Posted on 07/08/2020 12:56:35 PM PDT by Red Badger
Say WHaaaat?
[?]present[?] = "displaces"?
Is simple understanding of physics & mechanics or command of English no longer required for writers at Popular Mechanics?
? What's next? Filling fire extinguishers with gasoline?
Thank you, Department of "Education" and scumbag Teachers' Unions...
TXnMA
The more inflammable nitrogen...
—
What? Nitrogen has a flammability rating of zero.
Probably so. Also, if the USAF had kept the buy at the original numbers, 750 aircraft, and not so foolishly precluded foreign purchases then the unit cost would have been not much more than and F-15 (adjusted for inflation). Lockheed-Martin saw the writing on the wall when the F-35 was conceived as a multi-national partnership which would share development costs and guarantee foreign sales.
Add to the fact that the Russian & Chinese F-22 wannabees are basically still-born for the same reason that the F-22 program was crippled. So the F-35 while somewhat more limited in concept, is ‘good enough’. I guess the plane you have is better than the one you don’t.
It's not a major flaw, it's very minor. Most fighters don't even have a system like this and they manage not to blow up. Not flying through thunderstorms is pretty much instinctive to any pilot anyways, telling one to not fly near a thunderstorm is like telling a chef not to cut himself while chopping vegetables. The engineers will fix it and life will go on, I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that no F-35's will blow up because their nitrogen generating systems weren't working before then.
As for why not use a pressurized nitrogen tank? They add weight and have to be refilled which adds another unneeded layer of maintenance when they're on the ground. A self contained automatic system is much preferable.
This article is typical media BS of making a mountain out of a molehill. It's much ado about nothing designed to get the armchair aviation experts all worked up.
Why yes, it will initiate combustion (oxidization) of flammable organic materials such as fuel. It has been 45 plus years since I learned those reactions and dynamics in organic, and physical chemistry, so I guess I was slightly wrong. Sorry.
I have to laugh at a few FReepers that use them as a source for proof that all those wonder weapons allegedly are already deployed.
I guess those lurid magazine covers still work for the gullible. Been some years now since someone here insisted we had particle beam weapons on ships, making them invulnerable.
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