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Love this! My least favorite part of sci-fi is that the heroes are always buzzing around in some advanced fighter aircraft. Crap, they might as well ride arou

Love this! My least favorite part of sci-fi is that the heroes are always buzzing around in some advanced fighter aircraft. Crap, they might as well ride around on sci-fi horse and joust like knights. The era of the fighter ace is as gone as the age of horse cavalry--it would be great if the Pentagon figured this out before squandering literally $1T (not an exaggeration) on the Joint Strike Fighter.

pavement 9y ago
Okay, so aerial combat in the form of interceptor dog fights is an anachronism. Big deal. It's still worthwhile to develop high-performance piloted airframes, since people are still actors in any conflict, and will need to operate within the theater of combat. Even if primary operations are handled by unmanned systems, redundancy and fallback systems are needed. Not just troop transport from A to B. Well-armed vehicles capable of deploying weapons will still need to be piloted and maintained. Police still use horses. The military will still find utility in piloted warbirds.
- MarkPNeyer 9y ago
  police still use horses, but they don't spend a trillion dollars on a new laserhorse
  - lgas 9y ago
    Is there a petition somewhere I can sign to support the acquisition of a new laserhorse?
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      I don't know of laserhorse. But someone already made a "LaserKlan." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/colbert-laser-klan-viacom_n_4873687.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/colbert-laser-klan-...
  - stouset 9y ago
    Most of that money was spent before drones were considered well-tested and viable. Would you rather we simply throw away the $1tn already spent and start over?
    - davidwihl 9y ago
      I'd rather stop throwing more good money after bad. Why continue investing in a platform that will be obsolete before deployment at scale? Better to invest in a more modern, more flexible platform.
      - stouset 9y ago
        Because it's only obsolete when compared to a hypothetical fleet of drones that don't exist yet and might take another fifteen to twenty years to develop to the same level of effectiveness. You're comparing airframes that are shipping today to a hypothetical drone that doesn't even exist. It's not even a remotely fair comparison.
    - mdekkers 9y ago
      Would you rather we simply throw away the $1tn already spent and start over? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_th... The sunk cost fallacy is in game theory sometimes known as the "Concorde Fallacy",[8] referring to the fact that the British and French governments continued to fund the joint development of Concorde even after it became apparent that there was no longer an economic case for the aircraft. The project was regarded privately by the British government as a "commercial disaster" which should never have been started and was almost cancelled, but political and legal issues had ultimately made it impossible for either government to pull out.
      - stouset 9y ago
        This is not simply a case of the sunk cost fallacy. Stopping the program now would result in a trillion dollars having mostly gone to waste. Most of that money went to the initial development of the program, and a comparatively small amount is now spent on each new airframe. Scrapping it right as the upfront costs begin to pay off as airframes are delivered makes no fiscal sense whatsoever. Operational F-35Bs have been delivered to the military since 2015. F-35As since 2016. Drones capable of fulfilling the roles the F-35 will do not yet exist. You'd be sinking a program where the overwhelming majority of upfront R&D has been paid off in exchange for starting a new program from scratch that may not deliver a drone for another ten, maybe fifteen years. Yes, today we could design and build a new set of aircraft with more modern capabilities. But with your logic, after fifteen years of R&D — just as units begin rolling off the production line — we'd be looking to scrap the program to start anew with whatever advancements those fifteen years in technological advancement might have unlocked. You're comparing a plane that's been in development for twenty years with a hypothetical drone with today's tech that wouldn't be ready for another fifteen to twenty years.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
autokad 9y ago
we are far off from being ready to replace humans, especially against real armies, and before that even happens its likely autonomous flying machines will assist human flown ones. besides, remember when Iran (maybe the Chinese) just took our new drone by hacking it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...
synicalx 9y ago
We can't even make a proper driverless car yet, let alone multi-million dollar killing machine laden with JDAMS and god only knows what else. Maybe we should let the experts decide what sort of war fighting equipment is needed, and stick to our limited area of expertise instead?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

pavement 9y ago

Okay, so aerial combat in the form of interceptor dog fights is an anachronism. Big deal. It's still worthwhile to develop high-performance piloted airframes, since people are still actors in any conflict, and will need to operate within the theater of combat. Even if primary operations are handled by unmanned systems, redundancy and fallback systems are needed. Not just troop transport from A to B. Well-armed vehicles capable of deploying weapons will still need to be piloted and maintained. Police still use horses. The military will still find utility in piloted warbirds.

MarkPNeyer 9y ago
police still use horses, but they don't spend a trillion dollars on a new laserhorse
- lgas 9y ago
  Is there a petition somewhere I can sign to support the acquisition of a new laserhorse?
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    I don't know of laserhorse. But someone already made a "LaserKlan." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/colbert-laser-klan-viacom_n_4873687.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/colbert-laser-klan-...
- stouset 9y ago
  Most of that money was spent before drones were considered well-tested and viable. Would you rather we simply throw away the $1tn already spent and start over?
  - davidwihl 9y ago
    I'd rather stop throwing more good money after bad. Why continue investing in a platform that will be obsolete before deployment at scale? Better to invest in a more modern, more flexible platform.
    - stouset 9y ago
      Because it's only obsolete when compared to a hypothetical fleet of drones that don't exist yet and might take another fifteen to twenty years to develop to the same level of effectiveness. You're comparing airframes that are shipping today to a hypothetical drone that doesn't even exist. It's not even a remotely fair comparison.
  - mdekkers 9y ago
    Would you rather we simply throw away the $1tn already spent and start over? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_th... The sunk cost fallacy is in game theory sometimes known as the "Concorde Fallacy",[8] referring to the fact that the British and French governments continued to fund the joint development of Concorde even after it became apparent that there was no longer an economic case for the aircraft. The project was regarded privately by the British government as a "commercial disaster" which should never have been started and was almost cancelled, but political and legal issues had ultimately made it impossible for either government to pull out.
    - stouset 9y ago
      This is not simply a case of the sunk cost fallacy. Stopping the program now would result in a trillion dollars having mostly gone to waste. Most of that money went to the initial development of the program, and a comparatively small amount is now spent on each new airframe. Scrapping it right as the upfront costs begin to pay off as airframes are delivered makes no fiscal sense whatsoever. Operational F-35Bs have been delivered to the military since 2015. F-35As since 2016. Drones capable of fulfilling the roles the F-35 will do not yet exist. You'd be sinking a program where the overwhelming majority of upfront R&D has been paid off in exchange for starting a new program from scratch that may not deliver a drone for another ten, maybe fifteen years. Yes, today we could design and build a new set of aircraft with more modern capabilities. But with your logic, after fifteen years of R&D — just as units begin rolling off the production line — we'd be looking to scrap the program to start anew with whatever advancements those fifteen years in technological advancement might have unlocked. You're comparing a plane that's been in development for twenty years with a hypothetical drone with today's tech that wouldn't be ready for another fifteen to twenty years.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

autokad 9y ago

we are far off from being ready to replace humans, especially against real armies, and before that even happens its likely autonomous flying machines will assist human flown ones. besides, remember when Iran (maybe the Chinese) just took our new drone by hacking it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...

synicalx 9y ago

We can't even make a proper driverless car yet, let alone multi-million dollar killing machine laden with JDAMS and god only knows what else. Maybe we should let the experts decide what sort of war fighting equipment is needed, and stick to our limited area of expertise instead?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]