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F-35 Cleared for Full-Rate Production 17 Years After Its First Flight
- jakeinspace 3y agoLooking back at HN F-35 posts is interesting. Up until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, almost all press coverage and popular opinion was that this aircraft is an expensive boondoggle which can’t dogfight. I think that since Ukraine, the need for advanced fighter aircraft has been made. Additionally, the unit cost of the F-35 today is a bargain, cheaper than the Rafale, and even the Chinese J20 (allegedly). 30 years from now, I think this program will be seen as a massive success. Countries are lining up to order these, which is a massive geopolitical benefit to the US. Drone warfare will be increasingly important, but at least in this decade, I don’t think we’ll see autonomous fighters that have the sorts of capabilities 5th gen fighters have.
- takerjop 3y agoF35 as 5th gen is now confirmed useless as rumor that Russian had one shotdown in Syria and Chinese in Taiwan Strait. This can be back verified with "accidents" there some years back. This also explain why you dont really hear anything about F35 with Ukraine and to some extend Taiwan after 2020. Without stealth, F35 is bad. Hence why the sudden resurgence of F16 and F22 being mentioned widely in press. Heck to some extend, seems like a saving grace alternative B21 raider being introduced last year. It is a waste of money and one of the irresponsible debt contributor to fall of USA in these decades and coming years.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoSexy aircraft. Congrats to everyone who took part!
- the__alchemist 3y agoThe chubby dolphin; beauty is in the eyes of the beholder!
- namaria 3y agoF16 is peak fighter jet aesthetics, tho I have a soft spot for the Tomcats and Eagles. Both look the part of powerful birds of prey. Su-27 has a nice sleek look to it but I respected it more when it had all this theoretical capabilities that never materialized in an active theater...
- jayemar 3y agoI agree with your take on aesthetics, and would also add the MiG-29
- CoastalCoder 3y agoF-16??? YF-23 would like a word with you.
- namaria 3y agoNice bird as well. I stand by the F16. Real life results make me view them in different lights. Kinda like when you realized someone you grow to respect looks more impressive the better you get to know them.
- golemotron 3y ago17 years is just shameful. Sure the aircraft looks nice but the SR-71 had first flight in 1964 and went into service in 1966.
- dmoy 3y agoTo be fair, the f-35 (some variant at least?) went into service like 8 years ago But yea, 9 yrs vs 2 yrs is quite a difference
- tekla 3y agoAnd this post is just ignorance. The SR-71 was a incredibly limited run, extremely expensive, designed to do a VERY specific mission. The F-35 is designed to do multiple missions, mass manufacturable, exportable to allied countries, and is a general purpose fighter. Comparing them is pure ignorance.
- golemotron 3y agoPleasing everyone in engineering can be disastrous. We'll see how it goes.
- Jtsummers 3y agoThis is the same company that added developers (and had them work in shifts 24x7) to an already late project and expected that to result in a quality product. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/06/19/lockheed-reassigns-workers-to-fix-f35-software.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/06/19/lockheed-reas...
- nobodyandproud 3y agoShameful, but what do you propose?
- golemotron 3y agoConcentrating on the process of developing airplanes from concept to production quickly rather than just concentrating on just one airplane. When you have the former, the latter becomes easier.
- lettergram 3y agoFrankly, this seems obsolete. Soon we will have 30,000 autonomous drones delivered via a rocket anywhere on earth in 30 minutes or less. Starlink satellites will monitor the drones as they pick off soldiers one by one. The future of warfare is terrifying
- jakeinspace 3y agoWhat you’re suggesting sounds like an ICBM effectively. Launching one, even if it’s a falcon 9 launch vehicle, anyway close to a nuclear power is not reasonable.
- maerF0x0 3y ago> as they pick off soldiers one by one here let me fix that for you > as they pick off every human one by one
- fnordpiglet 3y agoAny real kill bot army is fully autonomous requiring no disrupt-able RF, and wars aren’t fought against soldiers. When your armies are drones the fight moves to who you’re really fighting - the citizens whom you’re trying to break to surrender. Welcome to the future!
- torginus 3y agoThis isn't hard to achieve - I think a Starlink-guided drone army is pretty much unjammable - unless you have space based jammers, but once they get laser datalinks it will be 100% unjammable.
- farseer 3y agoSo on a cloudy day, nothing would work right?
- throw_nbvc1234 3y ago> but once they get laser datalinks it will be 100% unjammable. OISL? How many of them do you expect each Sat to have?
- e40 3y ago> How Much Does It Cost? The F-35's price per unit, including ancillary costs like depot maintenance, ground support equipment, and spare parts is $110.3 million per F-35A, $135.8 million per F-35B, and $117.3 million per F-35C. The F-16 isn't cheap at $63 per. EDIT: the above is not from the article, where "cost" appears once in a link to another article.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] Lots of discussion on the official Defense post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39685612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39685612
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoIt's a great accomplishment, but it must also be stated that the FRP isn't for Block 4 F-35s, and multiple DoD staff have gone on the record that Block 4 will be a minimum for survivability, to clarify, that's "survivability" in high-threat environments. War thinky types divide the "battle space" into zones of danger, and stealth platforms justify their cost by being able to penetrate highest threat areas. It's an idea that hasn't really been tested yet, not really, not since 1993. Hopefully we never find out. Some of the Block 4 mods have been moved up, particularly the necessary avionics stuff, but some of the mods need rework for heat management and other deeper requirements.
- froggit 3y ago> War thinky types divide the "battle space" into zones of danger, and stealth platforms justify their cost by being able to penetrate highest threat areas. It's an idea that hasn't really been tested yet, not really, not since 1993. Not sure entirely how you mean, as "stealth" has been utilized multiple times since then. For example, using a stealth platform to penetrate high threat areas was tested over Yugoslavia in 1999 with the F-117. Stealth failed that test and it was confirmed that more than just low observability was needed (an issue addressed by the F-22 and F-35).
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoFull-featured stealth aircraft haven't been employed - so far as we know - in an offensive capacity inside a peer's air defense system, which is the "high threat" regime. The 1999 F-117 shootdown was accomplished with a 1961 S-125 (NATO SA-3 Goa) missile system, attack mass, some good tactics, and good old fashioned American overconfidence. 1961 vintage - even in 1999 - is definitely not a peer air defense. Current thought today is that - with enough stealth - you can enter even very highly defended zones. Speaking personally, I'm skeptical of stealth's utility against a peer power. Automation, very smart software, and cheap electronics will just be too dense, and the attacking platform is too expensive for the elevated level of risk. Some stealth is useful, to break locks . . but I think the ceiling of usefulness might be lower than we suspect. Whatever the real answer is, my own hope is that the powers-that-be will be capable of changing their minds in the face of accurate reports and analysis. "Being able to change your mind quickly" might be the best skill for a peacetime military to have. On that front, I'm not filled with confidence. This all smells a little bit like the precision bombing advocates of the interwar period (1920-1943). There are many who, to this day, maintain that the pre-1943 daylight precision bombing campaigns were effective in their stated mission, in spite of all findings to the contrary. Pre-1943 (before the H2X "Micky" radar groundmap bombsight) we were extraordinarily lucky if a bomb hit a point target (not helped at all by the near-fraudulent behavior of Norden and the NBoO), and even if it did, it didn't disable it, because factories are pretty tough and enormous. If we can't talk about something after seventy years, how likely are we to see truth of something happening right in front of our faces?
- gxs 3y agoIt’s been quite a few years since anything US-military related didn’t also bring up thoughts and questions about the Chinese military for me as well. The gap between the two has closed so much within the last decade, people just do some hand waving to dismiss china because it gives them some sort of psychological comfort. In this case for example it’s the cost - sure the US spends billions more on defense, but the gap in spending is way, way smaller than people think. It’s not just a matter of ppp or anything like that, which of course plays a big part, but also just the stage in maturity these organizations are in. Not even sure what my point here, maybe I was just made uneasy by the person throwing a congratulations out there as if this were some sort of big accomplishment. The Chinese are making bigger strides day-to-day and I don’t see them celebrating.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoThe US has its strenths in being an omnipresense. Not only does it have the largest carrier fleet it has bases around the world. It can mobilize anywhere on earth. China can’t do the same. They don’t have much of a navy nor do they have a global network of military bases and supply caches.
- panarchy 3y agoWell the belt& road initiative is probably trying to take care of that.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoIt was! But it's left a lot of nations with huge debt for projects that often haven't really helped their economies. Even when things are working mind of ok, rather than build alliances and friends (build soft power), China too often acts entitled after coming in to a place & blows the political gains they should have been making. Even when coming with a carrot to the world, China's demands-of-ego get in their own way. China does have an incredibly fast growing navy. Their military is cranking out enormous amounts of everything, at a dizzying unimaginable pace. And perhaps the Belt & Road will help that nation project power some, will serve as ports and bases. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure why they are so aggressively building their military.
- andrewstuart 3y agoSo expensive. Are they still making F18s and F16s?
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoRight now, in peace time, it’s all about safety and proving. When the next war against a balanced adversary happens, what will matter is “what can we build that does damage” and “how fast can we churn them out”. So it’s good that a lot of the manufacturing we need is moving back to the USA. These planes aren’t the future. These planes are jobs and elections programs. These planes are battleships in a carrier world. But until the enemy fields their “carriers”, battleships are more than enough.
- Log_out_ 3y agoPeacetime? Eh, Ukraine is game to you?