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The F-35 program is an amazing thing in 2018 when every war in the last two decades has been mostly about ground insurgents. This, taken with the fact that we'

The F-35 program is an amazing thing in 2018 when every war in the last two decades has been mostly about ground insurgents. This, taken with the fact that we've had massive technological advances when it comes to drone warfare and the F-35 very much looks like a plane from the past, not the future. It would seem to be much wiser to scrap the program and re-focus on drone based solutions but that's going to hurt someone's ego so it's likely the F-35 will continue.

bigdubs 8y ago
I thought control latencies still weren't low enough for drones to compete with human piloted aircraft? Unless the solution is AI.
- colek42 8y ago
  I think the solution may be SpaceX's StarLink
  - lajhsdfkl 8y ago
    You can't rely on satellites in a war against a nuclear power. Satellites will be the first thing to go.
  - Maybestring 8y ago
    If the supposed situation is direct conflict with China or Russia, they both have anti-satellite capabilities.
    - trothamel 8y ago
      Not of this scale, at least at the moment. Starlink will have over 4,400 satellites, in its initially approved form.
    - adventured 8y ago
      Are they going to shoot down thousands of Starlink satellites? That's a massive disaster in space that would destroy their own satellites.
      - Maybestring 8y ago
        >Are they going to shoot down thousands of Starlink satellites? I wouldn't rule it out. >That's a massive disaster in space that would destroy their own satellites. As long as it hurts the US more than it hurts them.
- acdha 8y ago
  There'd also be a question of cost: if a drone could survive close enough to get into missile range, it'd be a question of whether you could buy enough drones to overwhelm the F-35 for less than $100M even if individually a drone is no match. The design left it with relatively limited weapons capacity so it's not going to end well even if it effortlessly kills the first 10 drones but the enemy can afford to send 50 and there aren't human pilots to be concerned about.
lotsofpulp 8y ago
It's money more than ego. It subsidizes so many jobs that any politician who would vote to scrap it would get voted out. Genius move by Lockheed Martin beneficiaries to spread the project out to as many voting districts as possible.
- gruez 8y ago
  article about this tactic: https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/1/30/14382686/jet-fighter-f35-congress-trump https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/1/30/14382686/jet-fighter-f3...
pvarangot 8y ago
Someones ego, and thousands of engineering and manufacture highly specialized jobs that the program currently supports. It's a jobs program for engineers and aerospace mech shops.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  There are certainly more productive jobs they could be doing than making an overpriced war machine.
- patcheudor 8y ago
  You'd think for their own self-worth they'd rather be working on something that makes far more sense.
  - JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
    I'd think the same thing about Facebook employees.
  - ItsMe000001 8y ago
    You cannot blame "politicians" though even though they appear to be the ones in control of the budget. They only do what the population tells them to. The masses are far more willing to tolerate inefficient expensive bloated programs for defense than for civilian programs. Imagine they actually made that huge trillion dollar infrastructure program. A lot of people would rail against the expense, and worse, every single exposed misstep, story of corruption (which we have from the military too of course but that does not lead people to demand a stop to financing the military), and story about inefficiency or waste will create a lot of bad press and pressure on politicians. I must say we have pretty much exactly the situation that the overall compound will of the people wants, unfortunately. If the people could accept the level of incompetence, waste and worse that is pretty much normal for any big enterprise (including what we see in private enterprise or dilbert.com would not be so popular) then the politicians/government could experiment with massively funding something non-military for a change. Each time I hear a story that could be changed by some people who seem to be in control (but I would like to point to the king in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The little Prince") I briefly try to imagine what would happen if they would actually do that. I usually conclude that people with public power (from CEO to politician) don't have nearly as much power or control as seems to be assumed, instead they just go with the flow (they have to!) and the problem is actually caused by all of us. Nobody individually though. There is a certain network dynamic that prevents the individuals from really doing things differently, there always are forces that keep us on our tracks even when individually we see other paths.
sillyquiet 8y ago
The Pentagon long ago learned to program for future wars, not past ones. I am pretty sure the F-35's programmatic justifications were a nod to potential adversaries who were militarily advanced, meaning China.
- patcheudor 8y ago
  Let's say China builds a jet that is as good as the F-35. Given our ability to precision target planes with missiles delivered by drones, what's the point of the F-35? Putting a human in the cockpit of an aircraft for any form of warfare really doesn't feel like thinking about future wars to be honest.
  - greedo 8y ago
    You won't be able to hit targets with missiles delivered by drones in a near-peer conflict. Jamming, GPS spoofing, and the current performance of drones precludes this.
  - mieseratte 8y ago
    > Given our ability to precision target planes with missiles delivered by drones You might be overestimating the quality, reliability, stealth of drones. Up until a few years ago, you could capture (read) drone feeds[0] with COTS software / hardware. I don't mean as a hypothetical, I mean insurgents were doing this. > Putting a human in the cockpit of an aircraft for any form of warfare really doesn't feel like thinking about future wars to be honest. One would assume the tech simply isn't ready for a stealth plane without a human driver. AI surely isn't, and one would assume that transmissions for a remote-based pilot, as drones are operated, would be a giant signal that an advanced stealth craft is in your airspace. [0] - https://www.wired.com/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/ https://www.wired.com/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    > Given our ability to precision target planes with missiles delivered by drones, what's the point of the F-35? The F-35 has a smaller radar cross section than the F-22 which has a smaller radar cross section than the B-2 which has a smaller radar cross section than the F-117. The B-2's radar cross section was described as a bumble bee. If you combine that with ECMs and support for EW like Growlers, the F-35 becomes difficult to shoot down with missiles. During the initial stages of an armed conflict, the first thing you do is go after your opponent's air superiority. That means targeting Radars, SAMs, runways, and Drone stations. This is where the F-35 is suppose to shine. It works in squadrons of 8 or more simultaneously spot, targeting, and engaging multiple targets. How do you counter that? Will an air superiority fighter playing an intercept role to engage and take out the attacking force. That's where the F-22 comes into play. The F-22 is an air superiority fighter that will provide operational support to the F-35 engaging any threats well before they can pose a risk to the F-35.
philjohn 8y ago
Our current adversaries are mostly insurgents - however, if you look forward at dwindling resources and nations doing the unthinkable and waging wars over them, then the F-35 makes more sense. With a complex and lengthy development process you're planning for the war after the next, not the current. That being said, with all the problems the F-35 has, much like the Eurofighter before it, it might be no match for what another advanced economy could produce.
- patcheudor 8y ago
  I'm not sure even in a world where dogfights are still a thing that the F-35 makes any sense. If we are talking the ability to deliver air munitions, again, I just can't see it. What makes an F-35 more special than a drone?
  - philjohn 8y ago
    It's getting to the point of being trivial to jam a drone - and you do that, it's no longer under your control. Harder to jam a human sitting in a plane.
    - patcheudor 8y ago
      Depends on your perspective. If you are running a consumer grade drone over 2.4Ghz, okay. However, it's actually getting impossible to jam military drones because of technologies like direct sequence ultra-wideband (DS-UWB). Further, if directed by satellite, further measures can be taken to block ground based jamming using directional antennas. Finally: AI. We are already at the point where we have weapons that when they lose communications, have their own camera for target identification.
      - greedo 8y ago
        Uh, no. Ask the Iranians who were able to capture an RQ-180 UAV. These sure aren't controlled on the 2.4 spectrum. And today's drones are meat for a manned fighter once they're detected. Clubbing baby seals is one of the terms used... And before someone chimes in about drone fighters, that's a good 20+ years out.
ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
I'd argue the F-35 will help keep it that way. The general idea with spending so much on military is that no country in there right mind will declare serious war on you, as it's impossible to win. The F-35 keeps it that way by furthering the gap with countries with significant airforces (of which there are only really two adversaries, China and Russia).
- Clubber 8y ago
  It depends on the type of war. If it's a guerrilla war, we're not very good at winning those.
scotty79 8y ago
When I saw image of F-35 few years ago with some expected date of finishing the project I thought to myself. Why the hell does this thing have a window or even cockpit at all? It was even before I read this: https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.popsci.com/amp/ai-pilot-beats-air-combat-expert-in-dogfight https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.popsci.com/amp/ai-pilot-beat...
abtinf 8y ago
If we ever face a non-nuclear conflict with a major power, say a sizable proxy war, our drone capabilities will be greatly diminished. Command and control would likely be knocked out with trivial effort through jamming. That leaves two options: maintain a superior fleet of manned aircraft or develop drones with fully autonomous combat capability.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
chiefalchemist 8y ago
We're using a lot of drones. It's just not mainstream news. "Cyber warfare" should be the #1 concern. An F-35 isn't going to prevent the power grid from going down. The F-35 reflects a 20th century mindset. This is very troubling.
- ManFromUranus 8y ago
  Like when the polish tried to stop hitlers blitzkrieg with horse drawn artillery and dragoons and whatnot. Didn't work out for them, I feel like thats what the F-35 is, some kind of flying "maginot line" or soemthing like that. It looks good on paper but is functionally useless for future conflict.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    Seems like the opposite? The F35 is a highly stealthy missile delivery system. If someone brings down the US Power Grid, then the F35 can shoot down air-defenses and prepare a large-scale bombing run. Aside from ICBMs / Nukes, it seems like superiority weapons are the best weapons of war. ---------- Cyber is incredibly important in today's world of spycraft and intelligence. But if war actually starts, then the little cyber toys don't really hold a candle to straight-up killing a bunch of enemies. Now, one might be worried about the philosophy or ethics about building incredibly powerful and expensive weapons of war. But with regards to efficacy? A stealth fighter that is nearly undetectable by enemy radar that is equipped with multiple long-range missiles that can be delivered beyond the horizon is going to be a useful tool.
    - chiefalchemist 8y ago
      The F35 is the biggest aviation joke (read: cluster fuck) since the Spruce Goose. Furthermore, __anyone__ can be a cyber threat. Sure it might take time but the barrier to entry is significantly lower than an F35. Then next UBL isn't training his/her to fly planes; they're looking for them to wear black hats.
      - 8y ago
djsumdog 8y ago
Drones that kill people in weddings and people attending funerals for those people in the weddings .. and kids .. and the insurgents that the CIA created and paid for to destabilize States. The F-35 is really a success in its true intention: for those at the top to funnel money into all the people and companies they need political support from. Those company heads gain support from all the people under them, all the way down to the people working in the factories that span multiple states. Who are the United States real enemies? No one. Russia and the US act like enemies, when both countries benefit in arm sales from their many proxy wars. The US literally has no enemies, except all the enemies it intentionally makes. War machines are essential in keeping people in power, and the money of war machines are essential in keeping supporters allied, by paying for them and their businesses. You're looking at the F-35 the wrong way entirely, and same with drones. The programs exits to preserve superiority, dominance and empire. It provides funding to cronies all the way up and down the military industry stack. Any hope of it being an actual military tool should have been shelved years ago. The United States has 11 air craft carriers in service. That is literally more than every other nation in the world combined. Endless war is necessary to sustain those in power, and be certain those in power in the US have only changed in their percentage of influence depending on the puppet elected to be on stage.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
> The F-35 program is an amazing thing in 2018 when every war in the last two decades has been mostly about ground insurgents. Iraq? (The battle against Hussein, not the occupation afterward.)
trumped 8y ago
Shouldn't it be trivial to convert an existing F-35 to a "drone"? Maybe just a software update should do it? If not, then there is definitely a big problem with the F-35 (not future proof)...

bigdubs 8y ago

I thought control latencies still weren't low enough for drones to compete with human piloted aircraft? Unless the solution is AI.

colek42 8y ago
I think the solution may be SpaceX's StarLink
- lajhsdfkl 8y ago
  You can't rely on satellites in a war against a nuclear power. Satellites will be the first thing to go.
- Maybestring 8y ago
  If the supposed situation is direct conflict with China or Russia, they both have anti-satellite capabilities.
  - trothamel 8y ago
    Not of this scale, at least at the moment. Starlink will have over 4,400 satellites, in its initially approved form.
  - adventured 8y ago
    Are they going to shoot down thousands of Starlink satellites? That's a massive disaster in space that would destroy their own satellites.
    - Maybestring 8y ago
      >Are they going to shoot down thousands of Starlink satellites? I wouldn't rule it out. >That's a massive disaster in space that would destroy their own satellites. As long as it hurts the US more than it hurts them.
acdha 8y ago
There'd also be a question of cost: if a drone could survive close enough to get into missile range, it'd be a question of whether you could buy enough drones to overwhelm the F-35 for less than $100M even if individually a drone is no match. The design left it with relatively limited weapons capacity so it's not going to end well even if it effortlessly kills the first 10 drones but the enemy can afford to send 50 and there aren't human pilots to be concerned about.

lotsofpulp 8y ago

It's money more than ego. It subsidizes so many jobs that any politician who would vote to scrap it would get voted out. Genius move by Lockheed Martin beneficiaries to spread the project out to as many voting districts as possible.

gruez 8y ago
article about this tactic: https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/1/30/14382686/jet-fighter-f35-congress-trump https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/1/30/14382686/jet-fighter-f3...

pvarangot 8y ago

Someones ego, and thousands of engineering and manufacture highly specialized jobs that the program currently supports. It's a jobs program for engineers and aerospace mech shops.

craftyguy 8y ago
There are certainly more productive jobs they could be doing than making an overpriced war machine.
patcheudor 8y ago
You'd think for their own self-worth they'd rather be working on something that makes far more sense.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
  I'd think the same thing about Facebook employees.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  You cannot blame "politicians" though even though they appear to be the ones in control of the budget. They only do what the population tells them to. The masses are far more willing to tolerate inefficient expensive bloated programs for defense than for civilian programs. Imagine they actually made that huge trillion dollar infrastructure program. A lot of people would rail against the expense, and worse, every single exposed misstep, story of corruption (which we have from the military too of course but that does not lead people to demand a stop to financing the military), and story about inefficiency or waste will create a lot of bad press and pressure on politicians. I must say we have pretty much exactly the situation that the overall compound will of the people wants, unfortunately. If the people could accept the level of incompetence, waste and worse that is pretty much normal for any big enterprise (including what we see in private enterprise or dilbert.com would not be so popular) then the politicians/government could experiment with massively funding something non-military for a change. Each time I hear a story that could be changed by some people who seem to be in control (but I would like to point to the king in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The little Prince") I briefly try to imagine what would happen if they would actually do that. I usually conclude that people with public power (from CEO to politician) don't have nearly as much power or control as seems to be assumed, instead they just go with the flow (they have to!) and the problem is actually caused by all of us. Nobody individually though. There is a certain network dynamic that prevents the individuals from really doing things differently, there always are forces that keep us on our tracks even when individually we see other paths.

sillyquiet 8y ago

The Pentagon long ago learned to program for future wars, not past ones. I am pretty sure the F-35's programmatic justifications were a nod to potential adversaries who were militarily advanced, meaning China.

patcheudor 8y ago
Let's say China builds a jet that is as good as the F-35. Given our ability to precision target planes with missiles delivered by drones, what's the point of the F-35? Putting a human in the cockpit of an aircraft for any form of warfare really doesn't feel like thinking about future wars to be honest.
- greedo 8y ago
  You won't be able to hit targets with missiles delivered by drones in a near-peer conflict. Jamming, GPS spoofing, and the current performance of drones precludes this.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  > Given our ability to precision target planes with missiles delivered by drones You might be overestimating the quality, reliability, stealth of drones. Up until a few years ago, you could capture (read) drone feeds[0] with COTS software / hardware. I don't mean as a hypothetical, I mean insurgents were doing this. > Putting a human in the cockpit of an aircraft for any form of warfare really doesn't feel like thinking about future wars to be honest. One would assume the tech simply isn't ready for a stealth plane without a human driver. AI surely isn't, and one would assume that transmissions for a remote-based pilot, as drones are operated, would be a giant signal that an advanced stealth craft is in your airspace. [0] - https://www.wired.com/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/ https://www.wired.com/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/
- cptskippy 8y ago
  > Given our ability to precision target planes with missiles delivered by drones, what's the point of the F-35? The F-35 has a smaller radar cross section than the F-22 which has a smaller radar cross section than the B-2 which has a smaller radar cross section than the F-117. The B-2's radar cross section was described as a bumble bee. If you combine that with ECMs and support for EW like Growlers, the F-35 becomes difficult to shoot down with missiles. During the initial stages of an armed conflict, the first thing you do is go after your opponent's air superiority. That means targeting Radars, SAMs, runways, and Drone stations. This is where the F-35 is suppose to shine. It works in squadrons of 8 or more simultaneously spot, targeting, and engaging multiple targets. How do you counter that? Will an air superiority fighter playing an intercept role to engage and take out the attacking force. That's where the F-22 comes into play. The F-22 is an air superiority fighter that will provide operational support to the F-35 engaging any threats well before they can pose a risk to the F-35.

philjohn 8y ago

Our current adversaries are mostly insurgents - however, if you look forward at dwindling resources and nations doing the unthinkable and waging wars over them, then the F-35 makes more sense. With a complex and lengthy development process you're planning for the war after the next, not the current. That being said, with all the problems the F-35 has, much like the Eurofighter before it, it might be no match for what another advanced economy could produce.

patcheudor 8y ago
I'm not sure even in a world where dogfights are still a thing that the F-35 makes any sense. If we are talking the ability to deliver air munitions, again, I just can't see it. What makes an F-35 more special than a drone?
- philjohn 8y ago
  It's getting to the point of being trivial to jam a drone - and you do that, it's no longer under your control. Harder to jam a human sitting in a plane.
  - patcheudor 8y ago
    Depends on your perspective. If you are running a consumer grade drone over 2.4Ghz, okay. However, it's actually getting impossible to jam military drones because of technologies like direct sequence ultra-wideband (DS-UWB). Further, if directed by satellite, further measures can be taken to block ground based jamming using directional antennas. Finally: AI. We are already at the point where we have weapons that when they lose communications, have their own camera for target identification.
    - greedo 8y ago
      Uh, no. Ask the Iranians who were able to capture an RQ-180 UAV. These sure aren't controlled on the 2.4 spectrum. And today's drones are meat for a manned fighter once they're detected. Clubbing baby seals is one of the terms used... And before someone chimes in about drone fighters, that's a good 20+ years out.

ApolloFortyNine 8y ago

I'd argue the F-35 will help keep it that way. The general idea with spending so much on military is that no country in there right mind will declare serious war on you, as it's impossible to win. The F-35 keeps it that way by furthering the gap with countries with significant airforces (of which there are only really two adversaries, China and Russia).

Clubber 8y ago
It depends on the type of war. If it's a guerrilla war, we're not very good at winning those.

scotty79 8y ago

When I saw image of F-35 few years ago with some expected date of finishing the project I thought to myself. Why the hell does this thing have a window or even cockpit at all? It was even before I read this: https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.popsci.com/amp/ai-pilot-beats-air-combat-expert-in-dogfight https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.popsci.com/amp/ai-pilot-beat...

abtinf 8y ago

If we ever face a non-nuclear conflict with a major power, say a sizable proxy war, our drone capabilities will be greatly diminished. Command and control would likely be knocked out with trivial effort through jamming. That leaves two options: maintain a superior fleet of manned aircraft or develop drones with fully autonomous combat capability.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

chiefalchemist 8y ago

We're using a lot of drones. It's just not mainstream news. "Cyber warfare" should be the #1 concern. An F-35 isn't going to prevent the power grid from going down. The F-35 reflects a 20th century mindset. This is very troubling.

ManFromUranus 8y ago
Like when the polish tried to stop hitlers blitzkrieg with horse drawn artillery and dragoons and whatnot. Didn't work out for them, I feel like thats what the F-35 is, some kind of flying "maginot line" or soemthing like that. It looks good on paper but is functionally useless for future conflict.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  Seems like the opposite? The F35 is a highly stealthy missile delivery system. If someone brings down the US Power Grid, then the F35 can shoot down air-defenses and prepare a large-scale bombing run. Aside from ICBMs / Nukes, it seems like superiority weapons are the best weapons of war. ---------- Cyber is incredibly important in today's world of spycraft and intelligence. But if war actually starts, then the little cyber toys don't really hold a candle to straight-up killing a bunch of enemies. Now, one might be worried about the philosophy or ethics about building incredibly powerful and expensive weapons of war. But with regards to efficacy? A stealth fighter that is nearly undetectable by enemy radar that is equipped with multiple long-range missiles that can be delivered beyond the horizon is going to be a useful tool.
  - chiefalchemist 8y ago
    The F35 is the biggest aviation joke (read: cluster fuck) since the Spruce Goose. Furthermore, __anyone__ can be a cyber threat. Sure it might take time but the barrier to entry is significantly lower than an F35. Then next UBL isn't training his/her to fly planes; they're looking for them to wear black hats.
    - 8y ago

djsumdog 8y ago

Drones that kill people in weddings and people attending funerals for those people in the weddings .. and kids .. and the insurgents that the CIA created and paid for to destabilize States. The F-35 is really a success in its true intention: for those at the top to funnel money into all the people and companies they need political support from. Those company heads gain support from all the people under them, all the way down to the people working in the factories that span multiple states. Who are the United States real enemies? No one. Russia and the US act like enemies, when both countries benefit in arm sales from their many proxy wars. The US literally has no enemies, except all the enemies it intentionally makes. War machines are essential in keeping people in power, and the money of war machines are essential in keeping supporters allied, by paying for them and their businesses. You're looking at the F-35 the wrong way entirely, and same with drones. The programs exits to preserve superiority, dominance and empire. It provides funding to cronies all the way up and down the military industry stack. Any hope of it being an actual military tool should have been shelved years ago. The United States has 11 air craft carriers in service. That is literally more than every other nation in the world combined. Endless war is necessary to sustain those in power, and be certain those in power in the US have only changed in their percentage of influence depending on the puppet elected to be on stage.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

> The F-35 program is an amazing thing in 2018 when every war in the last two decades has been mostly about ground insurgents. Iraq? (The battle against Hussein, not the occupation afterward.)

trumped 8y ago

Shouldn't it be trivial to convert an existing F-35 to a "drone"? Maybe just a software update should do it? If not, then there is definitely a big problem with the F-35 (not future proof)...