61–70 of 101 posts
Yet despite these problems, the F-35 remains the most commercially successful airframe in the world, with over 670 sold, and 2,500 on order from US-allied countries all over the world. What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?
Let’s not beat around the bush. Protection money
Yet despite these problems, the F-35 remains the most commercially successful airframe in the world, with over 670 sold, and 2,500 on order from US-allied countries all over the world. What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?
The F-35 has never been one of the "most commercially successful airframes". 670 sold is actually a pretty low number, considering its supposedly multi-role capabilities and its rare VTOL feature. The sales pipeline started being agreed when the plane was still a concept, and it's almost exclusively a feature of American foreign policy: the US government worked hard, over almost 40 years, to ensure a significant part…
So, it’s SAP but for national defence
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Besides, it's not invisible despite calling it that. It's visible in the visible spectrum and hearable in the human hearing range We didn't wait Musk to know planes weren't literally invisible or silent lmao, maybe don't take your military analysis from a man child with 0 experience in the domain. They either fly high enough that you neither hear nor see them, or low/fast enough that you're dead long before you're…
Musk can be many bad things, but he is also right in some things. Flying high might make it invisible for human observers but the idea is that it’s not invisible in that wavelength, therefore it must be possible to create devices that can detect it. Also, this is a brand new machine that is still not ready. Just write it off, liquidate any useful work that might have been done on it and go all in drones. What’s the p…
AI might be able to do a dogfight which is great in terms of flight envelope, but completely unnecessary in modern stealth warfare. Despite everything you heard, stealth does work. It isn't perfect but it destroyed Russia's top of the line anti-aircraft missiles in Iran without a problem. The planes are ghosts, by the time you see them it's already too late.
Drones have the advantage of reduced risk to the pilot but since a human sitting at the base will have to deal with signal delay, transmission jamming and low resolution... The difference in having a pilot physically present is huge. AI is unpredictable and unreliable e.g. Iranians were able to fool a US army drone by sending it signals that made it land. Then they took it apart and reverse engineered it.
Elon Musk recently made some remarks about F-35 on Twitter: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1860574377013838033 It's exactly what I was thinking about: Having a pilot onboard is overhead and its a limiting factor for the flight envelope as you have to keep it alive. Besides, it's not invisible despite calling it that. It's visible in the visible spectrum and hearable in the human hearing range, which means that you can…
Sure. It's just that radar lets you see tens or hundreds of miles away, and visual doesn't. And sound lets you hear where something is only at the speed of sound, which is less useful for something that can fly faster than the speed of sound.
So developing a weapons-quality track from visual and sound data is problematic. That means that, while not invisible, it's "invisible enough".
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Sweden sells a really nice NATO-compatible multirole jet.
The Gripen is not a dual-capable aircraft, meaning it isn't certified to carry nuclear weapons. This makes it a tough sell to NATO nations who must align themselves to NATO's strategic goals [0], which call for nations to contribute dual-capable aircraft. Nor is the Gripen independent from US supply chains. It uses the General Electric F414-GE-39E engine. If you're a NATO nation looking for a non-US jet that can sati…
> The Gripen is not a dual-capable aircraft
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The Gripen is not a dual-capable aircraft, meaning it isn't certified to carry nuclear weapons. This makes it a tough sell to NATO nations who must align themselves to NATO's strategic goals [0], which call for nations to contribute dual-capable aircraft. Nor is the Gripen independent from US supply chains. It uses the General Electric F414-GE-39E engine. If you're a NATO nation looking for a non-US jet that can sati…
> The Gripen is not a dual-capable aircraft I did not realize that, thank you. I simply assumed that with the bomber role came the ability to carry a small (<500 pound) tactical nuke. Is this more of a certification issue or an actual hardware issue?
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> What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be? The overwhelming USA sphere of influence over its "allies". I don't really see a NATO member buying new fighter jets from China or Russia instead without that causing a big ruckus.
The US isn't the only NATO member that produces fighter jets. EU members of NATO make the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, and the Saab JAS 39 Gripen.
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Many people underestimate the challenges of working in this environment. The DARPA challenge is like saying that boxing is the same as hand to hand combat. There are many similarities but the first has rules and parameters and the second has none. I find that people in IT tend to arrogantly proclaim things along the lines of, "I've set up a Kubernetes cluster. This can't be any more difficult." but it's more like set…
I've worked with quite a few people who were part of the AI effort, and my current boss was the architect for ACE a few years ago. All of those people were painfully aware of the gap you describe here and were actively working to bridge it.
Yet despite these problems, the F-35 remains the most commercially successful airframe in the world, with over 670 sold, and 2,500 on order from US-allied countries all over the world. What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like UCAVs aren't being developed, though. Piloted aircraft have lower latency and are better for some tasks. If UAVs were ready to replace piloted aircraft in all combat roles, they would have. They have almost completely replaced piloted aircraft in ISR, for example, where they are a great fit (no Gary Powers, no latency issues). The Pentagon doesn't want to lose trained pilots.
Does it justify the expense and the shortcomings though? Horses also have some advantages over tanks, like refueling from the grass on the roadside but they become mostly ceremonial anyway.