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The F-35's $400k helmet

washingtonpost.com

41–50 of 136 posts

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#41
post #15

Lolz! Who does not recognize this article as complete propagandistic advertisement for a project completely over in time and budget that even fails competing with its competitors. Just besides that it's a weapon for killing people. Wake up.

Could you argue it's a weapon for saving people? Over 140 Christian students in Kenya were just massacred. An F-35 taking out the perpetrator's training camps could have save a bunch of innocent lives. One of the worst genocides in history (Rwanda) featured machetes being used to hack millions of people to death. How great would an F-35 been against the Nazis? How many millions of people could have been saved? Weapon…

Seriosly I don't believe in such buls... anymore. Save brave chrisian people. Sorry, but the US has killed and totured so many brave non christian people just for politics and power-- and if you talk about christians - do you remember what a brave christian does when he gets beaten?

this world will not get better as long we don't unite and overcome ancient separation by nation or believe.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#42
post #17

From the article: > a stealthy fighter jet years that is often called a flying computer because of its more than 8 million lines of code For all the critics, all the hate vs drones and leaner fighters and bombers, the F-35 _is_ an impressive engineering feat and a turning point, especially re:software. At some point, a "Snow Leopard" version of the F-35 will turn out as a very fine piece of equipment, only possibly w…

Huh? You can't boot any recent system without running code from software that totals many lines more than a mere 8 million.

That they keep quoting it really just makes me scared for the people working there, their worth measured by the lines they contributed to the behemoth as dictated by people that started in the 70s and never did learn anything new.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#43
post #17

From the article: > a stealthy fighter jet years that is often called a flying computer because of its more than 8 million lines of code For all the critics, all the hate vs drones and leaner fighters and bombers, the F-35 _is_ an impressive engineering feat and a turning point, especially re:software. At some point, a "Snow Leopard" version of the F-35 will turn out as a very fine piece of equipment, only possibly w…

There's nothing they can really say that isn't already made public.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#44
post #38
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T-14 is still not in the army. Probably not even in the mass production yet. No T-90 has been sent to Ukraine. Modernized versions of T-72 is still in wide service with Russian army. Regular Russian army units (at the scale of several "battalion tactical groups", about 2000-3000 soldiers total) were sent to Ukraine in August 2014 - they stopped very successful Ukraine offensive by encircling significant forces near I…

Sources plz. >>Modernized versions of T-72 is still in wide service with Russian army. Oh, that's funny. SKS is in wide service. Along with Mosin-Nagant.

There are many videos of T72-B3s geolocated in DNR region. This model was never exported outside of Russia. One of videos is by pro-russian UK war tourist Graham W Phillips about fights in Debalceve (after ceasefire was agreed).

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#45
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

looking at the low tech - WWII style - war in Ukraine with a lot of civil population and property being hit, intentionally and unintentionally, i'd take high tech any time over it. For example when a full salvo (16) of unguided missiles (from "Uragan" system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-27_Uragan ) with 100Kg cluster warheads rains over the center of large city (Donetsk) ... i wish that US give Ukraine high-precis…

I wish the US go home instead of seeding war anywhere they go. I visited Ukraine last month and one of the best things I saw was that war there was contained and "light" using mostly light weapons. Russia probably has not the tech the US has, but Europe does, and Europe does not need a heavy nuclear war or loosing their main energy supplier(Russia).

EU won't lose Russia as energy source. Russia would do it already if it could, but half of its budget comes from gas and oil sales (huge majority - to EU).

And EU as a whole gets most of energy from outside Russia. It would hurt Russia a lot more than EU.

And nuclear war is right off.

On the other hand behaving like it's 1939 in modern Europe must be punished, or we will get more wars eventually, so Russia brought its own demise on itself, and it drags parts of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and others with it.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#46
post #27
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are probably very few parts on that plane that are cheaper than 400k.

The pilot. I doubt fighter pilots make $400k/year. Maybe they need to ask for a raise...

Pilots have been the most valuable component since WWI. The U.S. recognition of this and emphasis on rescuing downed pilots in the Pacific was a decisive advantage.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#47
post #36
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without such technology, we will be in a world where virtually every able bodied young man will have to serve in the armed forces. Because of such specialized technology and people who dedicate their lives to the craft of warfare, most of our young generation do not have to serve in the military.

Not really. Without such technology, war wouldn't be profitable. Without the profits, there would be no incentive to fight. But as long as we carry the bigger gun, we'll always have an incentive to fight.

"Without such technology, war wouldn't be profitable. Without the profits, there would be no incentive to fight."

This is without a doubt one of the most backwards ignorant things I have ever read online.

It might come as a shock to you, but humans have been killing other humans since the stone age. And, as time has gone on, it's become less and less likely for a person to die violently, at the same time that arms technology has advanced.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#48

> The F-35 Lightning II is one of the most complicated weapons systems ever developed, That is the opening sentence. And I will be surprised if it does not send chills down the spine of any person whose life will somehow depend on that airplane.

Good news for those whose life depends on it's not functioning.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#49
While the technology in this helmet may turn out to be pretty great, I still can't view the project as a whole (The F-35) as more than a failure. It's taken them a lot of time and money to develop a mediocre aircraft, here's Pierre Sprey's opinion on it (Designer of the F-16) "The F-35 was born of an exceptionally dumb piece of airforce PR spin" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#50
post #29

For a defence company Lockheed Martin is actually a surprisingly good* player in the VR/AR community and they always have somewhat sane people at conferences etc. Interestingly they often mentioned fighter pilot helmets as the best state of the art AR technology but when asked about specifics the answer was usually..."classified, sorry" which I always thought was kind of sad. They were quite involved in the Virtual W…

Per the article, the helmet isn't built by Lockheed, it's built by Rockwell Collins.
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