> And than a Stinger fails while being fired from, say, a F-35. And it fails catastrophically, resulting in the loss of the aircraft and, worst case the pilot.

> And than a Stinger fails while being fired from, say, a F-35. And it fails catastrophically, resulting in the loss of the aircraft and, worst case the pilot. I'm guessing that Stinger missiles, just like any other machine, have a failure rate above 0% already. If we can produce them more quickly, efficiently, etc., but that failure rate increased that might be worth it if we get to produce more missiles. Or maybe the new missiles are cheap enough that targets we previously couldn't cost effectively engage can be added to the menu. Even in war, "good enough" is still important. We can just as easily lose that F35 because we didn't have any missiles to launch, so it didn't even take off.