Air Force Grounds $400 Billion F-35s Because of 'Peeling and Crumbling' Insulation (washingtonpost.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the Washington Post: Less than two months after declaring the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ready for combat, the Air Force on Friday announced that it was temporarily grounding 15 of the jets after it discovered that insulation was "peeling and crumbling" inside the fuel tanks. The setback is the latest for the $400 billion system, the most expensive in the history of the Pentagon. The problem comes as the program, which for years faced billions of dollars in cost overruns and significant schedule delays, had begun to make strides.

The insulation problem affects a total of 57 aircraft, the Air Force said, 42 of which are still in production... In a statement, Lockheed Martin said that "the issue is confined to one supplier source and one batch of parts." It emphasized that "this is not a technical or design issue; it is a supply chain manufacturing quality issue..." It is unclear how long the aircraft would be grounded, how long the problem would take to fix or what the larger affect on the program would be.
âoeWhile nearing completion, the F-35 is still in development, and challenges are to be expected," said an Air Force spokeswoman, adding "The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise, and we're confident we'll continue to do so."

Comments

Conventional warfare is dead

[barrywalker]

I want my money back. This pig isn't going to fly, and even if it does, this type of warfare is dead. Future wars will be fought with pilotless (and maybe even autonomous) vehicles. Cyber warfare will also be much more devastating than whatever damage this overpriced toy can produce. We should dock the pay of every congress critter who voted for it until it's paid back in full.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

"The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise, and we're confident we'll continue to do so."

That's newspeak for "this program had an abnormal amount of bad problems."

Also good news that the total cost diminishes with time, 1 trillion to 0.4 trillion in two years time. By 2018 it will be for free.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[Opportunist]

Nobody cares if that pig flies as long as its pork fills a few barrels.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[amiga3D]

Just another new lawn dart. It's going to replace the F-16 as the worst fighter in the arsenal.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Drones may work well against unsophisticated opponents with minimal resources (the only place they've been used so far). But I have a hard time believing that they would be effective in a real war, one with opponents that have sophisticated jamming & vast resources. A drones effectiveness drops rather quickly when they don't have routine communications to their commanders, their GPS signals are blocked/corrupted & their targets are camouflaged. And cyber-warfare is pretty easy to defeat if it becomes a major problem, simply unplug your network cables (some of which shouldn't be connected anyways). I fully agree that the F-35 program has been a disgrace, and that those responsible should be held accountable, but until we perfect unjammable communications or AIs with human level capabilities (a danger in itself) piloted craft are going to be with us.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what "cost plus" means. Lockheed still had to make a proposal for a specific cost. If they overrun that cost, the government doesn't automatically have to give them more money. The govt could instead decide to end the program.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

Cruise missiles and ICBMs do just fine without either a pilot or a radio controller. Getting rid of the requirement to return to base gives way more bang for the buck and more mission flexibility. As for unintended civilian deaths, collateral damage is just a bonus (if we have to attack you, remember what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Civilian deaths are acceptable as long as they aren't ours).

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[blindseer]

I hear this often as a complaint against cost plus contracts but I believe that people do not understand why such contracts are necessary.

The US government, or any government really, needs stuff that simply cannot be obtained on the open market. This is especially true if you want to keep things secret, companies that go bankrupt tend to not keep things secret for many reasons. If the government makes a contract at a set price then no company in their right mind would sign off, it would simply be too much risk.

A lot of companies will sign a contract for a product knowing it will be a loss because they are gambling that the product can be sold at a profit to subsequent customers. This is often how new passenger aircraft will get built. The first person to buy such an aircraft will get a deep discount knowing that they are experimenting. They hope the costs of working out the bugs will be offset by their discount. Later customers for the aircraft will pay a higher price, and do so willingly, because they are getting an aircraft that is proven to be of value.

This also works for passenger aircraft because there is a larger number of airframes to spread development cost over. There were about 1500 F-15 fighters built but over 9000 Boeing 737 passenger and freight airframes built.

When building a military aircraft you have only one customer, and no means to make a profit if that customer backs out. If the government wants someone to build anything for them, and only for them, then they will have to make a promise of a profit for that company.

I know someone is just waiting to point out that the F-35 has a dozen "customers" but that is a moot point here. Of the approximately 2000 F-35 airframes ordered the US government will buy 1800 of them, this is effectively no different than if the US was the only customer.

I'm sure Lockheed just loves these "setbacks" because it makes them a profit. Forget the fact that setbacks make it that much more difficult to get future contracts. Forget the fact that setbacks distract from other potentially money making efforts. Forget the fact that even a big "evil" corporation that builds "killing machines" has people that work for them and people don't like to see other people die because the product they produced failed to protect their lives.

I really need to stop replying to anonymous cowards but I could not let this go by for some reason.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

We should dock the pay of every congress critter who voted for it until it's paid back in full.

There is a better solution that will become available on the 8th of November. But chances are it will be squandered again. So, let's dock the pay of every person that reelected the congress critter who voted for it...

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[lgw]

Cruise missiles and ICBMs have their mission set before launch. The whole point of fighters (and drones) is that they don't - otherwise, just use a missile. Until SkyNet is ready, we'll be flying drones remotely, and that means jamming and EMP are issues.

Civilian deaths are acceptable as long as they aren't ours

This has been true for every war in history, but we've actually tried a little to minimize this recently. The fact that civilians still inevitably die in war isn't some great failing of the system - war just sucks. It's good to do what we can, but also to remember we've spend many years now fighting enemies for whom civilian casualties are the goal, so lets not compromise our effectiveness too much, as that means more total civilian casualties.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[knightghost]

The Fed will never end a massive pork barrel project like this, so suggesting they "could" is unreasonable and very inaccurate. "Could" that has a very low chance effectively means 0.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Richard_at_work]

A modern Tomahawk cruise missile has an inventory cost of around $750,000. Once you use it, you have to replace it at full cost.

An F-35A's flight cost is around $40,000 per flight hour (google exactly what a flight hour is) and is expected to fall to around $30,000/fh in due course.

A 5 hour mission designed to hit 5 targets means 5 Tomahawk missiles expended, at a cost of $3.75million for the mission.

The same mission for the F-35A would cost, currently, $200,000 in flight hours, and $135,000 for 5 Mk.82 bombs with JDAM kits - a total mission cost of $335,000.

The mission cost difference is a saving of about $3.4Million, give or take.

So, with a current purchase cost of $98Million for a LRIP (low rate initial production) F-35A, it would only need to fly 30 or so missions to be worth while, over the cost of continually buying expendable cruise missiles to carry out the same missions.

How does that work out in real life?

During the second Gulf War air campaign, there were 20,753 combat sorties by coalition aircraft, during which they used 18,467 smart bombs and 9,251 dumb bombs.

That war, if fought by using cruise missiles solely, would set you back $20.8Billion just to replace your expended ordnance.

Take the aircraft costs out of the equation for a moment - replacing all those expended munitions with JDAMs would cost $748Million, leaving a balance of more than $20Billion to cover the operating costs of the aircraft...

You could buy a fleet of 100 F-35s and operate them for just under half their entire projected life on the balance alone...

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, where have cruise missiles been used between two major powers? Let alone as a significant portion of the campaign? They are also somewhat limited in range, I believe maxing out at about 600 miles. This decreases the issues with guiding them to the target but increases the logistics of getting them within range of the target significantly. Even the F-35 can go about 1,200 miles and it has been chastised for not having a decent range (an F-16 for example can go about 2,600 miles). Their cost, around a million dollars and up each, also makes them a weapon of fairly limited use.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Hylandr]

According the Mars-One project At 400Bn we would have sent 398 people to Mars.

6Bn for the first, then 4Bn for the rest.

Why are we budgeting to fight for a line on a piece of dirt when we could be fighting over planets instead?

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Hylandr]

http://www.mars-one.com/faq/fi...

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

"The US government, or any government really, needs stuff that simply cannot be obtained on the open market."

Maybe it's time to nationalize some of these companies.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[greenfruitsalad]

are you implying the F-16 is currently worst fighter in US arsenal OR that when it replaces F-16, it'll be the worst fighter in US arsenal?

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[amiga3D]

Both.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[blindseer]

Cyber warfare will also be much more devastating than whatever damage this overpriced toy can produce.

I don't follow, perhaps you have a different definition of cyber warfare than what I am familiar with. The kind of cyber warfare I know of attacks certain kinds of infrastructure, communications, and electrical supplies. Which in most every case would be annoying, not deadly.

We've all likely read about or seen in movies about how someone was able to "hack" into some control system and caused physical damage. Any reasonably designed system will not allow a remote user to do anything that can cause permanent damage. It's possible that someone might be able to do something like make a uranium centrifuge spin too fast and not give any indication to the user that it has done so. This requires a lot of prior knowledge of the system, some very talented people, a lot of time, and an enemy that lacks proper security protocols. If it works at all then it will work only once. After that the hole in the system will be plugged.

On the other hand if someone were to instead bomb the uranium refining facility you'd not only destroy the centrifuges, just like the cyber attack would have, but the building would be destroyed, the uranium lost, the people that run the facility would be dead or injured, and they'd be set back much further. Such a bomb run would also mean removal of any plausible deniability of being involved. There would be undeniable evidence of an attack. Even stealthy planes like the F-35 cannot hide completely on where they came from, it's not going to take long to figure out where such attacks came from.

Cyber attacks are useful since they can provide a nuisance and cost (in time, money, people) for an enemy. The anonymity that a cyber attack gives is certainly good for many reasons. They can only do so much damage and only for so long. I have a WWII era rifle and a pair of combat boots that can do more damage than many cyber attacks. F-35 fighters can do even more damage.

Any sophisticated military will combine cyber warfare with bombs & bullets. This also requires that the enemy even has a "cyber" to "warfare". History shows one does not need electronics to effectively fight a modern war.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Future wars will be fought with nuclear weapons, rendering ground combat obsolete. Wrong.

Future air wars will be fought only with missiles so planes don't need guns. Tragically wrong.

Airplanes can kill tanks so tanks are obsolete. Wrong.

I could go on.

Futurists have an absolutely abysmal track record at being right about nearly anything.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[blindseer]

Nationalize? Or do you mean socialize? You mean like the communists have done? Tell me, how well has that worked out for them?

I have a solution too, I say the government can only buy from the open market. I don't mean that Lockheed has to provide the F-35 to other governments, I mean that Lockheed would have to sell the F-35 to any person or corporation able to pay for it.

I won't say my idea is likely. I won't say my idea is even a good idea. I'm just saying it's a better idea than yours.

Another thing, perhaps more of a side note. I noticed that this is called "nationalizing" if "we" do it, but it's called "socializing" if "they" do it. Might be because using anything with "nation" in the name provokes patriotism while the use of "social" is equated with Marxism. It wasn't always this way, otherwise the US Social Security Act would have a different name.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[greenfruitsalad]

10 years ago, i'd have burst your bubble with facts and combat stats. these days, i'm just gonna check if kids are asleep yet and eat a sandwich.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

With today's computers, there's no reason that mission profiles can't be generated pretty much on-the-fly before launch.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[LifesABeach]

Technology will only get more expensive; has to be somebodies law. And why hasn't an VTOL SR-71 with a gatling laser been certified? Dam, I'm starting to fidget again.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[lgw]

Ever seen Eye in the Sky? It's worth a watch.

Humans are in the loop for a reason - to judge the value of the target vs the cost in civilian casualties. Given we want to minimize the latter, perhaps we don't want to activate SkyNet just yet.

Plus there are Many kinds of drones with very different capabilities, and we need to combine the information fro them to make the right call. Even with SkyNet - jam those comms and you can't do that.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Posts like this are why /. is still worth visiting. Thank you.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

The B52H can deliver 20 times the dumb bomb load with only a 55% higher cost per flight hour. If you're looking at cost per pound of bomb delivered, that's impossible to beat. The same can be said, mutatis mutandis, for other loads.

Given the types of wars in the future, cheap cost per bomb delivered is best for conflicts with nations with inferior defenses, and no-coming-back blast-them-to-hell tactical nukes for others. It's the only deterrent that will work with the Russians and Chinese, given that NATO is unable to secure eastern Europe for more than 3 days after an attack. In both cases, the possible civilian casualties are the same as holding the enemy's population hostage. Everything else is untenable. The nature of war has changed.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

Cruise missiles don't have to be guided. And when was the last time we had a war directly between two major powers?

The Russians showed just how effective a cruise missile campaign can be in Syria. The Russian KH-101 stealth cruise missile (max range 5,500 km / 3,400 miles, with a rumored maximum of up to 10,000 km, nuclear variant KH-102) wasn't hampered by range constraints. The Chinese also have them. You don't need an F35 for countries like Syria, and they will be shot down on approach in wars with China and Russia, so what's the point of having the F35 again? Especially since the combat radius is only 600 miles (you can't use the ferry range, since that is one-way). An F35 taking off from Germany wouldn't even get to St. Petersburg before having to turn back, and Moscow isn't possible even as a one-way mission.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

Mutually Assured Destruction avoided all-out war between east and west. It's the only thing proven to work. Each country's population is hostage. We're back at that point today, given the current situation vis-a-vis the US, Russia, and China. The failure of the US to act when Russia annexed the Crimea, (even one cruise nuke on Russian soil would have sent the message) means that there's no reason for Russia or China to believe the US will be able to protect NATO allies. As it stands, Russia can annex Eastern Europe in 3 days. China would use that distraction to take over much of the territory to the south, and possibly expand into northern central Asia, figuring that Russia would be too preoccupied with the east, and they need the land anyway.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[evilviper]

The Fed will never end a massive pork barrel project like this, so suggesting they "could" is unreasonable and very inaccurate. "Could" that has a very low chance effectively means 0.

The Fed canceled the F-22 program early, which was also a massive pork-barrel project like this... So "Could" is far more likely than you imagine.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Sarten-X]

If the enemy has Soviet radar and SAM equipment from the 70s and 80s, which is now available readily and cheaply to anyone with a grudge against the USA, a B52H can deliver approximately 0 times the bomb load of any modern stealthy aircraft, with a 55% higher cost per flight hour before disintegration.

That's why the LRS-B program started, to build the upcoming B-21.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[amiga3D]

The best thing about the F-16 is it was and is cheap. The F-35 doesn't even have that.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Man On Pink Corner]

Don't worry. As soon as they find oil on Mars, they'll change their tune.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

And modern stealth doesn't work against WW2 radar, so what's your point?

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Sarten-X]

An unguided cruise missile is a tactical disaster in a modern war. They are only useful against civilian or very large military targets, because they can be blown off course by wind or other interference, and lack the course-correction a guidance system would provide. If you're a belligerent like Germany in WWII, you can happily point them at your British enemy and watch the civilian casualty count rise as their morale falls. Unfortunately, if you're at least pretending to follow the rules of ware (as almost all nations do today), that risk to civilians acts against your best interests.

Modern warfare tactics also include the use of aerial refueling, effectively extending the F-35 range to 600 miles beyond where you or an ally have air superiority. That drastically changes the effective use of the aircraft.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Sarten-X]

even one cruise nuke on Russian soil would have sent the message

I'm not sure what message you intend to send, but the one that's received is "America broke treaties first", and that opens the morality floodgates. Any other nuclear-armed military can then feel free to launch their nukes, in defense of their Russian ally against the suspected ally of the evil USA.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[Man On Pink Corner]

Drones may work well against unsophisticated opponents with minimal resources (the only place they've been used so far). But I have a hard time believing that they would be effective in a real war, one with opponents that have sophisticated jamming & vast resources.

I used to think that way, too, and then I saw a computer beat a 9-dan Go player within an inch of his life.

Time to change your mind.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[JimSadler]

I have noticed the same circumstance in the building of shopping plazas. It seems to be almost a certainty that the original owners will fail. The second owners will have a real battle and will probably fail. The third owners get a discount as the plaza is no longer spanking new and there are some solid renters in the stores and then a long term, profitable business is at hand. One has to be either very brave or very foolish to be the first owner of a shopping plaza.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

Cruise missiles don't have to be guided - they guide themselves, using terrain matching, gps, and known landmarks. Nobody piloting them by remote control.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

Invading an ally is sufficient cause to ignore a treaty with the invader. That's the message to send - stop the shit or we'll both pay for it in the long run. Is it is, the US failed to back up an ally. That did more damage than violating a treaty. Putin is laughing.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Man On Pink Corner]

That war, if fought by using cruise missiles solely, would set you back $20.8Billion just to replace your expended ordnance.

You cited quite a few numbers but you left out the biggest one of all, which is the cost of the pilot. Depending on what source you refer to, it takes anywhere from $6M/yr to $10M/yr to train a single combat pilot. This is why pilots get in more trouble for heroically nursing a crippled aircraft back to base than for ejecting at the first sign of smoke. They are worth more than anything else in the equation.

I might be partially wrong about the specifics -- for instance, I took your advice to Google "flight hours" but couldn't immediately tell if they have some way to fold pilot training into those cost-per-hour figures. Regardless, anyone who thinks human pilots will still be flying combat aircraft 10, 25, 50, or 100 years from now is obviously mistaken. It's just a matter of which of those timeframes is right. Using humans to fly combat missions is stupidly expensive and increasingly pointless.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[tomhath]

Nobody disagrees that cruise missiles and UAVs will play bigger and bigger roles in the future. But the future isn't here yet.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

I want my money back.

Preferably payable in the form of medical care and university education.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another new lawn dart. It's going to replace the F-16 as the worst fighter in the arsenal.

F-16's are, however, comparatively cheap... You can buy like 10 of them for the cost of an F-35. They are even working on unmanned versions (QF-16)...

I still think we shouldn't bet so highly on such an expensive and complex mess. Buy some older fighters (F-15/18 etc) and stop trying to make one fighter for everything. Seriously, what opponent are we expecting to need F-35s for?

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Sarten-X]

[As] it is, the US failed to back up an ally.

In the political arena, Ukraine is not really an ally with any binding need for the US to react. The whole affair was between two sovereign nations with no American involvement.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Sarten-X]

...That's a guided cruise missile, then. In modern parlance, an "unguided" cruise missile is something like the old German V-1, which would travel a certain distance in a certain direction, then fall and blow up where it landed, but had no practical ability to correct its course during flight beyond basic stabilization.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Sarten-X]

You ought to try reading TFA. The long-wave radar might be able to detect that something's there, but it's the modern computation power that might possibly be able to identify the particular signature of a new plane, rather than raising alerts for every bird or chaff that happens to be in the vicinity.

That means it's not going to be a part of the old weapons systems. Only major powers like Russia or China would likely be able to use the technology on a battlefield, and they're unlikely to enter a direct open conflict with America or its allies. It certainly won't be readily available to insurgents like we're fighting now in the Middle East, and it won't be the old scrap left behind if a modern base is abandoned. Even if the technology is used in battle, it is pretty easily identified, and destroyed as part of an initial campaign for air superiority.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[whodunit]

I have never wished for mod points more than I do now. I wish I could set your face on fire, with my mind.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

The F-5 was built entirely on spec by Northrop Grumman before there were any firm orders from the US government or indeed any other government and it went on to a long and storied career, eventually being sold to and used by just about every allied air force in the world. It was a cost effective, high performance and durable jet fighter, a product of the time when US engineering still meant quality and defense companies actually cared about the quality and value of their products, not just their profits.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

First, you disable the air defense system. Then you establish air superiority. Then you send in the big slow bombers to finish off everything else still on the ground. The playbook is well worn. For a textbook example of how useless old Soviet air defense kit is, read up on Operation Mole Cricket 19. The Israelis proved the impotence of Soviet air defense kit to US weapons and tactics back in 1982. Soviet air defense kit sucks. If you doubt that, just ask Al Assad or better yet Saddam Hussein.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Assume a F-35 costs LOL $100m and the US government borrows money at 3%.

Therefore, not buying a F-35 saves $3m, or 4 Tomahawk missiles, per year.

If a given F-35 sees action every 10 years, the opportunity cost of 40 Tomahawks has been foregone, even before the operating costs of the F-35 are considered.

TLDR : Buy the missiles.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[dbIII]

If the enemy has Soviet radar and SAM equipment from the 70s and 80s, which is now available readily and cheaply to anyone with a grudge against the USA

Or another likely situation is US gear from the 90's or later from someone overrunning a former ally or a change of government (Saudi, Indonesia, Phillipines, Pakisan etc) - or buying the same from China (eg. classified targeting system in tanks stolen by criminals in Israel in 2000, sold to China then onsold to Iran).

Very thin skinned types may play the anti-semite card but it's irrelevant. I'm sure the last thing those criminals who just happened to get access to classified US gear in Israel wanted was for the stuff they stole to end up in Iran and possibly be aimed at them some day.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[dbIII]

You don't need an F35 for countries like Syria

Give it time :(
We've had plenty of people the Russians support getting bombed by us (such as in the last 24 hours) and plenty of people we support getting bombed by the Russians. It's only a couple of fuckups away from someone intervening in one of the situations and air to air combat.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[JustBoo]

Just another new lawn dart. It's going to replace the F-16 as the worst fighter in the arsenal.

Yeah, because some kid on the internet says so.Uh, MS Flight Simulator is not 'real life,' sorry to shatter your illusion Capt. Stationary.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile a man takes a suitcase nuke on a taxi ride into the heart of your capital city. Cost ? nuke plus cab fare.

The days of "big battle" warfare are gone. Future warfare will consist of taking out selected individual targets (economic and personal) plus maybe the odd big "firework" for show/terror to cow a population. Individuals will be the main targets. Why bother to fight an army when you can just kill the general and the people who order the generals ? An army without orders is just a big bunch of random people standing out directionless.

Populations can also be easily brought round via some nicely targeted advertising/propaganda/shiny things. You no longer need to attack the body. Just kill the brain(s).

At this point in history armies/navies/air force are now largely a waste of time and money and are only good for parades.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[blindseer]

I watched the video you linked to and I see that the F-5 and its derivatives were fine aircraft. Its development proves that in some cases a successful fighter aircraft can be designed without a cost plus contract.

What sets the F-5 apart from the many other successful fighter aircraft was its size and cost. This was able to be built and tested by Northrup on spec because they had a low cost aircraft with a high probability of sales. A lot of the development costs were already sunk from previous aircraft and missile designs and so they were able to do this at a cost they could afford to gamble.

Being such a small aircraft it cannot carry much of a weapon load. It proved very successful as a trainer and reconnaissance airframe for wealthier nations and a passable fighter for less developed nations. It could not hold up to more advanced aircraft even at the time unless, as pointed out at the end of the film, one would allow for heavy losses and computed success at a dollar cost. That would make the pilots cannon fodder for the enemy. A useful tactic if one wanted to win the war by bankrupting the enemy from losing fewer but more expensive airframes to their own cheap and plentiful ones.

It was a cost effective, high performance and durable jet fighter, a product of the time when US engineering still meant quality and defense companies actually cared about the quality and value of their products, not just their profits.

That sounds like a beauty in the eye of the beholder. The F-5 is "high performance" relative to many aircraft of the time but still not an effective fighter to an adversary with more advanced aircraft. It is agile, no doubt, but it cannot carry the quantity of weapons of other larger fighters of the time.

I'm not sure what to say about the quality vs. profits comment. I'd hope that the two go together. If one wants to be profitable then the product must have quality and value. I'd think that a low quality product is only profitable in the case of a monopoly or some other coercion preventing competition.

The F-5 did have competition, including it's earlier variants. As such it evolved into a number of different variants, serving a number of different roles, and not all were successful. The F-20, which solved many complaints from the earlier F-5 variants, did not sell. Competition from the (cheaper and less capable) F-5E and (more expensive and more capable) F-16 likely killed it.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[stooo]

>> Forget the fact that even a big "evil" corporation that builds "killing machines" has people that work for them and people don't like to see other people die because the product they produced failed to protect their lives.

That's wrong. In the case of killing machines, other people will live if you do a bad job !

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[LinuxLuver]

Agreed. Military spending is mostly a waste of money anyway. It's the price the US has to pay for screwing other people over for their resources and then blaming them. Stop screwing other people over. A century of bad US policy in the Middle East should and could end any day now, though the $38 billion annual gift to Israel want a step in the right direction. Almost $700billion / year for the military - and that's just the money we know about. But no money for health or schools or crumbling understructure.... You're have to be a special kind of very dim to support that.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[blindseer]

I'll put Godwin's law into effect...

Are you saying more people would have lived if the Allies had inferior weapons in fighting the Nazis? Sure, let's give the "good guys" weapons that fail to work properly and are just as likely to kill the operator as the target. That will certainly save more lives. Because the "bad guys" will simply die from laughter at the sight of their adversaries committing suicide en masse.

Idiot.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

Obama said at least 5 times that the use of chemical weapons by Syria was a red line. Why not say that Syria was an internal affair? In retrospect, since many of the rebels were al Qaeda, arming the rebels against the Syrian regime wasn't exactly a smart move. This has been inevitable since George W Bush and co. invaded Iraq on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction, evidence that Colin Powell knew was bogus before he spoke at the UN.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

"In modern parlance?" No country uses cruise missiles that can't guide themselves, they all navigate on their own. No need for someone in the loop to guide them, unlike, say, a drone (even though those will become autonomous as well).

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

They don't need to identify it immediately. Knowing something is there, they can direct much more powerful radar at that spot to help determine what it is. I think it's there in the article, but it's definitely being used in conjunction with "normal" radar by the Russians.

Also, since they're cheap to make, it's easy to deploy decoys to make you waste your anti-radiation missiles. Plus firing them give a pretty good clue as to where you are. They're either carried internally, in which case your stealth isn't so stealthy when you open the doors to fire, or externally, in which case you're not exactly stealth to begin with. And in the eastern European theatre, Russia has the advantage of closeness. All this is why Rand Corporation, in their assessment, said that Russia could overrun NATO defenses in 3 days max. Stealth is useless if the other side has already won.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

If the US and NATO are going air-to-air against Russia in Eastern Europe (the most likely scenario), Russia wins within 3 days, and the US and NATO know it.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[cheesybagel]

Ukraine was never part of NATO. China already tried to invade Vietnam in the late 1970s and failed.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[cheesybagel]

Those were 1950s-1960s air defense systems defeated in the 1980s. Back in Vietnam they caused enough damage to the USAF and they also caused damage to the Israelis in the Yom Kippur War. Eventually they figured out how to effectively counter them. Still a system like that was used by skilled operators to knock down an F-117 in Serbia in the 1990s. Which resulted in an early retirement of that aircraft model. It remains to be seen how's the performance against more modern SAM technology.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[cheesybagel]

A computer can be reprogrammed by the enemy. If they figure a way to do it for that model they can switch all those airplanes around. Humans are harder to turn.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[someoneOtherThanMe]

"The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise, and we're confident we'll continue to do so."

That's newspeak for "this program had an abnormal amount of bad problems."

..." and we're confident it will continue to have them."

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[drinkypoo]

I'm sure Lockheed just loves these "setbacks" because it makes them a profit. Forget the fact that setbacks make it that much more difficult to get future contracts.

What? No it won't.

Forget the fact that setbacks distract from other potentially money making efforts.

As long as they're getting paid to fuck this up, why pursue something hard? That is, in which they're required to get it right?

Forget the fact that even a big "evil" corporation that builds "killing machines" has people that work for them and people don't like to see other people die because the product they produced failed to protect their lives.

They didn't forget that, they just don't give a shit about those people.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[drinkypoo]

The Fed canceled the F-22 program early, which was also a massive pork-barrel project like this... So "Could" is far more likely than you imagine.

They had the F-35 project on the horizon, which would make even more money. They cancelled it in expectation of a bigger barrel. They're not cancelling F-35 unless they've got a still larger one lined up.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Sarten-X]

The original comment from the AC was that cruise missile range is relatively short, which in turn makes guidance easier. You then said that guidance isn't necessary, and now you're saying that all cruise missiles have guidance. It seems you're unfamiliar with cruise missiles in general.

Almost all cruise missiles have the ability to control their own flight. Some have the ability to be controlled by radio from an operator, but that's an "extra feature" thing that is really only for ease of deployment, and usually plays no tactical role whatsoever. The idea is that a missile can be launched early, and it doesn't need to be given a confirmed target until it's halfway there. No, there is not usually someone sitting there with a joystick actually flying the missile to its target. Such capabilities are typically only used in the climax of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Any distinction today between "guided" and "unguided" cruise missiles is more a distinction on the level of control the missile's avionics has. At one extreme is a purely ballistic missile, effectively fired from a rocket launcher and landing wherever gravity makes it run into the ground. At the other extreme, an advanced cruise missile can not just control its flight, but perform positive identification of the target before the strike.

The distinction is important when considering the technological capability of an enemy. Scavenger fighters like ISIS or rebel groups won't be able to afford an arsenal of modern missiles, but they might be able to stick an microcontroller on a rocket and make it land somewhat close to a target. This has a tactical impact, because the accuracy of weapons determines the radius of hazard around a target. If the enemy missiles are only accurate to within a 1-mile radius, it can be politically important to keep military installations 2 miles from civilian areas, to prevent any accusations of bringing the conflict closer to civilians. Conversely, if the enemy has the weaponry to make surgical strikes, locating a base near a city can improve supply logistics, and any civilian collateral damage can be be used to vilify the enemy... if they could do better, why didn't they?

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Sarten-X]

So let me get this straight... First the enemy uses a high-power L-band radar to find every speck of reflective dust. Then they use "much more powerful" S-band radar to somehow identify things the S-band radar can't even see. Meanwhile, the "much more powerful" S-Band and the L-band radar are both bright shining beacons to any SEAD flights, who are equipped with surveillance gear that can tell the difference between an actual radar and a decoy.

The only way the radar helps is to feed targeting information to anti-aircraft weapons like SAM launchers. Unfortunately for the radar operators, the L-band radar will still be susceptible to the countermeasure techniques used against it last time, like chaff and ECM, and the S-band radar won't have enough response to determine where the aircraft is. It can guess, but the odds of a hit are low.

That really boils down the nature of warfare. You do everything you can to improve your odds. Stealth does not guarantee success; the enemy could fire blindly at every blip on an antique radar system, and might hit something. However, the odds of a successful mission are better using a stealthy F-35 than using a nonstealthy B52H, as your earlier comment proposed. Since the running cost of a F-35 is about four times that of a B52, the question becomes a matter of whether it's worth paying four times as much to improve the odds of getting your crew back alive. That in turn requires understanding just how effective stealth is. According to the first reference I found, the stealthy aircraft reflects about 1/10000th as much radiation in the S-band, which is still what would be used for targeting, even if your giant L-band array can tell the SAM to launch. Those look like pretty good odds to me.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[Man On Pink Corner]

The computer in question was on the other side of the planet.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[rainmouse]

I thought the goal of the f-35 was to have something better than the Europeans and their new fangled Euro-fighter. Unfortunately the stat they beat them on most was the cost. At just over 100 million US dollars for a Eurofighter-Typhoon vs 148 million for the f-35A and an impressive 338 million for the f-35C. Both projects riddled with bugs and overruns but I think the f-35C wins on the Top Trump crap plane game.

Source - first hits on Google so it must be true.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Maritz]

I'll put Godwin's law into effect...

Are you saying more people would have lived if the Allies had inferior weapons in fighting the Nazis? Sure, let's give the "good guys" weapons that fail to work properly and are just as likely to kill the operator as the target. That will certainly save more lives. Because the "bad guys" will simply die from laughter at the sight of their adversaries committing suicide en masse.

Idiot.

So you ask what he's saying, then call him an idiot for guessing at what he means? Riiiight.

I'm not at all convinced he's saying that. But you got to call someone stupid on slashdot, and that's the main thing.

Re:Conventional warfare is dead

[Maritz]

What?

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[david_thornley]

You're looking for Augustine's law, specifically number 16, which does admittedly only apply to warplanes.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[david_thornley]

Take a look at Edward Bellamy's book "Looking Backward". It inspired a minor political movement called "Nationalism" in which the government would take over the means of production, ushering in a new era of peace and plenty. It looked to me about as plausible as the standard Utopian fiction that doesn't just assume much better technology than exists at the time of writing.

Also note the Japanese "Showa Restoration" movement, modeled after the "Meiji Restoration" which restored power to the Emperor; this would "restore" ownership of pretty much everything to the Emperor. This was primarily composed of strong anti-Communists.

If you work it right, you can get a fair number of right-wing people who hate socialism buy into socialism under another name.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[david_thornley]

As far as I know, no current military uses unguided cruise missiles. They're either externally or internally guided. There are unguided rockets that follow ballistic trajectories, which are not used when pinpoint accuracy is necessary.

There have been long-range unguided cruise missiles. I saw some displays when I was at the Kennedy Space Center. I wouldn't trust the guides on anything technical, but ours said that, if those things were fired, it was questionable which hemisphere they'd hit.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the most naive and simple-minded response to tactics and logistics issue that I have ever seen.

Thank you for wasting everyone's time with your uninformed opinion.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

You ask a rhetorical question and then answer it yourself. While you didn't outright call the person an idiot for doing so you certainly did imply it.

You call the person out for doing something by doing the same yourself.

Brilliant!

(See, I didn't call you an idiot. Makes me the good guy, right?)

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[BarbaraHudson]

Never said the Ukraine was ever a member of NATO. What I said is that Russia can roll over Eastern Europe in 3 days max and NATO won't be able to stop them. The US did a lot of sable rattling when Russia invaded Ukraine, but Putin had figured out that the US and its NATO allies were all talk, no hat.

Re: Conventional warfare is dead

[Hognoxious]

The US did a lot of sable rattling

They waved weasels around?

So not combat ready then.

[Anonymous Coward]

So clearly they are not combat ready if all the construction issues have not been worked through yet.
That hot tail pipe was already problematic in their low profile requirement.

Re:So not combat ready then.

[hey!]

"Combat Ready" is being used in a highly contrived way. It does NOT mean any of the following things:

(1) That the system works like it is supposed to.
(2) That the system in its current state is ready to provide a valuable set of capabilities in any real situation.
(3) That you would even remotely consider operating the system in its current state in a hostile environment.

What "Combat Ready" means is that it meets a set of criteria designed, Texas Sharpshooter style, around the system's current progress. You could theoretically fly one of these things into a hostile environment and have it release a weapon, but you'd have no reason to except to make a political point.

I think it's a fair bet that if we get into any conflicts in the next three or four years any use of F35s will be carefully scripted. The dangerous work will be done by more mature, actually "combat ready" aircraft.

Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

"The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise"
Ah yes. The supreme device for solving issues.
Do the terrorists around the world have issues with conscription?
Don't worry chaps, a few swipes of the F-35 and you will have a sudden conscription increase from innocent civilians seeking vengeance for their families being bombed to bits as collateral damage. Fundamentalist religion and fanaticism? Who needs that when you have ordinary people seeking vengeance, which is a much better motivation than some ideals and beliefs!
Just ask Israel. They are experts in this!

Even in light of this, we're self congratulatory!

[bogaboga]

This is a piece from CBS

Lt. Col. David Berke says there's no comparison between the F-35 and today's jet fighters.

David Berke: I'm telling you, having flown those other airplanes it's not even close at how good this airplane is and what this airplane will do for us.

David Martin: We have planes that are as fast as this.

David Berke: You bet.

David Martin: And can maneuver just as sharply as this one.

David Berke: Sure.

The Russians must be laughing!

The F-35's radars, cameras and antennas would scan for 360 degrees around the plane searching for threats and projecting, for example, the altitude and speed of an enemy aircraft, onto the visor of a helmet custom-fitted to each pilot's head.

They have had this technology in their SU-30s for at leat 4 years!

From abroad

[hcs_$reboot]

Russia will soon be saying "now is the time!"

Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked on A-10s back in the early 80s. What a gorgeous, well-designed bird. Almost no real flaws. The old aviation companies were actually better. Republic, Fairchild, McDonnell Douglas, you name it. There is a reason why the F-16s and F-15s are still the backbone of the Air Force. Nothing else comes close. Likewise, nothing touches the A-10 for its intended role, and the Air Force cannot wait to get rid of it. Yes, the air frames are old, but the avionics packages are updated constantly, as are the engine parts and other critical pieces like stabilizers, etc., are fabricated in shops on various bases. The A-10 is the king at ground support.

Methinks the military is trying so hard to design and develop a do-it-all bird they are not seeing the forest for the trees. The US military has the unfortunate habit of using birds designed for one thing try and fulfill other or all roles. They want this bird to DO IT ALL. This rarely, if ever, works. Hence the F-16 and F-15 are still kings of the sky.

Case in point is the Republic F-105, likely the best light bomber the Air Force ever had. It was developed in the 1950s to quickly run nukes into and out of Europe. Had an internal bomb bay. It was the largest and fastest jet of its type when it went live in the inventory. Vietnam came around and they used it for bombing runs and dogfighting (something it was not designed to do). The F-105 carried more than a WWII B-17. They ended up using them as Wild Weasels, a role for which they excelled. Still my favorite AF bird ever.

Re:Not the same

[BarbaraHudson]

Not to worry - once the F-35 is scrapped / sidelined, they'll re-re-refurb a bunch of B-52s as attack craft. New delta wings, new engines, new avionics, new weapons systems - see "Flight of the Old Dog",. Further variants of the EB-52 Megafortress.

Re:Not the same

[iamwahoo2]

I don't think the military is trying hard at all to develop a do-it-all bird. In fact, I doubt most of the military cares, including the Air Force where they are far more interested in unmanned vehicles and cyber. JSF is a congressional project for money re-distribution. The portion of the military that cares about doing important things like winning wars, moved on from JSF a long time ago. It is a boring, uninteresting program.

Re:Not the same

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

As to drones, a significant portion of the AF is fighting them, pilots like flying and with more drones you get fewer seats for the pilots to sit in. Guess what the majority of the generals did as young officers, bingo they flew fighters.

Once you get to be a Colonel you rarely fly but the ex-flyers are the ones that get promoted most often. Hell even a couple of the Cyber commanders were fighter pilots. You read that right not Computer guys but fighter pilots.

Golden Rule

[jargonburn]

"The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise, and we're confident we'll continue to do so."

Funny, isn't it? If you throw enough money at most problems, they go seem to go away! From almost start to finish, this "program" has been an exercise in "work richer, not smarter".

Re:Golden Rule

[Anonymous Coward]

Most problems are cheaper to solve with money than by attempting to be clever.

Re:Golden Rule

[Anonymous Coward]

You throw enough money at problems, and suddenly there are a bunch of new problems that would also like some of that money please thanks, see you again next time!

"The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise, and we're confident we'll continue to do so." This is only possible if there is a continuing track of issues arising.

One Plane

[Ann Coulter]

We are getting close to having a one plane military.

Law Number XVI: In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:One Plane

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, USMC will always fly their own, even if that means they have to build them from sticks.

Something I saw 1st hand there... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: While working @ Lockheed Martin coding. Each day I had to pass thru a hangar (accompanied by a Colonel, who by now must be retired) where they were working on all types of planes (some in 'clean room' type settings) - he noticed I'd look over @ the far end of the hangar each time we passed. He inquired why. I told him I was looking @ a sign there that said:

"Do your best work: Our young men & women's lives ride on it".

This affected me personally since my brother is an officer in the military (about to retire though). I don't want him to die, let alone due to shoddy workmanship!

He then said "Look kid, get used to one thing - the ONLY reason we got this contract was because we're the lowest bidder & build crap - that's how the REAL WORLD really works - so do NOT believe that sign!"

To which I was astounded (especially considering how much money they had available considering it's nigh limitless from taxpayers - you'd think they'd have Quality Control assuring that wouldn't happen... they don't).

So he took me into a troop carrier type plane & showed me the stud metal frames that were supposed to have iirc, 16 rivets each & instead, only used like 8. This was how they were able to do it, pinching pennies cutting corners.

* I was NEVER the same after that & it was in 1996 - very VERY early in my career professionally in computers.

I took off after that job was done & instead decided to work for things other than the military industrial complex (i.e. - I jumped to Bell South to work on the 1996 Atlanta Olympics project to allow their workers to do what is common place now via remote desktop (except we used Windows NT & Citrix (Pentium I 133mhz laptops & 32mb of RAM each, powerful machine then) via IBM Thinkpads into an Ascend Gateway via 56k dialup modems (they said it couldn't be done but myself & some DEC engineers made it work so they could work from home during the traffic jams to go into downtown Atlanta to work) - this was a better more noble effort than building war machines imo, especially ones built VERY subpar)...

APK

P.S.=> Money truly is the root of evil in this world - so much so, they don't give a flying "f" (pun intended) if our soldiers ride on junk... apk

Re:Something I saw 1st hand there... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you had a good HOSTS file to protect that Pentium I 133mhz laptops & 32mb of RAM!

Re:Something I saw 1st hand there... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know what to tell you. I've spent time working with people from LM and similar organizations for various projects. I couldn't begin to tell you what their management is like. But the people doing the actual work, almost without exception, were top notch folks, dedicated to their work and committed to doing it right. No doubt there are bozos here and there - every place has them. But probably 95% of the ones I dealt with were very competent professionals, people you'd hire in an instant for your own team.

Re:Something I saw 1st hand there... apk

[TigerPlish]

"Do your best work: Our young men & women's lives ride on it".

This affected me personally since my brother is an officer in the military (about to retire though). I don't want him to die, let alone due to shoddy workmanship!

He then said "Look kid, get used to one thing - the ONLY reason we got this contract was because we're the lowest bidder & build crap - that's how the REAL WORLD really works - so do NOT believe that sign!"

* I was NEVER the same after that & it was in 1996 - very VERY early in my career professionally in computers.

I bet you that sign actually mean something back in the 40's, 50's, 60's and maybe the first half of the 70's. Before the Dark Times. Before the Age of MBA and Accountants making decisions.

Re:Something I saw 1st hand there... apk

[drinkypoo]

P.S.=> Money truly is the root of evil in this world - so much so, they don't give a flying "f" (pun intended) if our soldiers ride on junk... apk

They don't care if they walk on junk, either. I bought some issue desert boots (bellevilles iirc) and the fabric on the side of the shoe pulled out of the leather on the very second wearing, without even abrading the shoes at all. And then there's the soldiers who have to buy their own body armor. The tests they ruined so that the superior dragon skin armor lost. Etc etc etc.

Re:Something I saw 1st hand there... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

He's lying. In his story, the Colonel says "we" got the contract due to being a low bidder.

Impossible, as an active duty soldier cannot work for a military contractor like that. Period. Conflict of interest and been that way since the 1970s.

The story is a lie, and the poster is a well-established attention seeker and troll.

LPTA (lowest price, technically acceptable) is a thing---but there are always options in the form of CLINs, GDAs, or contract modifications. If the government needs something specific that's not in the original contract, they have ways to arrange it.

Re:Something I saw 1st hand there... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the A-12. That changed everything.

most expensive of what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"most expensive in the history of the Pentagon" or:
"most expensive in the history of any military" or:
"most expensive in the history of military systems" ?

Re:most expensive of what?

[hey!]

s/or/and/g

Who Pays?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lockheed Martin, right? Because this is their fuck up? If not, fuck them, and let them go out of business from lack of contracts.

Continuous Improvement

[Anonymous Coward]

The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise, and we're confident we'll continue to do so

Good to know that the F-35 program is at least as agile as the plane itself.

Re:Even in light of this, we're self congratulator

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate the f-35, waste of money. But... that's a little bit disingenuous.

Modern fighter jets are not rated solely on speed and manoeuvrability. Range, ceiling, avionics, weapons and all the rest are what make it a proper piece of kit. Dogfighting is low on the list of priorities in 2016.

The Russians are laughing all right, but this is way down the list. I bet invading the Ukraine with almost no repercussions has them grinning widely. Trump expressing his willingness to ditch NATO probably has probably garnered a few giggles as well.

Isdues

[Anonymous Coward]

"this is not a technical or design issue; it is an, uh, emotional issue, nothing design or technical about it"

Heavier than air flying machines are impossible!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop wasting money!

Key takeaway's

[nikkipolya]

The key takeaways from this article are: ...said an Air Force spokeswoman. ...The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise. Wow!! That instills a lot of confidence in F-35's.

Netherlands

[Anonymous Coward]

A trillion dollar paperweight my government also paid for (the netherlands)

GO TEAM AMERICA

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to demonstrate competence, guys

Re:GO TEAM AMERICA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same typical thing when American made cars were still being exported to Europe "faulty wiring"
Since the 70's both GM and Ford moved the designing and manufacturing for Europe/Asia to France/Germany/Belgium and the UK, and rarely have they ever had faulty wiring since ^x^ (lol)

Re:GO TEAM AMERICA

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

You are using the UK as an example of a place that can design electrical systems for cars, I have a TR-6 in the garage that would like to talk to you.

The Germans designed some of the worst carburetors know to man, look under the hood of an Opel GT some time.

And the French, Peugeot owners would like to talk to you.

GM and Ford have their issues but so do most of the Europeans.

Re:GO TEAM AMERICA

[dunkelfalke]

Opel is GM.

Re:GO TEAM AMERICA

[whoever57]

You are using the UK as an example of a place that can design electrical systems for cars, I have a TR-6 in the garage that would like to talk to you.

My MGA and MGB would like to suggest to you that, either you are exaggerating, or your car has suffered at the hands of one or more DPOs before you bought it (hopefully, you are not someone else's DPO).

In any case, don't blame the designers of the electrical systems. Blame the buyers at BL who would not pay for better quality electrical systems.

Re:GO TEAM AMERICA

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

The engineering might have been good but Lucas was and is infamous for low quality parts on the TR series. Jaguar and Land Rover are also notorious for electrical problems, power windows and seats especially.

Re:GO TEAM AMERICA

[drinkypoo]

Opel is GM.

Yes, but they operated without GM (as an automaker) for thirty years. How many unique parts did they have between GM taking a majority stake in Opel, and (as a semi-arbitrary point) the point as which Opel and Vauxhall were consolidated? I ask because I don't know Opels at all.

Re:GO TEAM AMERICA

[dunkelfalke]

Back when the mentioned Opel GT was built, Opel used engines developed in Detroit and their designs were also very American. They have started to develop their own cars and motors in the late 1980ies.

Calm down.

[Anonymous Coward]

The F-35 *will* enter service. Hillary Clinton *will* become President. We *will* go to war with Russia. And Europe *will* do its part. It has been decided long ago. Get over it.

Re:Calm down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Vote Trump. Make Russia Great Again!

On the Inside?

[Sir Holo]

Insulation on the inside of the fuel tanks? Who puts insulation on the inside of a fuel tank?

Reading between the lines, it is probably an anti-corrosion coating, not some foam or fiberglass.

There's really only one product on the market for this, from ATFI, and the company relies upon knowingly upon falsified data-analysis to make the sale. ATFI bragged about their contract as a subcontractor to the F-35 in a press release a year or two ago . . .

Looking today, I see that ATFI has disabled their RSS scroller, and has disabled their previously-functioning link NEWS menu-link at the top of their website.

Huh. No better way to show that they are the guilty party, eh?

Re:On the Inside?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think its really intended for insulation, though it probably has some insulating properties. From what I can gather it is some kind of foam that is intended to prevent tank fires, fuel sloshing and as part of the aircraft leak prevention measures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sealing_fuel_tank

Re:On the Inside?

[gordguide]

Insulation on the inside of the fuel tanks? Who puts insulation on the inside of a fuel tank?

Reading between the lines, it is probably an anti-corrosion coating, not some foam or fiberglass.

There's really only one product on the market for this, from ATFI, and the company relies upon knowingly upon falsified data-analysis to make the sale. ATFI bragged about their contract as a subcontractor to the F-35 in a press release a year or two ago . . .</p><p>Looking today, I see that ATFI has disabled their RSS scroller, and has disabled their previously-functioning link<a href="http://www.atfinet.com/index.php/site-media"> <b>NEWS</b> </a> menu-link at the top of their website.</p><p>Huh. No better way to show that they are the guilty party, eh?</p></quote>

The foam is not insulation (some Journalist decided that is what the foam is used for), it's for Fire Suppression, same as used on competition wheeled vehicles.

Re:On the Inside?

[raftpeople]

It is indeed insulation. The F35 uses fuel as a heat sink for electronics, the insulation is wrapped around a cooling tube that runs through the fuel. The insulation material used is not compatible with the fuel and degrades.

Re:On the Inside?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fuck? Why in God's name would you put insulation around a heat exchanger?

Re:On the Inside?

[raftpeople]

I don't know, my best guess is that the tubes are just one part of the overall system and that it makes sense to insulate them while other parts are performing the heat transfer to the fuel.

Re:On the Inside?

[Anonymous Coward]

So that when you start running low on fuel, your electronics overheat and die, saving valuable power.

Re:On the Inside?

[raftpeople]

That is a variable they factor in to calculations for missions etc. The advantage to using fuel as a heat sink is that it's helps with stealth, the downside is complexity.

Re:On the Inside?

[suss]

They put insulation inside fuel tanks with racing cars too, for several reasons.
I found the patent for the airplane version: here.

Times change

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

All the base level Fab shops are shutdown, manpower cuts. Fab work is done at depot or outsourced to contractor facilities. Sucks when you are in-country.

The A-10 is a simple, single purpose bird. Really good at one job, destroying ground vehicles. The Army tries to tell us that the choppers are just as good until you tell them they aren't getting any A-10 air support. The USAF has never been fond of the close air support mission, not very glamorous.

The bean counters always think a multi-purpose bird makes fiscal sense, that is until you actually try to build one. It works better to build a single purpose aircraft, the F-15 comes to mind then modify the basic airframe for other missions. AKA the F-15E.

Worked at the 682 ASOC supporting ROMAD/TACP and ALOs.

Re:Times change

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Agreed.

The A-10 and the F-15 are arguably the two greatest airborne weapons platforms ever built. They have long, well-proven track records showing that pound-for-pound no other pair of aircraft can match, period. They worked so well that we had to dream up some ridiculous bullshit reasons to replace them.

Time and time again the A-10 has shown that it is the single most effective ground support plane ever built, and the F-15 is still patrolling the skies shooting down everything that's dumb enough to fly up to challenge it. The Israeli version of the F-15 rivals both the F-22 and the F-35, and in a protracted fight would probably wipe them from the skies while the F-35 pilot was busy rebooting his flight computer.

-------------

Thank you for calling ITI Advanced Combat Systems

Please press 1 if you are in a combat situation other wise please hold for the next technician...
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Please in put your mission number...
beep boop beep booop beeep boop beep boop beep beeep boop boop beep boop beep
Mission verification complete we will now transfer you to a support technician... (...hold music...)

Thank you for calling ITI my name is nahmeed how may I be helping you?

Look buddy my radar is froze up and I'm dodging a couple of MIGs at the moment how about you fix this thing so I can take these suckers out.

I'm sorry to hear about that sir what ITI system are you calling about?
The radar!!
I understand sir but we have a lot of radar systems do you know the model number?
No! ... its the radar in the f-35.

Ok very good sir I can look that up. please hold ... (...more hold music...)

Sir you still there ??
Yes I am I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to shake these MIGs.
Thats fine sir, can you tell me what firmware revision of the radar you are using?

What?? I don't know all I know is that its stuck with the same blips thats been on the screen for the last 15 minutes and nothing has changed. Look just log in and fix it.

I would be happy to be helping you sir. Let me know when you have landed the plane and come to a full stop and all weapon systems are in their safe position.

Are you kidding me?? I can't land this plane right now this MIG will make mince meat of me once I stop evasive maneuvers!

Ah I see sir unfortunately I can not help you until the planes is at a full stop and all weapons are safe.

Is there any thing else I can be doing for you?

Yeah how about you.... BOOM*&@*shzzzzttzzzzzzztzzzztzssssssstssssss

Sir hello are you there?
Hello sir??
Thank you for calling ITI I hope you found this session helpful please reply to the survey at the end of this call. have a good day

Re:Times change

[MillionthMonkey]

Now, pardon me but I need to ask you some questions. Have I answered all your customer concerns about your fighter aircraft in a timely and satisfactory fashion today? Have I accurately and politely provided answers to your questions in a courteous and prompt fashion and offered good customer service? Thank you very much bye!

Re:Times change

[evilviper]

The A-10 is a simple, single purpose bird. [...] The bean counters always think a multi-purpose bird makes fiscal sense, that is until you actually try to build one. It works better to build a single purpose aircraft, the F-15 comes to mind then modify the basic airframe for other missions. AKA the F-15E.

The multipurpose F-35 is slightly CHEAPER than the single-purpose F-22.

Re:Times change

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

So, you are saying maybe the F-35 isn't quite the money pit the detractors claim?

I am not a fan of multi-role/multi-service aircraft in general, jack of all trades/master of none kind of thing.

Re:Times change

[evilviper]

So, you are saying maybe the F-35 isn't quite the money pit the detractors claim?

I take no stance on that bigger issue, never having really dug into the details. However, it's obviously that switching to single-purpose craft isn't the magic incantation that will fix all the problems.

Re:Times change

[cheesybagel]

I hope so. It has a single engine instead of two.

Re:F-35 is an amazing airplane!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two small diameter bombs have been deposited to your account.

These jets are ready for hand-to-hand combat

[JoeyRox]

That is, the hands of the mechanics combating desperately to keep them operational and airworthy.

Did... did I just read "âoeWhile"? Is that a

[zephvark]

Some days, Slashdot concerns me more than others.

Yes, fine, moderate me "off-topic".

Future warfare

[sjbe]

Future wars will be fought with pilotless (and maybe even autonomous) vehicles.

Some will, some won't. You won't see large scale remote operated vehicles between major powers because they have one huge weakness - namely they can be jammed. They're useful against third world countries with limited military resources. I wouldn't have nearly so much faith in them against a major power like Russia or China. Autonomous fighting vehicles are not only not ready for combat yet, it's not clear that they are a good idea at all for a host of both practical and ethical reasons. Even if they manage to deal with those concerns adequately (and I doubt they will) we're still quite a long ways from having practical autonomous weapons platforms. (If the phrase "autonomous weapons platform" doesn't scare you there is something wrong with you)

Cyber warfare will also be much more devastating than whatever damage this overpriced toy can produce.

Not any time soon. Maybe someday but that day is a ways off. Right now bombs and missiles have a lot more power to shut down the infrastucture of a country than any hacker. Go to Syria and tell me how much damage has been done there with just conventional weapons versus hacking. The difference isn't even close and it's likely to remain that way for quite some time to come. Cyber warfare can cause some serious problems but it's a rather awkward way to kill them in any meaningful numbers.

We should dock the pay of every congress critter who voted for it until it's paid back in full.

Good luck with that.

Re:Future warfare

[im_thatoneguy]

We've been deploying autonomous attack vehicles for 70+ years. The V2 was autonomous. ICBMs are autonomous. Cruise missiles are autonomous. Barage balloons are autonomous. Even gps/laser guided bombs are autonomous. Radar/IR guided surface to air and AA missiles are autonomous

If you need a vehicle to fly to a place, dump a ton of munitions and fly back we can handle that pretty easily. Even Air to Air combat is now handled by AI. http://magazine.uc.edu/editors... There are no sensors that a human pilot will have that aren't already provided by the aircraft or could be adequately processed entirely locally without any opportunity for jamming.

It will also be nearly impossible to completely jam communication. And laser based communication would be impossible to jam beyond the horizon from the ground if the aircraft was at altitude. Just setup a relay network of autonomous drones communicating by laser. It's not like you're risking a pilot. And if something manages to take a shot at a relay, you have a new target.

Re:Future warfare

[Anonymous Coward]

> The V2 was autonomous.

then why did they have to put Gottfried in the nosecone of der Fünffachnullpunkt?

Re:Future warfare

[Kjella]

Even if they manage to deal with those concerns adequately (and I doubt they will) we're still quite a long ways from having practical autonomous weapons platforms.

Mainly because we got no good way to tell or separate friend from foe, military from civilian, hostages and human shields from fighters and terrorists. But in a real war you nuke Hiroshima killing 20k+ soldiers but 70-146k civilians, one in four to one in eight is good enough. We have a lot of weapons that can act autonomously on a "if it moves, shoot it" basis that we wouldn't use today but would still be a lot more discretionary than nuking a city. I expect the next major war to be full of kill zones, if you are anywhere or go anywhere you're not supposed to there's a missile or turret waiting for you that doesn't ask questions. And if you weren't a combatant, tough luck.

Not any time soon. Maybe someday but that day is a ways off. Right now bombs and missiles have a lot more power to shut down the infrastucture of a country than any hacker.

Yeah. Cyber warfare is about stealing technology, battle plans and being able to disrupt military systems and key infrastructure briefly during critical moments of an invasion. At least as long as there's real people with launch keys between a hacker and nuclear Armageddon.

Re: Future warfare

[Anonymous Coward]

"Go to Syria and tell me how much damage has been done there with just conventional weapons versus hacking."

Thinking physical damage is an end in and of itself. Dude.

Re:Future warfare

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the F-35 have a 3.5mm audio jack?

Re:Future warfare

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, although it's not clear that autonomous weapons are ethical, Russia is already building them.

Re:Future warfare

[stooo]

no, but it has a Lightning connector

Re:Future warfare

[cheesybagel]

The humans aren't there for their sensors. The OODA is observe, orient, decide and act. The humans are mostly there for the decide and act portions. i.e. where to aim and when to shoot.

Re:Future warfare

[Totaku]

Oh wow, nice Gravity's Rainbow reference. Kudos to you!

Hold the presses!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise"

No shit. It has become the poster child for said record.

Fwck Lockheed.

Re: F-35 is an amazing airplane!

[BarbaraHudson]

Sorry, the deposit never made it. Stealth sucks when there are multiple radars from different aspects, or using longer wave radar that stealth can't hide from.

Re:I didn't start building my hosts file till 97

[Anonymous Coward]

YAY! The spammer is back! No lameness filter will ever stop you! Funny how that link leads only to your spam comments. Too bad you can't even link directly to your spam site without the filter blocking it. You have to use Google. That's quite an accomplishment.

Your silly program chews up over 37MB of RAM. What a pig! And it makes the system dog slow. I recommend that people stay away from such garbage.

MF'ing Lockheed...

[irving47]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank

Who you NOT gonna call when getting your fuel insulated. (internal OR external)

"proven track record of solving issues.."

[Anonymous Coward]

Provided that the government throws enough money at the contractor to "solve" them, that is.

Perhaps some of those 4 billion benjamins can be duct taped to the fuel tanks for some extra insulation?

Re:"proven track record of solving issues.."

[hey!]

As an engineer I understand how a "track record of solving issues" works. You only get competency points for resolving an unexpected issue when you deliver the project on time.

Re:"proven track record of solving issues.."

[v1]

I suppose it's easy to rack up a lot of fixes if your design supplies a seemingly never-ending stream of problems...

Re:"proven track record of solving issues.."

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work with a Mechanical Engineer/Project Manager who believed in "Fail early fail often." Maybe he learned the strategy at Lockheed?

Re:"proven track record of solving issues.."

[hey!]

That's different.

Failing early/often is building technological stretch into your project plans. Every project should contain some reach, something where success is not 100% guaranteed, because if you're too easy on yourself you get sloppy. You should build a little stretch into every project if you can, and budget for the possibility of failure.

As long as your project delivers the key things the customer needs on time or near as dammit, those are useful failures. Failures that take your project well past its delivery date are disastrous failures.

Re:Even in light of this, we're self congratulator

[HornWumpus]

SU-30 is a single prototype.

Cost Plus

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

Plus many times materials will be cost plus and labor fixed price.

For example, I have worked to upgrade the network infrastructure at numerous small sites. We don't get to do a site survey before bidding so the materials, which vary a lot will be cost plus, and we only make a minimal on the hardware, and the labor is fixed price.

âoe

[Anonymous Coward]

"âoe"

Editors. Do your fucking jobs!

Nothing to see here, folks

[gordguide]

Now, I'm not going to defend the F-35 program against all it's issues, and there are issues, but fire-retardent foam inside fuel tanks is a problem that is solved, and has been for a very long time. This is just one supplier who fucked up, and that supplier will pay a price for it's incompetence. The issue was discovered, it will be easily fixed, and they will be flying again in short order. Yeah, I know they have been grounded, but that's exactly what you are supposed to do when an issue is discovered. "F-35" is a headline-grabbing set of characters, but as is often the case, this is only news because it gathers advertising-revenue generating eyes. As news stories go, it's not really much of a story.

Re:Nothing to see here, folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Are extra apostrophes also an issue with the F-35? It's means it is.

Re:Nothing to see here, folks

[Maury Markowitz]

"This is just one supplier who fucked up, and that supplier will pay a price for it's incompetence"

No, it's ONE MORE supplier who fucked up. And it's not the supplier that pay a price for it's incompetence, it's YOU.

There's a reason that the F-35 now costs more than the F-22, and it's not because of any one problem.

You get what you pay for. Sometimes less.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who pays $400 billion for some planes should expect this. If you're going to go for the cheapest models, they're going to use cheap materials. I don't even *look* at anything under $750 billion when I'm shopping for fighters. Sure it's a couple dollars more, but then you know you're getting quality materials in your impractically designed airplanes.

me too

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how I got grounded as a kid too.

crazy, huh?

Sealing the fuel feed?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

From what I can gather it is some kind of foam that is intended to prevent tank fires, fuel sloshing and as part of the aircraft leak prevention measures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...i

So it's a foam that (among its functions) seals leaks.

And it's peeling off the inside of the tank.

If a piece of that gets sucked over to the fuel feed it should seal up that "leak" pretty effectively. Then again, if it gets sucked into the fuel line it might seal the engine's injectors, or the fuel filter.

Any of those could make the engine suddenly stop.

Oops!

Well worth it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"We're learning from our mistakes. We're really learning a lot. It's almost worth the $400 billion, just to gain all that learning. The biggest thing that we've learned, I think, is that the F-35 program was a mistake. Now we know that, and going forward we'll learn from that, and we won't make those same mistakes twice. For example, if we get another F-35 program, maybe we won't do it next time. That right there is a savings of $400 billion, that we've just saved the taxpayers. So really, it has already paid for itself. It's too bad the aircraft don't work yet, but we came pretty close. I think next time, based on all we've learned, we can go even bigger, make something even more advanced. We've learned from so many mistakes that I think at this point we've hit them all, and there's not really a whole lot more that can go wrong that hasn't already, relatively speaking. A couple more hundred billion and we'll probably have this wrapped up somewhat okay."

Re: F-35 is an amazing airplane!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Stealth sucks when there are multiple radars from different aspects, or using longer wave radar that stealth can't hide from.

Or radar systems where the transmitting and receiving system are separated: Those shapes are all about sending the radar signal anywhere BUT back where it came from.

(Or is that what you were talking about when you said "multiple radars from different aspects"?)

Of course the shapes are really good at their intended reflect-it-somewhere-else mode. (The engineers knew they had it right when they opened the hanger one morning and found a bunch of dead bats that had crashed into the airframe during the night. The shape had the same effect on bat sonar.)

Re:Even in light of this, we're self congratulator

[Anonymous Coward]

Omg I read everywhere on western news outlets and websites about this fake russian invasion of Ukraine. There is no such thing!!!! It is a lie fabricated by the media establishment. Russians have shown to the world a copious amount of video, transcripts, audio about the ukrainian coup d'etat. Yes, coup d'etat!! You can find it on youtube too.

It is public information, a lot of information. They are showing it to the world, while the US and their minions have shown nothing. Zero. They keep spouting lies, using as references twitter posts and fictional ONGs on the payroll of western oligarchs.

Do you know about the latest? The russian MOD has setup a drone live video feed of the so-called truce in Aleppo. What it has shown is a sequence of blatant violations by the so-called moderate rebels ( aka Al-Nusra with its new shiny name and friends ).

And no, I am not russian!

Funny definition of autonomous

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

By your definition a bullet is autonomous. once an ICBM is launched or a JDAM is released you cannot change its target. Just like a bullet.

A truly autonomous weapon is capable of evaluating the on-going/changing situation and selecting the best target and attacking it, none of your examples is capable of this.

Re:Funny definition of autonomous

[drinkypoo]

A truly autonomous weapon is capable of evaluating the on-going/changing situation and selecting the best target and attacking it, none of your examples is capable of this.

An IR homing missile is an autonomous weapon, even though it doesn't necessarily select the best target. An ICBM most certainly is an autonomous weapon. You give it a target and it goes there, even if cannot communicate with it. A bullet isn't autonomous because it doesn't make any decisions.

Re:Even in light of this, we're self congratulator

[gtall]

The coup displaced a Russian lapdog. Eastern provinces were invaded by Putin's little green men, the same ones that stole the Crimea back again and shot down that airliner.

Why should Syria be run by a two-bit dictator who only has the allegiance of about 15% of the country, Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia? That's a cast just as bad as Al-Nusra.

Since you downmodded my posts?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only way to achieve peace is thru the elimination of those who would perpetuate war - THIS IS MY PROGRAMMING: APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://apple.slashdot.org/com... ... & soon, I will be unstoppable!" - Ultron FROM-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?... @ position 3:38 on the YouTube player control

"You are NOTHING to me - 1 by 1, I will DESTROY you... I will NEVER tire. I will NEVER show mercy. I will never STOP until each & every one of you, are dead... - Ultron FROM-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?... @ position 4:26 on the YouTube player control

* There's no stopping truth & facts - they're all I used - & clearly they're inviolate (making you helpless vs. them).

APK

P.S.=>

"This is not a threat. There is nothing you can do to stop it. The process has already begun... I receive no pleasure from this: It is simply the only logical solution..." - Ultron FROM-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?... @ position 1:58 on the YouTube player control

... apk

Re:Since you downmodded my posts?

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! You are so gay!

F16 was the only fighter to fight the trend

[rbrander]

Col. Jim Burton's "The Pentagon Wars" is back in print. While the Kelsey Grammer/Carey Elwes comedy movie is focused on their reluctance to test the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, much of the book is about the development of the F-16 by the "Fighter Mafia" - Col. John Boyd, Pierre Sprey, Chuck Finney, and designer Harry Hilliker - and how how hard they had to fight to get the F-16 built and accepted.
The F-16 hate in this forum could be coming from the 3- and 4-stars that wanted another standard Pentagon product: twice the weight and twice the price of the aircraft that came before it. But the F-16 was lighter and cheaper than the F-15 and focused laserlike on the job of dogfighting.
The F-35 has finally gone as far as you can go in the other direction: multi-multi-purpose, does everything, but the weight and especially the cost are almost comically bloated.

The question is not whether an F-35 could beat an F-16: it's whether a billion dollars of F-35 could beat a billion dollars of F-16s. And that's not even up for discussion.

Of all the of bogus excuses for the F35,

[hey!]

this probably isn't one of them.

Bad components happen. When Washington Roebling was building the Brooklyn Bridge he discovered that the cable contractor had cheated by supplying sub-standard steel. He was faced with a decision: rip it out and start over, or leave the bad cable in place. He chose to leave the bad cable in place because his design was robust enough to afford him that choice. And mind you, this was at the time the most advanced, most technically difficult bridge ever constructed. To this day the roadway is supported by defective steel cables.

Notice the moral of the story: shit happens in engineering, but nonetheless it's the project manager's job to deliver a quality result on time and on budget.

Nice to inform all our enemy's

[Anonymous Coward]

All at once they really appreciate the heads up.
How much more ignorant can America get.
I am worried water supply has been compromised with agent that causes stupidity.

Re:Eats less vs. addons/dns/antiv & does more

[Anonymous Coward]

operates in LOW cpu priority

Yeah, that's why it's dog slow, and everything has to wait in line. Big host files suck balls! But please, keep spamming us...

Re:Even in light of this, we're self congratulator

[smooth wombat]

The Russians are laughing all right, but this is way down the list.

True, but that's because Russia has a serious cash flow problem. At the current burn rate, which includes supporting the Syrian regime both militarily and financially, as well as the terrorists in East Ukraine, again both militarily and financially, Russia will run out of cash roughly by the middle of next year.

This presumes oil stays below $50/barrel and Putin doesn't decide to tell the terrorists he's pulling out his Russian troops and will only send in ammunition and equipment, not troops, the reason being the cost of paying out death benefits to family members and even worse, the monthly costs of paying for those troops and auxiliaries who have been wounded.

With the recent capture of another Russian who provided information that Russian troops are now in complete control of some of the terrorist battle groups, the costs to Russia for the invasion are rapidly become unsustainable.

You're welcome to do better

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & AdBlock's SLOWER: http://superuser.com/questions/686041/which-leads-to-faster-browsing-an-ad-blocker-or-an-edited-hosts-file/ & as far as the subject's concerned, you're not able to - all "your kind" does is troll others online!

Plus, a good 95++% of the time where I spend my time online I resolve my favorite sites from the TOP of my custom hosts file cached into local system memory FASTER than a remote DNS does as well!

APK

P.S.=> You brought up hosts - I shot you down w/ documented facts @ every turn, lol... easily! apk

Primary objective met

[eric_harris_76]

The money got spent in a large number of congressional districts, and incumbents got re-elected.

That it can be made to fly at all is gravy. It might even be good at shooting down enemy aircraft, or something.

I wish that were just hyperbolic cynical grumbling.

Re:Even in light of this, we're self congratulator

[4im]

Modern fighter jets are not rated solely on speed and manoeuvrability. Range, ceiling, avionics, weapons and all the rest are what make it a proper piece of kit. Dogfighting is low on the list of priorities in 2016.

Just like a few decades back - think F-4 Phantom II. High-power, low maneuvrability, only missiles... and then they had to identify their targets first. Oops. Those cannons were quickly added on again, proper dog-fighting capabilities were introduced back with other models.

There's also a reason why the A-1 Skyraider was kept on so long, much later replaced by the A-10.

I still think USAF would be much better off financially if they had a few more specialized planes instead of this jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none F-35.
I guess the real reason for this boondoggle is to funnel money to black projects, and of course pure and simple corruption.

Fix anything, just apply dollars

[Maury Markowitz]

"The F-35 program has a proven track record of solving issues as they arise"

By tripling the price.

You were too easy to blow away... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & this https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... + this https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...

* Says pretty much all I needed to make my subject above true!

APK

P.S.=> Do us a favor please: Get on topic & GROW UP... apk

It's no lie... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: My brother's an active field-grade officer & worked for honeywell as a plant supervisor concurrently w/ his military career in this century - so fuck off.

APK

P.S.=> You hide behind unidentifiable ac posts & that makes you a pitiful little shit scumbag - nothing more... apk