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The US Air Force has built and flown a prototype of its future fighter jet

56 points by sien 6y ago

flexie 6y ago
Is it smart that there is still a pilot in the plane? I mean, it's 2020 and this plane will probably not be built in large numbers for another few years. Are human pilots still better than computers? I would think a plane could be lighter and react and maneuver more rapidly, pull more Gs, if there was no human inside.
- GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
  On the other hand, these planes will eventually have 0days A real drone bomber is a cruise missile
- lightgreen 6y ago
  Computers are unlikely to be able to completely autonomously decide what target to shoot, but remote piloting should not be an issue.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    If you let AI autonomously designate targets and kill targets fully then humans are no longer at the top of the food chain. It's easy to dismiss the control problem in civilian environments because humans suffer from that exact same problem and that's why we have the rule of law and law enforcement. But the military works differently. The person, organization or AI in charge of the military also effectively governs all civilians of that nation.
    - lightgreen 6y ago
      Just in case, some form of AI (AI is just a buzzword for a complex algorithm) already identifies and shots targets. For example, Iron Dome is fully autonomous (human operator is not capable of reacting quickly). Although I’m not aware of autonomous systems which shoots something with people onboard. But I disagree the characterization of these systems as “top of the food chain”. This naming would provide food for philosophers, but practically this definition is useless.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  "Roper declined to comment on how many prototype aircraft have been flown or which defense contractors manufactured them. He wouldn’t say when or where the first flight occurred. And he refused to divulge any aspect of the aircraft’s design — its mission, whether it was uncrewed or optionally crewed, whether it could fly at hypersonic speeds or if it has stealth characteristics." We don't even know that there was a pilot. All we know is that a jet aircraft was produced in a fairly rapid timeframe.
- bsder 6y ago
  > Are human pilots still better than computers? For highly fluid, continuously changing environments? Yes. Humans are much more adaptable than computers. That having been said: there is a YouTube video of a test pilot talking to some folks at MIT(?) and saying that the F35 is basically the future of piloting in that you don't "fly" the plane so much as tell the plane "do action X" and the plane figures out how to do it. So, the next generation of planes are going to be even more of this--effectively a human pilot in theatre commanding a drone swarm. > I would think a plane could be lighter and react and maneuver more rapidly, pull more Gs, if there was no human inside. Absolutely. And lots of these will be commanded from a bunker somewhere. The number of these commanded from a pilot in theatre is going to get smaller and smaller.
- plazmatic 6y ago
  Another clown asking questions which have answers in the fucking article. This place is becoming worse than reddit. Read the articles, dumb dumbs.
lightgreen 6y ago
I’m definitely not an expert, but I barely see any reason for the next fighter jet to be manned instead of remote piloted.
- culturestate 6y ago
  I'm not an expert either, but I suspect the reason is that you don't want your primary means of force projection left susceptible to network interruptions. If there's a pilot in the cockpit and the data fusion network goes down, the pilot can still stay in the fight.
  - fishnchips 6y ago
    With modern weapons if the network is interrupted the pilot is just as useless.
    - culturestate 6y ago
      > With modern weapons if the network is interrupted the pilot is just as useless. This seems like a gross underestimation of what a pilot brings to the table; if it were true, the F-35 wouldn't have a gatling gun. Missions like close air support for ground troops are just as important to a modern battlefield as taking down enemy emplacements with a missile.
      - fishnchips 6y ago
        Is F-35 really the best candidate for CAS missions? Seems like you can get something at least as good in that role for a fraction of the price.
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    It doesn’t have to be connected via the internet. Directed radio channel to the base can be made reliable against these attacks.
    - 6y ago
alex_young 6y ago
Why are people questioning why this is a crewed plane? The article clearly says we don’t know that detail: ...”he refused to divulge any aspect of the aircraft’s design — its mission, whether it was uncrewed or optionally crewed, whether it could fly at hypersonic speeds or if it has stealth characteristics. Those attributes, he said, are beside the point.”
- londons_explore 6y ago
  I would guess it's uncrewed... It's a lot easier to prototype stuff quickly if nobodies life is on the line if a wing falls off... I can totally imagine it being a state secret if it's crewed or not - the enemy not knowing how big a diplomatic incident they'll cause if they shoot one down is an advantage.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    If it can fly uncrewed you can start the full scale tests right away and add in-plane meatware at a later stage.
    - londons_explore 6y ago
      You could even have the "meatware" be an add-in module. A single "unit" that fits into the plane that has a seat and all the controls, together with an ejector/entry hatch. If you don't have that unit, you could fill the same space with an extra fuel tank, cargo, or weapons systems.
      - rbanffy 6y ago
        And you can even test me meatware pod on the ground independently before even the "cruelty free version" makes it first flight ;-)
gogopuppygogo 6y ago
Isn’t the reason we spent unlimited money on the F35 is to have one super stupid plane for all branches that does everything you ask but nothing well except costs tons of money? Anyway, glad to see the USAF was building something useful in the background. Wouldn’t be shocked if it was a small team with few resources.
- jeffrallen 6y ago
  Starved to cleverness!
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  This is the F-22 replacement. It's one of the highest priority projects within the AF at the moment. Tens of thousands of people are working on this. The F-35 was a misconceived project and burned money and time in its early stages. It's been beaten back into shape today however, largely because Ash Carter switched Lockhead from a cost plus contract to one where they have the lion's share of any non trivial cost overruns moving forward. How shocking that suddenly LM got the marginal cost to build a new F-35 under 90 million as a result.
- plazmatic 6y ago
  Did you even read the article, dumb fuck? Why is this the top rated comment on here? Jesus christ.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  I can recommend you read the book Skunk Works by Ben Rich and he'll tell you that overpriced useless planes are a government corporate welfare program designed to keep military contractors in business and skilled workforce employed. His case in point was the B2 which was supposed to got to Lockheed as they had the better tech and could have made it cheaper but instead they gave the contract to Northrop to prevent Lockheed having too large share of the defense pie and to keep Northrop afloat as they were denied other lucrative contracts in the past.
  - gumby 6y ago
jeffrallen 6y ago
Switzerland is currently debating how to replace a 30 year old fleet of F/A-18s. I've advocated that we should turn our back on what I see as 20th century thinking in the fighter jet market and instead design something for our context, but people don't believe me when I say that designing with off the shelf engines, radars and weapons should be possible on the cheap today. Mostly, I don't see why my tax dollars should build up American or French industry, when we know that Swiss engineers are smart enough to zig where the world around then zags. (See also Solar Impulse and Alinghi.)
- lightgreen 6y ago
  Switzerland GDP is 30 times smaller than US GDP. Switzerland alone cannot afford full stack modern military industry. Also, don’t produce something when it’s cheaper to buy it.
  - aneutron 6y ago
    I do agree with the first idea. The second one is not always the best line of thought, especially when it's about sovereignty or defense. Suppose you buy fighter jets from China, but tensions rise and you somehow cut diplomatic ties. How are you going to get maintenance parts. Very inaccurate example but just to illustrate that yes, economically, your idea makes sense. Geopolitically, it depends.
    - lightgreen 6y ago
      > How are you going to get maintenance parts. Buy the planes with spare parts and training. When calculating a price for a plane, include not just the price tag, but also the risks of getting these planes unusable in ten years. So yes, buying jets from China might be not the best idea even if they initially seem cheaper. But that’s not the case for US jets.
      - wongarsu 6y ago
        > But that’s not the case for US jets. Why? It's hard to predict how relationships with the US will look over the next 40 years (F-18 is 37 years old). Especially with relationships on a downward trajectory during Bush's and Trump's presidency. Sure, the risk is a lot smaller than with China, but it does exist
baybal2 6y ago
I wonder, have GE brought their RTA anywhere closer to the real world? If they did, it will be very interesting to look at. On the paper, as it said, it is a variable geometry engine where the bypass ratio can be changed depending in the air speed. The fan increases in size closer to the ground, and cruise speeds, and shrinks when flying higher, and faster.
rayhendricks 6y ago
“And the answer [to] why we aren’t going faster is simply money. We can push the accelerator down more today because the digital technology allows it.” Gong to burn some internet points here but this should not be what we are spending money on right now as a nation. We have >250k (200k official) people dead (excess deaths) from COVID and many more overdosing on opioids or dying from preventable diseases. Handouts to the military-industrial-congressional complex are exactly what we do not need right now. We need to get Medicare for all and Universal Basic Income passed or otherwise more people will realize that this country does not care about them and only cares about giving the military new toys.
- AniseAbyss 6y ago
  As I understand it in the US the military is social welfare. Thousands of underprivileged Americans escape poverty through joining and get an education.
  - saiya-jin 6y ago
    ... and become traumatized from killing some guys with AKs defending their home country from foreign invasion, seeing civilian death and suffering on massive scale that their efforts and presence brings. Or just end up being killed/crippled. One hell of a welfare system that is.
    - sawjet 6y ago
      There are plenty of opportunities provided by the armed forces that do not include any of those things.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
      There's about a 10 to 1 ratio between non combat and combat roles, and of combat roles less than 1 in 10 of them will actually see combat. The overwhelming majority of the military are people who just want to get a leg up on a career that can support themselves and a family. That said, I know several people personally that joined up due to lack of options, saw combat, and are now profoundly broken, so I don't mean to belittle that point. Just don't oversimplify things to thinking it's the only thing.
actuator 6y ago
Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24493698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24493698
whatever1 6y ago
Why do we even need fighter-jets anymore? Why not just swarms of cheap drones loaded with ammo & cameras that are deployed from a mothership higher up?
- c048 6y ago
  ... why would those cheap drones not be called 'fighter-jets'? Especially in a public article like this?
Zenst 6y ago
How do they name such aircraft? Asking as it would seems that somebody is either having a good chuckle somewhere or a misfortunate naming convention given " F-15EX" will bring out the schoolboys in many. Is the EX extension meaning it's experimental and replacing the X prefix?
- numpad0 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_United_States_Tri-Service_aircraft_designation_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_United_States_Tri-Service...
  - Zenst 6y ago
    Still unsure how they got that suffix, does cover prefix's. The only explanation I can work out would be that the EX is the manufactures code, though I can't find any association of EX with Boeing.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  So in this case the EX suffix is just a marketing thing chosen by Boeing. It more or less means "extended." The F-15 is an obsolete aircraft from the point of view of procurement, but Boeing has sold the AF on buying a few more of an updated model to extend the life of the F-15 in the fleet for a few more years via the acquisition of new planes directly as well as reducing hours on existing airframes. There's considerable debate whether this is a sensible decision financially for anyone besides Boeing.
ggm 6y ago
If you really want to promote peace, and for some reason cannot reduce military expenditure, the best choice is to co-produce a weapons system with your erstwhile enemy. They should make a MIG-boeing or Sukhoi-Lockheed-Northrop proposal of real merit.
- flyinglizard 6y ago
  This would maybe work between equals, but not when US has everything to lose and Russia has everything to gain.
  - ggm 6y ago
    it works all the time. If you want to maintain superiority you didn't want peace in the first place.
    - metabagel 6y ago
      “it works all the time” Citation needed
  - flohofwoe 6y ago
    The F-35B gained a lot from the Yak-141 though, time to give something back ;)
    - thrwway34 6y ago
      That's just an urban legend though.
      - flohofwoe 6y ago
        From what I've read, Lockheed Martin entered a partnership with Yakovlev and essentially funded the last few prototypes after state funding had dried up because of the Soviet Union collapse. Even if they didn't use the exact same engine configuration than the Yak-141 (it's pretty damn close though) I bet those 400 million dollars were well spent to get access to research the Russians had already done in the decade before (even if it just means not repeating the same errors).
throwaway4good 6y ago
"A budget for a better America" That is some dark humour right there. A budget in minus trillions and an arm race with China that is outgrowing the US with a comparably tiny spend on defense. I mean why bother with a budget. This thing is clearly going to end in a Soviet-style bankruptcy.
- enaaem 6y ago
  Why do you believe the US is in a worst financial position than China?
  - throwaway4good 6y ago
    The growth is higher in China and the spend pr. GDP on defense in much lower than the US.
  - thomastjeffery 6y ago
    > an arm race with China that is outgrowing the US with a comparably tiny spend on defense. That isn't what they were saying. The point made is that China is spending a tiny fraction of what the US is spending on defense, yet they are managing to keep up in this arms race. Of course, the US isn't spending its entire budget on building arms; it's also spending a lot dropping an unprecedented amount of bombs in the middle east.
glaberficken 6y ago
>“We’re going after the most complicated systems that have ever been built, and checked all the boxes with this digital technology. In fact, [we’ve] not just checked the boxes, [we’ve] demonstrated something that’s truly magical.” Words above are from Will Roper - Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Even the Air Force is copying "Apple" speak these days....
- jeffrallen 6y ago
  Or it might be the first fighter with alien-derived anti-gravity...

56 points by sien 6y ago

Is it smart that there is still a pilot in the plane? I mean, it's 2020 and this plane will probably not be built in large numbers for another few years. Are human pilots still better than computers? I would think a plane could be lighter and react and maneuver more rapidly, pull more Gs, if there was no human inside.

GoOnThenDoTell 6y ago
On the other hand, these planes will eventually have 0days A real drone bomber is a cruise missile
lightgreen 6y ago
Computers are unlikely to be able to completely autonomously decide what target to shoot, but remote piloting should not be an issue.
- imtringued 6y ago
  If you let AI autonomously designate targets and kill targets fully then humans are no longer at the top of the food chain. It's easy to dismiss the control problem in civilian environments because humans suffer from that exact same problem and that's why we have the rule of law and law enforcement. But the military works differently. The person, organization or AI in charge of the military also effectively governs all civilians of that nation.
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    Just in case, some form of AI (AI is just a buzzword for a complex algorithm) already identifies and shots targets. For example, Iron Dome is fully autonomous (human operator is not capable of reacting quickly). Although I’m not aware of autonomous systems which shoots something with people onboard. But I disagree the characterization of these systems as “top of the food chain”. This naming would provide food for philosophers, but practically this definition is useless.
crocodiletears 6y ago
"Roper declined to comment on how many prototype aircraft have been flown or which defense contractors manufactured them. He wouldn’t say when or where the first flight occurred. And he refused to divulge any aspect of the aircraft’s design — its mission, whether it was uncrewed or optionally crewed, whether it could fly at hypersonic speeds or if it has stealth characteristics." We don't even know that there was a pilot. All we know is that a jet aircraft was produced in a fairly rapid timeframe.
bsder 6y ago
> Are human pilots still better than computers? For highly fluid, continuously changing environments? Yes. Humans are much more adaptable than computers. That having been said: there is a YouTube video of a test pilot talking to some folks at MIT(?) and saying that the F35 is basically the future of piloting in that you don't "fly" the plane so much as tell the plane "do action X" and the plane figures out how to do it. So, the next generation of planes are going to be even more of this--effectively a human pilot in theatre commanding a drone swarm. > I would think a plane could be lighter and react and maneuver more rapidly, pull more Gs, if there was no human inside. Absolutely. And lots of these will be commanded from a bunker somewhere. The number of these commanded from a pilot in theatre is going to get smaller and smaller.
plazmatic 6y ago
Another clown asking questions which have answers in the fucking article. This place is becoming worse than reddit. Read the articles, dumb dumbs.

lightgreen 6y ago

I’m definitely not an expert, but I barely see any reason for the next fighter jet to be manned instead of remote piloted.

culturestate 6y ago
I'm not an expert either, but I suspect the reason is that you don't want your primary means of force projection left susceptible to network interruptions. If there's a pilot in the cockpit and the data fusion network goes down, the pilot can still stay in the fight.
- fishnchips 6y ago
  With modern weapons if the network is interrupted the pilot is just as useless.
  - culturestate 6y ago
    > With modern weapons if the network is interrupted the pilot is just as useless. This seems like a gross underestimation of what a pilot brings to the table; if it were true, the F-35 wouldn't have a gatling gun. Missions like close air support for ground troops are just as important to a modern battlefield as taking down enemy emplacements with a missile.
    - fishnchips 6y ago
      Is F-35 really the best candidate for CAS missions? Seems like you can get something at least as good in that role for a fraction of the price.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  It doesn’t have to be connected via the internet. Directed radio channel to the base can be made reliable against these attacks.
  - 6y ago

alex_young 6y ago

Why are people questioning why this is a crewed plane? The article clearly says we don’t know that detail: ...”he refused to divulge any aspect of the aircraft’s design — its mission, whether it was uncrewed or optionally crewed, whether it could fly at hypersonic speeds or if it has stealth characteristics. Those attributes, he said, are beside the point.”

londons_explore 6y ago
I would guess it's uncrewed... It's a lot easier to prototype stuff quickly if nobodies life is on the line if a wing falls off... I can totally imagine it being a state secret if it's crewed or not - the enemy not knowing how big a diplomatic incident they'll cause if they shoot one down is an advantage.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  If it can fly uncrewed you can start the full scale tests right away and add in-plane meatware at a later stage.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    You could even have the "meatware" be an add-in module. A single "unit" that fits into the plane that has a seat and all the controls, together with an ejector/entry hatch. If you don't have that unit, you could fill the same space with an extra fuel tank, cargo, or weapons systems.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      And you can even test me meatware pod on the ground independently before even the "cruelty free version" makes it first flight ;-)

gogopuppygogo 6y ago

Isn’t the reason we spent unlimited money on the F35 is to have one super stupid plane for all branches that does everything you ask but nothing well except costs tons of money? Anyway, glad to see the USAF was building something useful in the background. Wouldn’t be shocked if it was a small team with few resources.

jeffrallen 6y ago
Starved to cleverness!
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
This is the F-22 replacement. It's one of the highest priority projects within the AF at the moment. Tens of thousands of people are working on this. The F-35 was a misconceived project and burned money and time in its early stages. It's been beaten back into shape today however, largely because Ash Carter switched Lockhead from a cost plus contract to one where they have the lion's share of any non trivial cost overruns moving forward. How shocking that suddenly LM got the marginal cost to build a new F-35 under 90 million as a result.
plazmatic 6y ago
Did you even read the article, dumb fuck? Why is this the top rated comment on here? Jesus christ.
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
I can recommend you read the book Skunk Works by Ben Rich and he'll tell you that overpriced useless planes are a government corporate welfare program designed to keep military contractors in business and skilled workforce employed. His case in point was the B2 which was supposed to got to Lockheed as they had the better tech and could have made it cheaper but instead they gave the contract to Northrop to prevent Lockheed having too large share of the defense pie and to keep Northrop afloat as they were denied other lucrative contracts in the past.
- gumby 6y ago

jeffrallen 6y ago

Switzerland is currently debating how to replace a 30 year old fleet of F/A-18s. I've advocated that we should turn our back on what I see as 20th century thinking in the fighter jet market and instead design something for our context, but people don't believe me when I say that designing with off the shelf engines, radars and weapons should be possible on the cheap today. Mostly, I don't see why my tax dollars should build up American or French industry, when we know that Swiss engineers are smart enough to zig where the world around then zags. (See also Solar Impulse and Alinghi.)

lightgreen 6y ago
Switzerland GDP is 30 times smaller than US GDP. Switzerland alone cannot afford full stack modern military industry. Also, don’t produce something when it’s cheaper to buy it.
- aneutron 6y ago
  I do agree with the first idea. The second one is not always the best line of thought, especially when it's about sovereignty or defense. Suppose you buy fighter jets from China, but tensions rise and you somehow cut diplomatic ties. How are you going to get maintenance parts. Very inaccurate example but just to illustrate that yes, economically, your idea makes sense. Geopolitically, it depends.
  - lightgreen 6y ago
    > How are you going to get maintenance parts. Buy the planes with spare parts and training. When calculating a price for a plane, include not just the price tag, but also the risks of getting these planes unusable in ten years. So yes, buying jets from China might be not the best idea even if they initially seem cheaper. But that’s not the case for US jets.
    - wongarsu 6y ago
      > But that’s not the case for US jets. Why? It's hard to predict how relationships with the US will look over the next 40 years (F-18 is 37 years old). Especially with relationships on a downward trajectory during Bush's and Trump's presidency. Sure, the risk is a lot smaller than with China, but it does exist

baybal2 6y ago

I wonder, have GE brought their RTA anywhere closer to the real world? If they did, it will be very interesting to look at. On the paper, as it said, it is a variable geometry engine where the bypass ratio can be changed depending in the air speed. The fan increases in size closer to the ground, and cruise speeds, and shrinks when flying higher, and faster.

rayhendricks 6y ago

“And the answer [to] why we aren’t going faster is simply money. We can push the accelerator down more today because the digital technology allows it.” Gong to burn some internet points here but this should not be what we are spending money on right now as a nation. We have >250k (200k official) people dead (excess deaths) from COVID and many more overdosing on opioids or dying from preventable diseases. Handouts to the military-industrial-congressional complex are exactly what we do not need right now. We need to get Medicare for all and Universal Basic Income passed or otherwise more people will realize that this country does not care about them and only cares about giving the military new toys.

AniseAbyss 6y ago
As I understand it in the US the military is social welfare. Thousands of underprivileged Americans escape poverty through joining and get an education.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  ... and become traumatized from killing some guys with AKs defending their home country from foreign invasion, seeing civilian death and suffering on massive scale that their efforts and presence brings. Or just end up being killed/crippled. One hell of a welfare system that is.
  - sawjet 6y ago
    There are plenty of opportunities provided by the armed forces that do not include any of those things.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    There's about a 10 to 1 ratio between non combat and combat roles, and of combat roles less than 1 in 10 of them will actually see combat. The overwhelming majority of the military are people who just want to get a leg up on a career that can support themselves and a family. That said, I know several people personally that joined up due to lack of options, saw combat, and are now profoundly broken, so I don't mean to belittle that point. Just don't oversimplify things to thinking it's the only thing.

actuator 6y ago

Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24493698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24493698

whatever1 6y ago

Why do we even need fighter-jets anymore? Why not just swarms of cheap drones loaded with ammo & cameras that are deployed from a mothership higher up?

c048 6y ago
... why would those cheap drones not be called 'fighter-jets'? Especially in a public article like this?

Zenst 6y ago

How do they name such aircraft? Asking as it would seems that somebody is either having a good chuckle somewhere or a misfortunate naming convention given " F-15EX" will bring out the schoolboys in many. Is the EX extension meaning it's experimental and replacing the X prefix?

numpad0 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_United_States_Tri-Service_aircraft_designation_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_United_States_Tri-Service...
- Zenst 6y ago
  Still unsure how they got that suffix, does cover prefix's. The only explanation I can work out would be that the EX is the manufactures code, though I can't find any association of EX with Boeing.
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
So in this case the EX suffix is just a marketing thing chosen by Boeing. It more or less means "extended." The F-15 is an obsolete aircraft from the point of view of procurement, but Boeing has sold the AF on buying a few more of an updated model to extend the life of the F-15 in the fleet for a few more years via the acquisition of new planes directly as well as reducing hours on existing airframes. There's considerable debate whether this is a sensible decision financially for anyone besides Boeing.

ggm 6y ago

If you really want to promote peace, and for some reason cannot reduce military expenditure, the best choice is to co-produce a weapons system with your erstwhile enemy. They should make a MIG-boeing or Sukhoi-Lockheed-Northrop proposal of real merit.

flyinglizard 6y ago
This would maybe work between equals, but not when US has everything to lose and Russia has everything to gain.
- ggm 6y ago
  it works all the time. If you want to maintain superiority you didn't want peace in the first place.
  - metabagel 6y ago
    “it works all the time” Citation needed
- flohofwoe 6y ago
  The F-35B gained a lot from the Yak-141 though, time to give something back ;)
  - thrwway34 6y ago
    That's just an urban legend though.
    - flohofwoe 6y ago
      From what I've read, Lockheed Martin entered a partnership with Yakovlev and essentially funded the last few prototypes after state funding had dried up because of the Soviet Union collapse. Even if they didn't use the exact same engine configuration than the Yak-141 (it's pretty damn close though) I bet those 400 million dollars were well spent to get access to research the Russians had already done in the decade before (even if it just means not repeating the same errors).

throwaway4good 6y ago

"A budget for a better America" That is some dark humour right there. A budget in minus trillions and an arm race with China that is outgrowing the US with a comparably tiny spend on defense. I mean why bother with a budget. This thing is clearly going to end in a Soviet-style bankruptcy.

enaaem 6y ago
Why do you believe the US is in a worst financial position than China?
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  The growth is higher in China and the spend pr. GDP on defense in much lower than the US.
- thomastjeffery 6y ago
  > an arm race with China that is outgrowing the US with a comparably tiny spend on defense. That isn't what they were saying. The point made is that China is spending a tiny fraction of what the US is spending on defense, yet they are managing to keep up in this arms race. Of course, the US isn't spending its entire budget on building arms; it's also spending a lot dropping an unprecedented amount of bombs in the middle east.

glaberficken 6y ago

>“We’re going after the most complicated systems that have ever been built, and checked all the boxes with this digital technology. In fact, [we’ve] not just checked the boxes, [we’ve] demonstrated something that’s truly magical.” Words above are from Will Roper - Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Even the Air Force is copying "Apple" speak these days....

jeffrallen 6y ago
Or it might be the first fighter with alien-derived anti-gravity...