The U.S. Air Force admitted that the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

[NurseJackie]

The U.S. Air Force Just Admitted The F-35 Stealth Fighter Has Failed

The U.S. Air Force’s top officer wants the service to develop an affordable, lightweight fighter to replace hundreds of Cold War-vintage F-16s and complement a small fleet of sophisticated—but costly and unreliable—stealth fighters.

The result would be a high-low mix of expensive “fifth-generation” F-22s and F-35s and inexpensive “fifth-generation-minus” jets, explained Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown Jr.

If that plan sounds familiar, it’s because the Air Force a generation ago launched development of an affordable, lightweight fighter to replace hundreds of Cold War-vintage F-16s and complement a small future fleet of sophisticated—but costly and unreliable—stealth fighters.

But over 20 years of R&D, that lightweight replacement fighter got heavier and more expensive as the Air Force and lead contractor Lockheed Martin LMT +0.3% packed it with more and more new technology.

Yes, we’re talking about the F-35. The 25-ton stealth warplane has become the very problem it was supposed to solve. And now America needs a new fighter to solve that F-35 problem, officials said.

More at link https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/02/23/the-us-air-force-just-admitted-the-f-35-stealth-fighter-has-failed/

Link to tweet

Forbes @Forbes
The U.S. Air Force admitted that the F-35 stealth fighter has failed https://trib.al/CCtQ1rk

[BlueIdaho]

1. Does that mean

They have to give the money back? What a money pit!

[NurseJackie]

3. With a sticker price of around $100 million per plane, including the engine, the F-35 is expensive.

With a sticker price of around $100 million per plane, including the engine, the F-35 is expensive. While stealthy and brimming with high-tech sensors, it’s also maintenance-intensive, buggy and unreliable. “The F-35 is not a low-cost, lightweight fighter,” said Dan Ward, a former Air Force program manager and the author of popular business books including The Simplicity Cycle.

The F-35 is a Ferrari, Brown told reporters last Wednesday. “You don’t drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our ‘high end’ [fighter], we want to make sure we don’t use it all for the low-end fight.”

“I want to moderate how much we’re using those aircraft,” Brown said.

[robbob]

5. Spoken like a man who has enough spare cash lying around

to afford a Ferrari.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

43. "I want to moderate how much we're using those aircraft,"

Pilots need a certain amount of actual flight time for training and familiarity on the plane. Simulators are fine, but not a substitute for actual flight. The pilots have to "use it or lose it".

Unless we want a fleet of garage ornaments. Er, hangar ornaments.

[Irish_Dem]

2. Trillion dollar boondoggle. Who got very rich?

[NurseJackie]

4. Fifteen years after the F-35's first flight, the Air Force has just 250 of the jets.

Fifteen years after the F-35’s first flight, the Air Force has just 250 of the jets. Now the service is signaling possible cuts to the program. It’s not for no reason that Brown has begun characterizing the F-35 as a boutique, high-end fighter in the class of the F-22. The Air Force ended F-22 production after completing just 195 copies.

“The F-35 is approaching a crossroads,” Grazier said.

[Johnny2X2X]

6. US military might is way overstated

Our military is a jobs program. Having the best Air Power is important, but once you get several times over #1, the rest is just jobs creation. The corruption is unreal and we have $Trillions is war machines that are not needed or useless.

SO people always cite the money we spend on the military as a scale for how "secure" and "powerful" we are. Most of it is waste, we are not as safe as the money suggests.

[NurseJackie]

14. Which politicians are supporting and pushing this? This is obscene!

Imagine how much healthcare that could provide.

[LiberalArkie]

7. How about making some more F-16's

Surely someone still has the old blueprints

[nycbos]

9. You mean spend money on a plane that actually works?

What a concept.

[LiberalArkie]

10. Maybe just call it the "New F-16" with state of the art avionics.

[mopinko]

11. how about

f-16x?

[Angleae]

35. They've ordered some F-15EX

First flight was earlier this month

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/02/03/air-forces-new-f-15ex-jet-just-took-its-first-flight.html

[Kaleva]

21. I believe they are still making F-16s for foreign buyers.

[nycbos]

8. To paraphrase Ann Richards in her famous 1988 DNC speech...

... "We Democrats favor a strong national defense, but when we spend billions on planes that can't fly and tanks that can't fire that dog don't hunt."

[hunter]

12. Manned fighter aircraft are obsolete.

If you don't have any people in the sky you can flood the airspace with autonomous weapons that shoot everything down that's not them, weapons that tolerate accelerations which would kill humans.

In World War II military flying machines required human pilots but that's not the case any more. Keeping human passengers alive severely limits the capabilities of an aircraft.

[speak easy]

24. 'autonomous weapons'. IE Killer Robots.

Killer Robots: Precedent for a Ban Treaty
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/20/killer-robots-precedent-ban-treaty

A treaty to ban fully autonomous weapons, or “killer robots,” is essential and achievable, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

"weapons that shoot everything down that's not them"



What could possibly go wrong?

[hunter]

28. Already here, cards held close.

God forbid another World War. Between nukes and autonomous weapons that war would be over in a day and then we'd all be refugees.

20th century nuclear weapons and 21st century gigabyte, terabyte, and petabyte computing changed everything.

Aircraft carriers and manned fighter aircraft are only useful as public works projects for the intimidation of impoverished peoples.

Personally I'd rather have spent all that F-35 money on wetlands restoration.

[Celerity]

37. Slaughterbots

[speak easy]

38. A still from Voyage of the Damned

[betsuni]

13. "In the real world, if the plane is built and if the choice is if that goes to Vermont

South Carolina or Florida, what is your choice as a United States Senator? ... My view is that given the reality of the damn plane, I'd rather it come to Vermont than to South Carolina. And that's what the Vermont National Guard wants, and that means hundreds of jobs in my city. That's it."

"In the real world" Finally, the truth, but not for anyone else because ... "corrupt" "establishment" "elite" and so on.

[NurseJackie]

16. I'd rather spend the money on healthcare.

[betsuni]

17. Yes! I believe a Medicare for All type plan was tried in Vermont and didn't work.

We need more ideas, to be flexible.

[RAB910]

15. If the Air Force is going to be looking at a new fighter it should be unmanned

The idea of clinging to manned fighter aircraft reminds me of the navies pre-WW2 clinging to battleships over aircraft carriers

[brush]

22. If we can just get the generals and admirals to not fight the last war...

we'd be making progress.

[RAB910]

25. Yeah, that's always the challenge

[brush]

26. And just as battleships are now long obsolete, a case can also be made that...

aircraft carriers are just sitting ducks now.

[RAB910]

27. Yeah, smaller ships carrying drones and ships carrying massive numbers of missles

seems to be the future of naval warfare.

Hypersonic anti-ship missiles will be nearly impossible to stop

the range of anti-ship missiles is now coming close to exceeding the range of aircraft negating the benefit of a carrier

[EX500rider]

41. The last wars would be low level asymmetrical warfare in Iraq & Afghanistan & Syria..

Air superiority will always be high on the list and 40+ year old designs aren't going to cut it.

[brush]

42. True. And the F-35 is only 15 or so years old.

[hunter]

29. Today's aircraft carriers are France's Maginot Line.

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

[RAB910]

30. yeah

hypersonic anti-ship missiles are nearly unstoppable

the range of anti-ship missiles are starting to exceed the range of the aircraft the carriers carry.


At this point, the navy would be better off with ships carrying large numbers of missiles and small drone carriers

plus there have been plenty of war games where ultra-quiet non-nuclear subs have taken out a carrier.

[greenjar_01]

18. Heard from a reliable Presidential source that it was quite literally invisible

[Bayard]

19. Throw some stuff overboard!

Does no good to have the woopty-doo technology if you can't fly the damn thing. Certainly not worth scrapping billions of taxpayer dollars.

Too simplistic?

[TheRealNorth]

20. The major selling point of the aircraft....

Was that all the stealth and technology was supposed to make it invulnerable because it could shoot down or hit any system before the F-35 could be detected. They were really putting all their eggs into one basket.

Not too surprised by this - I remember reading articles 5-6 years ago claiming the F-35 was one giant boondoggle. My guess is that the military will try to say that they tried to make it do too many things (mission types) and that they need to make 2-3 different types of aircraft (which will end up being 3 times the boondoggle).

[EX500rider]

23. They didn't say "it failed"..

They said they would like a low cost fighter to go with it.

However a "low cost" 5th Gen stealthily fighter is a pipe dream.

If it was a failure Japan, Israel, South Korea etc would not be lining up to buy them.

The 4th Gen F-18 Super Hornet is almost $70 million.

4th Gen F-15-EX is about $88 million.

And the F-35 is a generation past them.

[hunter]

32. A 5th Gen stealthy fighter is a guy with a Toyota pickup truck, guns...

... and multiple social media accounts.

Don't look at me. I drive a thousand dollar Ford beater truck.

DU is my only social media.

And I hate guns.

[EX500rider]

44. Sure in Asymmetrical warfare...not so much against China or Russia. nt

[TheRealNorth]

36. Sure those countries would buy them...

Part of the understanding that comes with the military aid they get from us is that they buy our stuff.

[EX500rider]

39. Maybe Israel

But South Korea makes most of their own weapons and is in no hurry to buy anything that does not work..

[EX500rider]

40. Also buying the F-35:

Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore, UAE, and Turkey if we let them.

[jmowreader]

31. This is what happens when too many people have access to the wish list

The single biggest problem the F-35 has is the Marines are still fighting the Battle of Guadalcanal.

Before Guadalcanal the Navy promised the Corps they would help provide air cover. Unfortunately, by the time the Marines got to Guadalcanal, the Navy had to use its air assets to pull Naval butts out of the fire. As a result, when the Marines were brought into the preplanning phase of this jet they insisted on short take-off/vertical landing capability so they could use the jet from their own amphibious transport docks.

Unfortunately for the Navy and Air Force, that one demand controlled every other decision they could make about the jet.

It would have been ultimately cheaper in the long run, and would have produced a better jet, to design a Marine Corps aircraft carrier and let them fly the Navy version.

[NurseJackie]

33. Fascinating... thanks for the background info.

I didn't know that.

[hunter]

34. World War II and the Cold War are history.

Building weapons that might have been useful then is foolish.

[EX500rider]

45. Not convinced it would be cheaper...

The current Marine Corp Wasp Class carrier's are around $1.9 billion ea using VSTOL aircraft.
And the new Navy Ford Class CV's with cats are around $13 billion ea.

And if you designed a new 5th Gen jet without the VSTOL is would still be north of $88 million each.
For example the new 4th Gen F-18 Super Hornet's are around $70 million and the F-15-EX is about $88 million.
And neither are as capable as the F-35 in over the horizon engagements.

[jmowreader]

46. Would a Marine carrier need to be as complex as a Ford?

It appears there's enough room on an America-class LHD to install an EMALS catapult. You would have to find enough electricity to run it, though.

The end result is, without having to accommodate the STOVL capability of the F-35B you'd wind up with a better jet for less money.