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

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

#301

Post by Thoeu388 » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 10:00 PM UTC

luuurker wrote: post #294

Thoeu388 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different stealth airplanes. Some documentaries that celebrate Raptor and F35 as technical marvel (highly complex). I have not really observed any maintenance difference or break throughout between F22 and F35. And nobody really provided any solid numbers. If numbers are good, it would be easy to prove. There is a lawsuit going in Switzerland. Swiss do not believe official maintenance cost. Other countries (Japan and…

So you don't have any evidence (solid or otherwise) that backs up your claim about the F-35 requiring a "complete overhaul" after each flight. Do we even know where the maintenance costs go to? I also fail to see how the Russians are in a better position to build a stealth plane (cheaply or otherwise) when historically they've always been behind the US in that regard. Anyway, opinions aside, big claims should be back…

Here is the quote you want:

For this reason, the aircraft exterior coating, panels, seams, are inspected after each flight, to look for anything that might affect the jet's stealthiness, identifying any damage or scratches. Removing sand particles and dirt that settle on the aircraft surfaces and may turn into abrasions of the coating.

https://www.businessinsider.com/israeli-airmen-explain-the-c...

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

#302

Post by smcl » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 10:40 PM UTC

Pixie_Dust wrote: post #295

7952 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western agression (if you want to put it like that) does not justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nor would it reduce the threat Russia poses. Surely it would increase it!

> Western agression (if you want to put it like that) does not justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nor would it reduce the threat Russia poses. Surely it would increase it! How many times has Russia invaded western Europe? How many times has Europe launched an invasion of Russia (3).

Ahhh very carefully worded indeed. I know you desperately wanted to refer to NATO, but that would mean conceding that "Russia" (since you're conflating the USSR and Russia, and assuming modern day borders) had invaded Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary after WW2. All three countries who leapt at the chance to join a pact which meant they wouldn't meet the same fate again, as did Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland who had also been subjugated by Russia in some form in the past

I mean if you really want to keep score we can continue, and we can explore what happened to some former USSR or Russian Empire countries who didn't join NATO (Belarus being the last dictatorship in Europe and under Putin's thumb, Georgia/Russia wars, Ukraine and the very war we are discussing right now), but I don't think it ends well for your argument...

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

#303

Post by sklargh » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:02 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #269

mlinksva wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm inclined to agree, but am almost totally ignorant, would enjoy pointers to/reading critical takes on the role of dispersal. The reason I'm inclined to agree is that war is a worst case scenario, and very uncertain (bottom of worst could fall quickly) so it seems odd to prepare to fight war under ideal (large intact airfields) rather than very ugly circumstances. Perhaps the cost efficiency in peacetime of central…

Maintenance and munitions. The F-35 needs 9 ground labor hours per flight hour. It's cheap and easy to add a flight apron next to a straight section of highway, but if you only have one maintenance depot then knocking that out will ground your entire fleet. Setting up redundant hangars and staffing them with trained aircraft mechanics is way, way more expensive than just pouring some extra concrete. Stocking them wit…

The perimeter security element is often overlooked. You’ve got a lot more very valuable assets to secure. In the European (particularly Nordic ) scenario it’s really not implausible that special operations teams could be dispatched to hunt dispersed aircraft on the ground. In addition, it’s a much wider area to offer short range air defense of.

I believe the targeting problem created by dispersal outweighs these downsides, but they’re real and have to be mitigated. That costs time, money and people.

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

#304

Post by luuurker » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:05 PM UTC

Thoeu388 wrote: post #298

luuurker wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't have any evidence (solid or otherwise) that backs up your claim about the F-35 requiring a "complete overhaul" after each flight. Do we even know where the maintenance costs go to? I also fail to see how the Russians are in a better position to build a stealth plane (cheaply or otherwise) when historically they've always been behind the US in that regard. Anyway, opinions aside, big claims should be back…

I wrote "extensive overhaul". I guess better wording would be "extensive inspection and coating overhaul". Far from "quick refuel/arm and launch" original post wrote. F-35 has internal bomb bays, and those have to be opened and closed to add bombs. Those have to be resealed to maintain stealth. It has polymer based coating, how that stuff survives transsonic speeds with friction and heat? F-22 maintenance cost was qu…

While attempting to quote your post, I ended up quoting your quote of another comment, hence the "complete overhaul", not "extensive overhaul". My bad.

You're doing a lot of guesswork to reach your conclusions. You have no idea which parts of the F-22 are more fragile and require frequent changes or if the F-35 uses the same materials as the F-22. You're assuming that flaws from the F-22 haven't been fixed for the F-35. We have no idea if there's a problem with the F-35's internal bays, but you assume they need fixing before flying again. And to use your example, I'm not sure if spraying some foam can be consider "extensive overhaul".

You have conjecture, but no evidence, which is a problem as we can reach many conclusions that way. The maintenance costs for example... where you see evidence of a flawed plane, someone else sees evidence of corruption. Everyone's guessing and guessing isn't enough to change my mind.

Regarding Russia's capabilities, historically every country has been better at certain things. The Soviet Union created good SAMs and radars, but they've never been known for having the best computer chips or best stealth. It has nothing to do with feature creep, it's just that some are better than others at some things.

Military forums do a lot of guessing and assuming, which can make it a good echo chamber. Even people in the military have no idea what's being worked on at Skunk Works or the Chinese or Russian equivalent.

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

#305

Post by luuurker » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:13 PM UTC

Thoeu388 wrote: post #301

luuurker wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't have any evidence (solid or otherwise) that backs up your claim about the F-35 requiring a "complete overhaul" after each flight. Do we even know where the maintenance costs go to? I also fail to see how the Russians are in a better position to build a stealth plane (cheaply or otherwise) when historically they've always been behind the US in that regard. Anyway, opinions aside, big claims should be back…

Here is the quote you want: For this reason, the aircraft exterior coating, panels, seams, are inspected after each flight, to look for anything that might affect the jet's stealthiness, identifying any damage or scratches. Removing sand particles and dirt that settle on the aircraft surfaces and may turn into abrasions of the coating. https://www.businessinsider.com/israeli-airmen-explain-the-c...

So you have to inspect the plane to make sure that stealth isn't compromised. How long does an inspection take? How often do they have to fix scratches?

The only long maintenance mentioned there is the washing of the plane every 3 months. It takes them 2 days by hand (even though some do it with a machine?) and this is mostly to maintain stealth.

Maybe I have a different definition of what "extensive" means, but this doesn't sound like "extensive overhaul after every flight".

I'll leave the discussion after this comment. We're just guessing here and going nowhere.

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

#306

Post by hajile » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:23 PM UTC

mcpackieh wrote: post #296

hajile wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switchblade is in Ukraine, but has performed quite badly. A new design is needed IMO.

Not a rhetorical question: Has the switchblade performed poorly because the design is inadequate, or has it performed poorly because the it's not suited for Ukraine's situation? If Ukraine had a supply of Lancet clones, would they be performing well for Ukraine?

Switchblade 300 is basically an expensive shotgun shell designed to avoid collateral damage. It was made for special forces to take out very specific threats. Ukraine has been doing much better with commercial drones dropping grenades into trenches.

Lancet-3 is a disposable 12kg drone made pretty cheaply. The Switchblade 600 is 55kg and pretty expensive (not to mention the massive difference between hauling around 26lbs vs 120lbs).

A Switchblade 400/500 with a lower weight could hit that sweet spot too, but I don't think it was ever designed. My guess is that we'll see it and some other solutions in the near future.

If Ukraine had a Lancet-style drone, I believe it could make a massive difference taking out stuff far behind the lines pressuring Russian artillery and tanks.

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

#307

Post by luuurker » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:27 PM UTC

NikkiA wrote: post #286

ummonk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no phenomenon that causes the F-35 to magically lose its stealth coating at the end of exactly one flight. You can obviously delay maintenance for a few flights just fine.

I'm not so sure, the US at one point did talk about how if the F35 wasn't kept in climate controlled hangars then its stealth abilities would be negated rapidly.

Has that ever been confirmed? Because some variants operate from carriers and I'd be surprised if they have special hangars inside.

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

#308

Post by mrguyorama » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:35 PM UTC

mcpackieh wrote: post #285

mrguyorama wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lancets are winning the war. This is a laughable claim. Lancets are awesome weapons, cost effective, accurate, and productive. But they cannot win the war on their own in any sense. They require certain intelligence to use effectively, intelligence that Russia is getting less of than Ukraine through NATO. More artillery is being destroyed by other artillery than Lancets. They just aren't made in the quantity that 15…

FFS... you're getting confused by koube's botched formatting and making the same formatting mistake at the same time! He put the claims that don't pass his sniff test on the same line as his skeptical remarks about those claims, without any formatting to differentiate the two. > "- Lancets are winning the war. Who is winning the war is debatable but usually I hear that artillery is the decisive weapon of this war. Ad…

I think what confused me was that I didn't see anyone actually making those assertions, so I assumed they were doing so.

Ooof

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

#309

Post by hajile » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:51 PM UTC

koube wrote: post #291

hajile wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lancet is so powerful in this war that I'd be shocked if we aren't currently working on our own version as fast as we can. CAS is critical to advances. It is somewhat stopped by MANPADS, but stopped very hard by SAMs. When flying close to the trees, physics make it so that a SAM radar can't detect a plane until they are within 5-8 miles. This means intercepting a plane or helicopter attacking the front lines (launchi…

Counter battery radar + $50k gmlrs with better range and better time on target and 182k tungsten balls seems more like a winning plan than a spotting drone and $35k drone that flies slowly, has limited range, is vulnerable to to EW, and needs to hit the target directly. You have made a lot of points why the lancets MIGHT be very good, and certainly it's one of the most effective weapons on the Russian side today. How…

I've seen quite a few videos of Lancet drones taking out counter-battery radars. There are issues there (a Russian general got in big trouble for speaking out about this), but it is largely overstated.

HIMARS are basically identical in capabilities to the Russian Tornado S MLRS (which is actually a little newer than HIMARS). Turn off the GPS and the accuracy is worse than artillery.

Lancets don't generally run into EW issues because if there is EW in the area, the spotter drone is affected.

Losses are a very subjective thing and if you look through Oryx yourself, you'll see some interesting repetition. I'll leave that there.

I've watched almost every video Perun has made, but he's not always right.

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

#310

Post by koube » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:53 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #308

mcpackieh wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FFS... you're getting confused by koube's botched formatting and making the same formatting mistake at the same time! He put the claims that don't pass his sniff test on the same line as his skeptical remarks about those claims, without any formatting to differentiate the two. > "- Lancets are winning the war. Who is winning the war is debatable but usually I hear that artillery is the decisive weapon of this war. Ad…

I think what confused me was that I didn't see anyone actually making those assertions, so I assumed they were doing so. Ooof

The thread now is very different from the thread at midnight when there was low comment volume. This[0] was the only top level comment and there wasn't much pushback, like one person disagreeing.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36736090