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This is from April 1 2017 and much of what was written in this article does not apply any longer. The reason the US does not go 100% into drones is because dron

This is from April 1 2017 and much of what was written in this article does not apply any longer. The reason the US does not go 100% into drones is because drone jamming technology is not something that can easily be countered (the Russians are jamming US drones today in Syria). The most interesting use of the F35 is not as a weapons platform but a sensor platform for sneaking behind enemy lines and picking targets for ship based weapons platforms to attack at distance. The F-35 is definitely not a perfect program but as far as the military and US national security is concerned, not having the first 5th generation fighter would have been a much more significant failure than cost overruns. Beyond actual use in war the purpose of this fighter is to tell other nations that if you want to go war you need to to spend $1.4 trillion dollars and countless years of research to even reach parity.

titzer 9y ago
> much of what was written in this article does not apply any longer Care to elaborate? E.g. did the US govt find $1.7 trillion in the couch cushions, suddenly making the cost a moot point?
- lajhsdfkl 9y ago
  >The F-35 still has a long way to go before it will be ready for combat. That was the parting message of Dr. Michael Gilmore, the now-retired Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, in his last annual report. Some F-35s have already seen combat for one. Yes it's expensive but the per unit cost will be cheaper than already existing jet platforms and we plan to use this one for 50 years.
- adventured 9y ago
  The infamous cost estimate is spread over 60 years, start to finish. That's conveniently, intentionally left out of most articles that highlight the cost. So first of all, the US will never buy 3,000 of the planes. You can easily cut that in half or more. I'd wager on 1,000 or less. They'll end the program and move on to the next thing/s, like they always do. Second, they'll of course never fly for 50 or 60 years. 35-40 from today would be more plausible as an end. Now you're down to more like $800 billion total including the next 40 years. The cost will move higher per plane, the US will buy less planes than projected, and the total outlay will drop substantially as they shift funding to new weapons programs. $20 billion per year for its life, out of what will probably be a $900b to $1t averaged military budget over the F35's life, or ~2%.
titzer 9y ago
> The most interesting use of the F35 is not as a weapons platform but a sensor platform for sneaking behind enemy lines and picking targets for ship based weapons platforms to attack at distance. A $1.7 trillion supersonic, VTOL manned fighter as a remote sensor platform? Yeah, I don't think that's such a bright idea. That's exactly what stealth drones are for.
- lajhsdfkl 9y ago
  I said it was the most interesting use of the F-35 not the only use...
Analemma_ 9y ago
> This is from April 1 2017 and much of what was written in this article does not apply any longer. I've been reading articles about the troubled development of the F-35 since roughly 2008, and there's always a comment like this: "This is outdated! It may have been true last year, but the problems are fixed now." One wonders why the articles keep coming if that's true.
- lajhsdfkl 9y ago
  >One wonders why the articles keep coming if that's true. Because they always manage to receive a ton of clicks? If you look at every new US weapons platform for the past 60 to 70 years there has always been huge amounts of negativity. This is really par for the course. People used to call the F-22 the "Craptor" and I bet if we had the internet in the 50s and 60s that people would be shitting on the Saturn V.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
B.S. Cancel the F-35, do a new procurement round, fly-off, etc. on 3 different platforms (naval, air force, marines use cases: CATOBAR carrier based, land air strip based, VSTOL capable) for 3 different planes. The "F-35" is already substantially 3 different planes, the commonality is comparatively minimal and clearly hasn't resulted in lower unit costs (which was the original justification).
- greedo 9y ago
  And in 20 years, you might have three fighters. By then the F15/16/18s will all be out of airframe life. And if you try to build a stealthy, VSTOL capable fighter bomber for the Marines and the British, you'll end up with, voila! The F-35B... We're stuck with a less than optimal aircraft; but it's still the best we can currently build. And we need to recapitalize Marine aviation as well as provide a stealth aircraft for the Navy and AF. Otherwise there's just too many areas they won't be able to penetrate with the Teen fighters.
  - InclinedPlane 9y ago
    It doesn't take 20 years to design and build a fighter. You put tighter restrictions and timelines on the process and shit will get done faster. Especially since now this sort of technology isn't as bleeding edge as it used to be, and 3 separate fighters are easier to build than one fighter that is magically able to do 3 separate roles with "slight modifications" (which over time slipped into a realm of only 30% commonality between the versions). You go back and look at programs like the F-14, which grew out of the failure of the F-111B program to see how things can be achieved. The F-111B was cancelled in 1968, the F-14 was flying in 1970 and entered service in 1974. Things might be more complicated today but the idea that it takes 20 years to bring an aircraft into service is insanity. SpaceX hasn't even been around for 20 full years and they've already gone from literally square one to building several generations of orbital launch vehicles, pioneering the landing and reuse of first stages, built a space capsule for cargo delivery to the ISS, and is nearing completion on building a manned spacecraft. The way to ensure that it does take 20 years (or infinity) to procure an aircraft is to carefully avoid any consequences for failure to achieve the stated goals of a program in terms of schedule, cost, or capabilities. And we're certainly doing that quite wondrously with the F-35.

titzer 9y ago

> much of what was written in this article does not apply any longer Care to elaborate? E.g. did the US govt find $1.7 trillion in the couch cushions, suddenly making the cost a moot point?

lajhsdfkl 9y ago
>The F-35 still has a long way to go before it will be ready for combat. That was the parting message of Dr. Michael Gilmore, the now-retired Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, in his last annual report. Some F-35s have already seen combat for one. Yes it's expensive but the per unit cost will be cheaper than already existing jet platforms and we plan to use this one for 50 years.
adventured 9y ago
The infamous cost estimate is spread over 60 years, start to finish. That's conveniently, intentionally left out of most articles that highlight the cost. So first of all, the US will never buy 3,000 of the planes. You can easily cut that in half or more. I'd wager on 1,000 or less. They'll end the program and move on to the next thing/s, like they always do. Second, they'll of course never fly for 50 or 60 years. 35-40 from today would be more plausible as an end. Now you're down to more like $800 billion total including the next 40 years. The cost will move higher per plane, the US will buy less planes than projected, and the total outlay will drop substantially as they shift funding to new weapons programs. $20 billion per year for its life, out of what will probably be a $900b to $1t averaged military budget over the F35's life, or ~2%.

titzer 9y ago

> The most interesting use of the F35 is not as a weapons platform but a sensor platform for sneaking behind enemy lines and picking targets for ship based weapons platforms to attack at distance. A $1.7 trillion supersonic, VTOL manned fighter as a remote sensor platform? Yeah, I don't think that's such a bright idea. That's exactly what stealth drones are for.

lajhsdfkl 9y ago
I said it was the most interesting use of the F-35 not the only use...

Analemma_ 9y ago

> This is from April 1 2017 and much of what was written in this article does not apply any longer. I've been reading articles about the troubled development of the F-35 since roughly 2008, and there's always a comment like this: "This is outdated! It may have been true last year, but the problems are fixed now." One wonders why the articles keep coming if that's true.

lajhsdfkl 9y ago
>One wonders why the articles keep coming if that's true. Because they always manage to receive a ton of clicks? If you look at every new US weapons platform for the past 60 to 70 years there has always been huge amounts of negativity. This is really par for the course. People used to call the F-22 the "Craptor" and I bet if we had the internet in the 50s and 60s that people would be shitting on the Saturn V.

InclinedPlane 9y ago

B.S. Cancel the F-35, do a new procurement round, fly-off, etc. on 3 different platforms (naval, air force, marines use cases: CATOBAR carrier based, land air strip based, VSTOL capable) for 3 different planes. The "F-35" is already substantially 3 different planes, the commonality is comparatively minimal and clearly hasn't resulted in lower unit costs (which was the original justification).

greedo 9y ago
And in 20 years, you might have three fighters. By then the F15/16/18s will all be out of airframe life. And if you try to build a stealthy, VSTOL capable fighter bomber for the Marines and the British, you'll end up with, voila! The F-35B... We're stuck with a less than optimal aircraft; but it's still the best we can currently build. And we need to recapitalize Marine aviation as well as provide a stealth aircraft for the Navy and AF. Otherwise there's just too many areas they won't be able to penetrate with the Teen fighters.
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  It doesn't take 20 years to design and build a fighter. You put tighter restrictions and timelines on the process and shit will get done faster. Especially since now this sort of technology isn't as bleeding edge as it used to be, and 3 separate fighters are easier to build than one fighter that is magically able to do 3 separate roles with "slight modifications" (which over time slipped into a realm of only 30% commonality between the versions). You go back and look at programs like the F-14, which grew out of the failure of the F-111B program to see how things can be achieved. The F-111B was cancelled in 1968, the F-14 was flying in 1970 and entered service in 1974. Things might be more complicated today but the idea that it takes 20 years to bring an aircraft into service is insanity. SpaceX hasn't even been around for 20 full years and they've already gone from literally square one to building several generations of orbital launch vehicles, pioneering the landing and reuse of first stages, built a space capsule for cargo delivery to the ISS, and is nearing completion on building a manned spacecraft. The way to ensure that it does take 20 years (or infinity) to procure an aircraft is to carefully avoid any consequences for failure to achieve the stated goals of a program in terms of schedule, cost, or capabilities. And we're certainly doing that quite wondrously with the F-35.