British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways • Hacker News Board

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#201

Post by jacobr1 » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 3:49 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #180

kunwon1 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are airports supposed to be profitable, or are they there to provide a service? Should airports that are not profitable be shut down? Does the public good factor into that decision? Sorry for offtopic, but I (evidently) got triggered by the inclusion of the word 'unprofitable' in your reply

I can see the value in operating airports at a loss in truly remote areas. sometimes it's the only way to maintain connectivity to the rest of the world. for example there are communities in alaska that are literally not connected to the contiguous US by road or train. but otherwise yes? I don't think airports like IAD should run at a loss. they are very expensive to operate and primarily serve commercial airlines. t…

> should absolutely offset that, and if they don't, the airport should be closed.

Or restructured to be profitable. IAD is a good example of where there is clearly enough demand and example of similar scale airports being run effectively. So if they are running at big losses (no idea, not something I've researched) then that to me implies bad management (or poor political constraints) rather a fundamental business model problem.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#202

Post by hajile » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 3:50 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #77

tudorw wrote: post #30

Would this make highways a legitimate military target?

This is in the context of fighting Russia, and current events demonstrate that the legitimacy of a target is moot. But of course highways, infrastructure, is a relevant thing to destroy in war.

Do you have any evidence to back this up?

Look at Civilian vs Soldier dead for various major wars.

Only ONE war has WAY more soldiers killed than civilians. If Russia is trying to target Ukrainians, they are doing a worse job than any war you can name.

                 Civilians  Soldiers
    WW1              10M         7M
    WW2           50-55M     21-25M
    Korea           2.7M       0.8M
    Vietnam         2.5M       1.1M
    Kosovo          1-5K     0.5-1K
    Afghanistan     500K[1]    100K
    Iraq            135K[2]     40K
 
    Ukraine[3]        9K    65-250K

[1] I don't trust US numbers in Afghanistan. There are prominent cases like the US claiming 25 casualties in a village when there was video evidence of many more bodies not mentioning all the bodies vaporized by the bomb.

[2] Another definite lie. Studies done in 2004 and 2006 published in Lancet showed around 1M excess deaths of which almost all were directly attributable to the war and at least 31% were directly attributable to US forces. Who knows how many people died in all the conflicts that followed in the next 15 years. The US officially rejects these studies as flawed, but the British MoD considered it to be robust and adhering to best practices. Further, it used the same methodology and team the US considered to be stellar when doing the exact same thing the exact same way in the Congo.

[3] From the Ukrainian MoD and/or Ukraine-leaning groups, so the likely bias is to overstate Civilian deaths, overstate Russian KIA, and understate Ukrainian KIA.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#203

Post by MiscCompFacts » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 3:55 PM UTC

chipsa wrote: post #53

Thoeu388 wrote: post #37

Highway landing and take-off on its own is useless. F35 requires extensive machinery to maintain, in needs proper airport and hangars. It is not possible to operate it somewhere from forest! And vertical landing/takeoff can not support any load, it can not even be fully fuelled! In Czechia we are replacing Gripens that can operate from almost anywhere. It only needs a few hundred meters of road, and single truck to r…

It's vertical landing, not vertical take off. It's still a short rolling take off. I actually wouldn't be suprised to find they do a short rolling landing too (rather than go full hover, use the lift fan to allow them to land at lower than normal stall speed would be). They've tested the rolling landing on board the HMS QE And yes, for full maintenance, you do need need a proper airport and hangars. But for a quick r…

Here’s a video showing STOVL(Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing): https://youtu.be/hO5mZxaiyUQ. The distance it needs to take off is incredibly short, should work on any short straight road with enough clearance on both sides. It does need to come slow crawl engage STOVL landing.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#204

Post by KeplerBoy » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 3:56 PM UTC

Thoeu388 wrote: post #161

KeplerBoy wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling the L39 a jet fighter is a bit of a stretch. It's a trainer that can be armed and used to intercept general aviation aircraft.

If F35 gets grounded again for some software error, or virtual helmet reality problem, that will be our only air defense :(

At least you guys have a backup. If the Eurofighter gets grounded Austria has no airforce, because we retired the Saab 105 without buying L39s or Grippens as replacement.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#205

Post by dahfizz » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 3:57 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #194

hajile wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If they add enough value to justify their existence, shouldn't they also turn a profit? In all other cases, you are just taxing people who don't benefit from those airports to subsidize the few people who do benefit.

No. Service to society is not always a money maker. Value does not imply profit. Now, not every unprofitable service is worthy of government funding.

What is an example of a service which provides a lot of value but is not/ could not be profitable?

There are public services we choose to run at a loss, like the postal service or public transit. These services definitely could raise their prices in order to turn a profit (they provide enough value that people would still pay the higher prices). We choose to run them at a loss as a sort of wealth redistribution program, where the taxes from the rich subsidize the cost of these services for the poor.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#206

Post by hajile » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 3:57 PM UTC

adolfojp wrote: post #100

fmajid wrote: post #66

Parking lots would make more sense than highways.

They're STOVL airplanes. Short Take Off Vertical Landing. They can only take off vertically on exhibitions, when they're carrying no weapons and little fuel. For normal operations they need a short runway.

I believe they also have a VTOL capacity of about 5,000lbs (vs 2,500lbs for the Harrier). The second you switch it to STOVL though, that capacity increases dramatically, so there's generally not going to be a reason to attempt VTOL in combat.

Off-topic, but the F-35 VTOL design is amusing to me in that it was designed by Russia, but they never made more than a prototype and sold the tech to the US where we've now used it to make planes to take on Russia.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#207

Post by heavenlyblue » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:00 PM UTC

D_Alex wrote: post #198

fsloth wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modded down for a good reason. 1. The client states weren't client states. They were de-facto annexed polities with centuries of distinct characteristics. After Soviet Union fell these countries could resume their legitimate existence. 2. Russia has always been an imperialistic, genocidal and brutal country, incapable of creating anything of lasting value. A country on the Russia's border has no reason to be categori…

>Russia has always been an imperialistic, genocidal and brutal country, incapable of creating anything of lasting value. Wow dude, that is quite deranged. >Unless Estonia was in NATO, Russian armors might very well be now in Tallinn. Russia borders 14 countries, and I don't think it fought with any except over the issue of NATO membership.

In 2008 Russia attacked Georgia

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#208

Post by mcpackieh » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:05 PM UTC

dotnet00 wrote: post #122

KingOfCoders wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what a lot of countries, like Germany (German here), for a lesson, is that your current stock of weapons is most useful in the beginning of a conflict as the conflict rapidly changes weapon development and your weapon will need heavy upgrades or they are no longer useful. All western weapons get less useful by the minute.

I don't see how you're reaching that conclusion from Ukraine. What Ukraine has shown is that war is mostly unchanged, you're still mostly just digging trenches and firing artillery at each other. Sure there are lots of drones, but that's mainly to make up for both side's lack of guided weapons and sufficient air power to establish air supremacy. Neither of which is an issue for NATO. The situation in Ukraine has only…

> What Ukraine has shown is that war is mostly unchanged, you're still mostly just digging trenches and firing artillery at each other.

This is what wars turn into when both sides are roughly matched on the battlefield, and/or aren't particularly good at war (lacking the competency or equipment for maneuver warfare.) The Iran-Iraq War turned into this same sort of trench warfare during the 80s, but when America went to war against Iraq in the 91 they bulldozed Iraq's trenches and buried thousands of Iraqi soldiers, breaking through or bypassing the Iraqi fortifications in mere hours.

I hope we don't get to find out, but I think a war between NATO and Russia would go a lot differently than the war between NATO-backed Ukraine and Russia.

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#209

Post by wonderwonder » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:07 PM UTC

I still have no idea what to expect from the F35. I'm not someone that knows a lot about fighter aircraft. The F22 was quickly hailed as the pinnacle of what it was designed to do, essentially unmatched today. Then they just stopped making them.

Reviews of the F35 are vague. Israel is buying them but it's essentially getting them for free. So why not? Anyone have a true read on if the F35 is actually a dominant platform?

Re: British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways

#210

Post by mcpackieh » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #16

KingOfCoders wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a wall of RF jamming" When using AI controlled I think the poster meant local AI controlled, no RF. We probably will also see laser communication from satellite to drones, which will be much more difficult to jam.

Having AI kill humans on their own without any supervision is an extremely controversial move. It will result in friendly fire sooner or later, and the resulting controversy is pretty much guaranteed to terminate the program. Laser comms are neat, but they suffer from things like clouds or smokescreens. And once you figure out the wavelength, a hostile laser comms sat can trivially jam it.

Weapons that automatically kill people are prevalent. It may seem trite, but that's exactly what most mines do. Some anti-ship mines are smart enough to distinguish friend from foe using acoustic classification and would be programmed to only kill enemy ships and ignore friendly ships.

Whether or not that constitutes "AI" (pointless discussion since nobody can decide what "AI" truly means even in conversations about state-of-the-art LLMs), it's a weapon autonomously monitoring its environment, classifying targets and killing them without a human in the loop.