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F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

defense.gov

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Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#61

Post by h0l0cube »

pjscott wrote: post #24
giraffe_lady wrote: post #9

I love to admire war machines on "hacker" "news" it is such an important part of our site's culture. Technology is always morally neutral, of course, even (or especially?) if it is explicitly designed to cause death and misery.

The US, and the allies to which it exports F-35s, are overwhelmingly a net force for peace in the world. There’s a reason why the phrase “Pax Americana” is so well-known. You can think of these as war machines, since they’re literally machines made for use in war — but you can also think of them as war prevention machines, causing would-be aggressors to think twice before, like, invading Singapore or some such unplea…

While I take your point, it’s interesting to note that the US seems poised to return an isolationist leader back into power, pulling funding from NATO and likely resuming a hostile attitude to China. There are many authoritarian leaders looking at how Ukraine and Israel are progressing and considering making a move of their own. Especially as supply issues and wavering political support for overseas military interventions are telling signs of weakness in Pax Americana to protect the world, with attendant peril for the global economy

Edit: Just in case it wasn’t obvious, this evolving situation is counter to the hypothesis that improving military capability means ‘world peace’, particularly when there is always asymmetry and misalignment between geopolitical forces

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#62

Post by dylan604 »

CobaltFire wrote: post #32
lijok wrote: post #15

Can someone explain what purpose a manned fighter jet serves in the age of UCAV? I understand with the F35 specifically it’s turned into a jobs programme, but why not turn it unmanned?

Part of the design brief for the F-35 is to be a battlefield C&C for drones in the future. So the pilot would be the controlling authority in the battle space for allowing weapons free, etc. No idea if that will come true, but it was absolutely one capability briefed. I'm not a project participant, but I was peripheral both during development and early operational stages .

Why? We already have AWACS that essentially serves as C&C for fighter squadrons.

Although, I could see how it might proceed as you suggest. Allow AWACS to direct squadrons into areas of interest and keep the bigger picture in mind while allowing the squadron level pilots to C&C the drones and focus on the details of which targets to engage. All from a nicely air conditioned "cockpit" from Sunnyvale

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#63

Post by bombcar »

alistairSH wrote: post #12
rgmerk wrote: post #7

The F-35 first flew in late 2006, and they've debugged it enough to get it into full production...17 years later. In the private sector, you'd no longer be able to buy the components it's built out of. Ridiculous.

Military aircraft have production runs they can span many years (F-16 production turns 50 this year).

The B-52 has been operating long enough to have grandkids flying it: https://www.minot.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/264580...

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#64

Post by bombcar »

nicce wrote: post #47
mschuster91 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That long availability is part of why anything aerospace, marine or heavy industry costs an arm and a leg. With dozens of millions of dollars apiece at stake and an expected service time of many decades, the economics make sense.

Wouldn't components get cheaper over the long term? Manufacturing must get better during the years and old tech should not be that secret anymore. 30 years to optimise the manufacturing line to make the same components? What I am missing?

Quantities aren’t high enough.

Which is one of the reasons the military likes using civilian ammo.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#65

Post by samstave »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28
samstave wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Sorry - The article was about it took 17 YEARS to work out all these bugs... So - it reminded me of the thought of the 737max bugs that boeing is plagued with right now... --- I'm really curious to know how much of all these billions we are sending out to all these wars will come back to this project? Also, in a general aviation sense, I think all planes should have a link to their service records. I think that…

> service records should be required to be made public We’re still talking about military aircraft?

EDIT: Sorry - The article was about it took 17 YEARS to work out all these bugs...

So - it reminded me of the thought of the 737max bugs that boeing is plagued with right now...

---

Well, I just looked up every boeing safety event on NTSB since 1970:

https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/ResultsV2.aspx?queryId=d6cc0483-0...

---

But thats for commercial...

Im going to dig into this more and make a separate post in r/aviation..

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#66

Post by decafninja »

nradov wrote: post #55
tragiclos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like victory through attrition. It might be the only modern fighter produced for export in the Western world.

Two different international coalitions are now trying to design 6th-generation fighters that will be available for export, but the earliest they could possibly be available is 2035. So, for at least another decade the F-35 will be the only survivable 5th-generation fighter available for purchase in US-aligned countries. There are still a few other 4th-generation fighters in production, some with modernized systems, b…

China has more than 200+ J-20s and growing. The J-31 is there too, but likely in smaller numbers for carriers?

Your point on how effective they really are or not is on point though. Ukraine has shown a lot of Russian wunderwaffe aircraft performing less than spectacularly.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#67

Post by dylan604 »

ein0p wrote: post #48
pjscott wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US, and the allies to which it exports F-35s, are overwhelmingly a net force for peace in the world. There’s a reason why the phrase “Pax Americana” is so well-known. You can think of these as war machines, since they’re literally machines made for use in war — but you can also think of them as war prevention machines, causing would-be aggressors to think twice before, like, invading Singapore or some such unplea…

>> force for peace The entire Middle East begs to differ.

No, force for peace at home. Not peace in theater. That's irrelevant /s

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#68

Post by dylan604 »

thisgoodlife wrote: post #26
giraffe_lady wrote: post #9

I love to admire war machines on "hacker" "news" it is such an important part of our site's culture. Technology is always morally neutral, of course, even (or especially?) if it is explicitly designed to cause death and misery.

How do you think we won WW2? By praying?

With War Bonds and rationing of certain materials instead of debt financing them through foreign governments.

Sorry, you said won, not pay for. But the point stands. If we were to get into a conflict with China, not sure how the military industrial complex would get funded.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#69

Post by h0l0cube »

thisgoodlife wrote: post #26
giraffe_lady wrote: post #9

I love to admire war machines on "hacker" "news" it is such an important part of our site's culture. Technology is always morally neutral, of course, even (or especially?) if it is explicitly designed to cause death and misery.

How do you think we won WW2? By praying?

You could have picked a better example to counter the OP. It was the ‘war machines’ of ‘death and misery’ that began and enabled a war of such scale, and it was attrition (specifically Russian attrition) of soldiers and arms that brought it to a close.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#70

Post by Retric »

roenxi wrote: post #59
Retric wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s always amazing to consider what people think about the economy vs how it’s actually doing. Japan has a Debt to GDP ratio of 255%, relatively few natural resources, and a rapidly aging population, yet it is still doing reasonably well. America by comparison is in a vastly better position economically.

Japan is also a net creditor [0]. One of the largest. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_p...

Being a net creator means foreign investors are less interested in investing inside your country than your own population is interested in investing outside of it. In many ways it’s advantageous, but also a sign something negative is going on.
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