taxes paid, and calculate exactly how many dollars and cents of your tax bill went to which programs. I'm sure the results would shock most Americans.
Here in Australia, after my tax return is lodged, I receive an income tax receipt with a breakdown of where my tax dollars went. It's only broken down by category though (e.g. Health, Defence, Education), except for Welfare, which has subcategories (e.g. Aged, Disability, etc). There's an example and further explanation here on the ATO website: https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Lodging-your-tax-return/I... There's a…
There's a certain sense of satisfaction in being able to see in slightly more real terms what my tax is being spent on.
But it's misleading, perhaps deliberately so. The money is not being spent on "Health" but on the "Health department". What percentage of that money actually delivers health, and what merely funds the bureaucracy?
Here in the UK only about a third of defence spending goes on the armed forces themselves. Another third goes on service pensions, which is fine, but running the MoD itself is a full third of the budget! It wouldn’t surprise me if the same was true of the NHS.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#860Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll pay $300/year for global security any day of the week. Honestly, I don't give a shit if it costs $10,000/year, I want the U.S. being the global police because I am most comfortable with the status quo. Simple as that.
As a hardcore leftist, even I have to admit there are benefits of neoliberal policy to a strong internationally present military that at least pretends to uphold human rights and has a bunch of other countries that also pretend the same. It’s better than the alternative.
I think the war in Yemen is a good case study of the downsides of the US as global police. It is a war that was only possible through the US and UK supplying arms, and was prosecuted by a nation that doesn't even pretend to uphold human rights.
This is also pretty typical - while many western nations 'care' about human rights, they don't see any problem with arming client regimes who are often gratuitously sadistic, genocidal, etc.
I'm also not sure where human rights come into the picture when you consider the various US wars in the last century. All of them (especially the Korean war) were extremely brutal to civilian populations, and the prosecution of all of them (except maybe the 1990 gulf war?) skirted very close to the line on war crimes, or crossed that line entirely. I don't think there was even lip service paid to human rights in this period.