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The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 1:10 pm
(This post was last modified: February 16, 2014 at 1:11 pm by Minimalist.)
What a fucking boondoggle this thing is!
http://www.azcentral.com/news/arizona/ar...ck_check=1
Quote:The $392 billion program is seven years behind schedule. The military has not allowed the fleet to fly at full throttle. Or within 25 miles of lightning. Or with weapons.
Simply put, the plane that the military calls its Joint Strike Fighter isn’t cleared to fight — and it’s hundreds of millions of dollars over budget.
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 1:14 pm
I think both the F-22 and the F-35 programs should be cancelled. We could then use the money to fund science education in this country that will educate the next generation of scientists who can actually build a plane that works!
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 1:17 pm
(This post was last modified: February 16, 2014 at 1:17 pm by Alex K.)
But if you cancel the F22 and JSF, what will all the kids on the internet then argue totally pwns the eurofighter and rafale because it's a generation 5 fighter? There are entire blogs filled with this stuff.
But all kidding aside, that's a lot of money... It would have certainly sufficed for a nice manned Mars mission, wouldn't it?
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 1:37 pm
Someone got paid. What's the mystery? 
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 1:38 pm
The F-22 is completely unneeded right now. We don't need air superiority like that as of this moment. Maintaining that fleet is a waste of money for our current needs. The F-15, F-16, and F/A-18E/F/G do that just fine. The Raptor would, however, become invaluable if, say, we entered into a war with China.
The F-35 will make the money back. It replaces all three of these older jets. Single engine (even on the Navy variant) allows maintenance costs to go down. Especially as the engine swap on one of these things takes hours instead of days. It is sad that most of the complications arise from the avionics package, not the plane itself. But there is only so much service life that a military jet can give you until you just can't keep upgrading it. The F-15 debuted in 1972 and is on the E variant (the Japanese have a J variant outfitted by Mitsubishi), the F-16 debuted in 1978 and is on the XL variant (the 5th iteration), and the F/A-18, the baby of the Navy/Marine Corps fleet, hit the fleet in 1983 and is currently on the E/F/G iterations (single seat, two seat, ECM variant respectively.) These planes, like the hardware on your computer, can only take so many software upgrades until you need to replace it.
It is typical of government bureaucracy that this contract has gotten flubbed so bad, but it really is the B variant that is causing the problems. The STOVL (Short take-off, vertical landing) variant that the MArine Corps needs has had serious avionics problems. They are trying the re-invent the wheel (the AV-8B Harrier, which the F-35B will replace, is one of the most difficult, counter-intuitive jets to fly) as far as control goes, and it is causing some major headaches. It will all be worth it in the end, supposing you agree with a need for military air superiority.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 1:57 pm
I think we are quickly reaching the stage where manned aircraft will be obsolete. Period.
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 2:06 pm
Probably so. But then the ethics of eyes-on decision making comes in, and that is an issue no politician wants to deal with.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 2:06 pm
WTF Curtain, you getting a cut out of this deal? The only "worth" here is realized by motherfuckers lining their pockets. 
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 2:20 pm
No cut for me.
I got into the Navy because I wanted to be in the first class of pilots to fly the JSF. Were it not for my scoliosis (that they declined to tell me about until my 2/c flight screen), I would be in the pipeline still.
Being associated with the Navy all my life, and knowing the power of air superiority, I truly believe in the worth of these jets long term. The idea of full size un-manned jets hitting the fleet any time soon is not realistic. (These contracts usually take 15 years from inception to delivery, and that's without creating UAV technology.)
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: The F-35
February 16, 2014 at 2:31 pm
(February 16, 2014 at 1:57 pm)Minimalist Wrote: I think we are quickly reaching the stage where manned aircraft will be obsolete. Period.
I don't really know, but I would think duplicating sitrep in an unmanned drone would be very difficult. Not to mention the Vietnam experience in which we gave up on dogfighting because it was believed that the era was past, only to get our butts kicked when that rosy prediction turned out to be wrong.
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