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Test Pilot: the F-35 Can't Dogfight
schwit1 sends this report from the War Is Boring column:
A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can't turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy's own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January. And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn't even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet's cramped cockpit. "The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft." That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him. The test pilot's report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history's most expensive weapon. Your tax dollars at work.
Drones with weapons aren't autonomous.
Drone pilots don't seem to have much of a conscience either. They are far removed from the action, the consequences, less involved.
If I were up against drones my first response would be infiltrators who would target the drone pilots families, the shops they go to, the people they owe money to, people who owe them money etc etc. Go Kaiser Sose on them. If they want to hide behind drones let them face the consequences.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I can't think of a greater coward in military service than a drone pilot. Except maybe an ICBM crew.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.