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Newest Stealth Fighter's Ground Attack Sensors 10 Years Behind Older Jets'
schwit1 writes with this excerpt from The Daily Beast: America's $400 billion, top-of-the-line aircraft can't see the battlefield all that well. Which means it's actually worse than its predecessors at fighting today's wars. .... The problem stems from the fact that the technology found on one of the stealth fighter's primary air-to-ground sensors—its nose-mounted Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS)—is more than a decade old and hopelessly obsolete. The EOTS, which is similar in concept to a large high-resolution infrared and television camera, is used to visually identify and monitor ground targets. The system can also mark targets for laser-guided bombs. ... Older jets currently in service with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps can carry the latest generation of sensor pods, which are far more advanced than the EOTS sensor carried by the F-35. ... The end result is that when the F-35 finally becomes operational after its myriad technical problems, cost overruns, and massive delays, in some ways it will be less capable than current fighters in the Pentagon's inventory.
Why aren't weapon systems modular allowing for easy upgrade? No money in that?
Modularity requires standardized interfaces that don't change rapidly. There's a lot of standardization already, in the form of things like the MIL-STD-1553 bus, but that only goes so far. And these things are so complex they take forever to develop and integrate, so those standards wind up getting locked in early. So for a project like this, you're limited to pre-iPhone tech regarding the interfaces.
And why use human pilots for combat craft, a drone could accelerate and turn under massive G forces and still function where a human would black out.
Because a human pilot still has a far larger field of view and spatial awareness, can carry out complex operations with limited or no contact with controllers, and can't be jammed. There's a whole class of problems involving protecting that communications link: you could use an omnidirectional antenna, but that makes your drone vulnerable to anti-radiation missiles, or you could use a high-gain satellite dish, but that will only have a limited field of view and require a pointing mechanism to keep it aimed at the sat at all times, which is difficult to implement in a craft pulling 10+ Gs.
The reality is that good enough is good enough. Unlike in the movies the reality is that the military doesn't upgrade everything just because something new and shiny came out. The computer that you are typing on is more advanced than the computers in even the latest fighters. The difference is the ones in the aircraft are rarely fail and can operate in very harsh environments.
Combat drones don't need to dogfight, that is also Hollywood nonsense. They are small, impossible to see, and will shoot you down before you even know they are there, and they are already building them.
The JSF is the last project of the old guard who still think a man needs to be at the stick of the aircraft. Once the over 50 crowd in congress dies/retires you see a drastic move away from manned aircraft.
Yes, that is very true. The USMC is the closest we have ever had to what you are proposing.
I think that merely changing the organization for service-oriented (i.e. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard) to one service with "specialty branches" (or whatever you want to call them) would not change anything. Sure, it may offer some small amount of consolidation, but that is what DoD was created to do. (Yeah, I know... obvious jokes will follow). Seriously, though, as long as the combined size is about the same and the respective size of the service branches (or "specialty branches") stays the same, all you will have done is to (slightly) rearrange the deck chairs.
On a positive note, having been in the Army National Guard for over 25 years (including overseas deployments), I have worked with both the Navy and the Air Force. I cannot speak specifically to the "historical antagonism" the gf mentioned, but I can say that overall, everybody I worked with generally wanted to do a good job without deference to service branch. That especially includes a USAF NCO who I knew for a short period of time and was killed by the enemy.
"More proof the US defense industry has nothing to do with defending America"
http://pando.com/2014/12/18/the-war-nerd-more-proof-the-us-defense-industry-has-nothing-to-do-with-defending-america/
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
The entire plane is modular, upgradeable, and works mostly the same across all three variants. The biggest benefit to the F-35 is that large portions of the training, documentation, and maintenance materials can be shared by all users of the plane, significantly reducing operating the expense to run a fleet.
TFA is really just whining about the fact that this plane took 15 years to develop, and the Pentagon's purchasing process doesn't allow revisions until after delivery. Highlighting a component that's now obsolete just makes a good headline.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.