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I rant about the F-35 a lot, but seriously: this thing is a trillion-and-a-half dollar shitheap, and this is just the latest proof. What's really damning about

I rant about the F-35 a lot, but seriously: this thing is a trillion-and-a-half dollar shitheap, and this is just the latest proof. What's really damning about this news is that it calls the entire value proposition of the plane into question. By which I mean, every time someone like me points out that the F-35 loses dogfights to planes from two generations ago, the apologists always come in and say that doesn't matter because the stealth and ECM technology means it will never be in dogfights, only BVR engagements. But if you think about, that statement is essentially a gamble. It's a wager that our stealth and ECM technology will always, for the entire 40+ year projected lifespan of the plane, be ahead of competitors. Is that a safe bet? I don't think it is. This news shows it, and that's only what's publicly admissible. Imagine what Russia and China have that they're not talking about. This thing is a piece of junk based on multiple failed ideas (V/STOL, stealth and ECM obsoleting actual combat performance, on-the-fly development, etc.) and it needs to be scrapped yesterday and started from scratch.

hef19898 7y ago
I have my doubts about all these 5+ Gen fighters myself. As you said, the planes will fly for 40 years, so it is certain that stealth will be lost sooner or later. And still everybody is developing them. Just looking at the economic side of it, in a war against an enemy with a strong air defense (against ever other enemy stealth doesn't make a difference anyway) exact how many of these planes can you afford to loose without ruining your air force and your economy with it? The F-35 angled at not just its combat capabilities but at a NATO wide domination of combat aircraft, including operations for the full operational life for all operations of these planes. Almost worked out, and my still do.
- thrower123 7y ago
  It strikes me that having an entire fleet of high stealth aircraft is only going to be important for... maybe the first 48 hours of any conflict. I would suspect that the very first targets in any air war would be radar installations and command and control centers. Once those are down, and air superiority is achieved, stealth doesn't even matter; you could fly B-52 bomb trucks around. Even for that opening stage of the battle, I would suspect that cruise missiles and drones would make more sense.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    >> in a war against an enemy with a strong air defense (against ever other enemy stealth doesn't make a difference anyway) exact how many of these planes can you afford to loose without ruining your air force and your economy with it? > It strikes me that having an entire fleet of high stealth aircraft is only going to be important for... maybe the first 48 hours of any conflict. It goes against the generalist, jack-of-all trades dogma; but I think the air force should have cheaper non/less-stealthy designs of equal or greater performance for almost every role occupied by a stealth plane.
    - angry_octet 7y ago
      The air forces if the world are run by air combat pilots, and until that changes there will be manned aircraft and it will be a priority that killing them is difficult. So drones are a long way off in that sense, at least until we have a drone-vs-manned war where the drones win. It should also be noted that in stealth '5th gen' drone vs '4th gen' drone simulation, the stealth drones win convincingly, not because they are 'invisible' but because they can shoot first, before the other drone can get a lock. Personally I think we're more likely to see '5th gen' drone wingmen. Finally each SQNLDR will have their own squadron, albeit robotic. With short range comms are much harder to jam, but it's uncharted territory to see how the leader will guide the engagement.
  - ranger207 7y ago
    You're right, but it's unlikely that any modern near-peer conflict will last much more than 48 hours. The war will probably be decided by then, with only mop-up operations left after that. At that point, if the losing country is nuclear it'll go ahead and use their weapons, and planes, stealthy or not, are going to be mostly useless.
  - openasocket 7y ago
    One issue with using drones in a high threat environment is that it needs to be able to communicate with a controller. Not only can that communication be potentially jammed, it can also be used to triangulate the coordinates of the drone (and controller) which limits your ability to surprise the enemy. Then you need to consider both bandwidth and latency. Latency matters because that lag between the drone operator getting data and sending orders greatly degrades your reaction time, which can be critical in situations like air-to-air engagements. Bandwidth matters because if you have a swarm of these over enemy territory all using satellite communications you won't be able to stream high quality video feeds back to your operators. That matters a lot if you are searching for targets. I think you'd need the drones to have very high autonomy, which is tricky both technically and ethically.

hef19898 7y ago

I have my doubts about all these 5+ Gen fighters myself. As you said, the planes will fly for 40 years, so it is certain that stealth will be lost sooner or later. And still everybody is developing them. Just looking at the economic side of it, in a war against an enemy with a strong air defense (against ever other enemy stealth doesn't make a difference anyway) exact how many of these planes can you afford to loose without ruining your air force and your economy with it? The F-35 angled at not just its combat capabilities but at a NATO wide domination of combat aircraft, including operations for the full operational life for all operations of these planes. Almost worked out, and my still do.

thrower123 7y ago
It strikes me that having an entire fleet of high stealth aircraft is only going to be important for... maybe the first 48 hours of any conflict. I would suspect that the very first targets in any air war would be radar installations and command and control centers. Once those are down, and air superiority is achieved, stealth doesn't even matter; you could fly B-52 bomb trucks around. Even for that opening stage of the battle, I would suspect that cruise missiles and drones would make more sense.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  >> in a war against an enemy with a strong air defense (against ever other enemy stealth doesn't make a difference anyway) exact how many of these planes can you afford to loose without ruining your air force and your economy with it? > It strikes me that having an entire fleet of high stealth aircraft is only going to be important for... maybe the first 48 hours of any conflict. It goes against the generalist, jack-of-all trades dogma; but I think the air force should have cheaper non/less-stealthy designs of equal or greater performance for almost every role occupied by a stealth plane.
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    The air forces if the world are run by air combat pilots, and until that changes there will be manned aircraft and it will be a priority that killing them is difficult. So drones are a long way off in that sense, at least until we have a drone-vs-manned war where the drones win. It should also be noted that in stealth '5th gen' drone vs '4th gen' drone simulation, the stealth drones win convincingly, not because they are 'invisible' but because they can shoot first, before the other drone can get a lock. Personally I think we're more likely to see '5th gen' drone wingmen. Finally each SQNLDR will have their own squadron, albeit robotic. With short range comms are much harder to jam, but it's uncharted territory to see how the leader will guide the engagement.
- ranger207 7y ago
  You're right, but it's unlikely that any modern near-peer conflict will last much more than 48 hours. The war will probably be decided by then, with only mop-up operations left after that. At that point, if the losing country is nuclear it'll go ahead and use their weapons, and planes, stealthy or not, are going to be mostly useless.
- openasocket 7y ago
  One issue with using drones in a high threat environment is that it needs to be able to communicate with a controller. Not only can that communication be potentially jammed, it can also be used to triangulate the coordinates of the drone (and controller) which limits your ability to surprise the enemy. Then you need to consider both bandwidth and latency. Latency matters because that lag between the drone operator getting data and sending orders greatly degrades your reaction time, which can be critical in situations like air-to-air engagements. Bandwidth matters because if you have a swarm of these over enemy territory all using satellite communications you won't be able to stream high quality video feeds back to your operators. That matters a lot if you are searching for targets. I think you'd need the drones to have very high autonomy, which is tricky both technically and ethically.