[ScubaDiver]

It's FANTASTICAL to believe that the same DoD and defense contractors that can't get the catapult reliably operational on the new Ford-class aircraft carrier, is still struggling to get the oxygen delivery system on the F-22 sorted and has spent tens of BILLIONS on two classes of surface warfare ships that turn out to be wholly worthless and frequently inoperable, has constructed a fleet of fully operational aircraft that advance publicly understood principles of aeronautical engineering by a 1K-years or more and they've done it all on time and under budget, a budget small enough to keep it hidden from the public for 20-years or more.

That's insane. Only someone who has never worked in government in any capacity could believe such nonsense.

[Vermont Lt]

I think you misunderstood what I wrote.

I was suggesting that someone “found” the tech and we merely figured it out. That someone could have found it 80 years ago or longer.

I agree with your point that traditional government channels have a hard time building anything complicated.

[z3n]

“...to believe that the same DoD...”

~~~

Didn’t the CIA bring along the SR71?
How many bureaucrats do you supposed really had much of anything to do with that program, particularly in it’s more formative stages?

I would imagine that there are/were other programs that took compartmentalization to the extreme, out of necessity. Autonomous to the point that clearance levels made absolutely no difference in terms of access or need to know.

[fatman6502002]

They’re not the same people. If they had been then the Chinese and Russians would have known all about this tech because the regular DoD/NatSec/FedGov is rife with adversary penetrations, like most of our federal government institutions. Fire all of the progressive socialist democrats in the fed DoD/NatSec/FedGov bureauracracy and you’ll get rid of 99% of the spies that are working for our enemies and adversaries. Another clue to whom they are, look closely at everyone in the DoD/NatSec/FedGov area who was hired while obama was pres, you’ll get a lot of spies out of that group of leftist scum too.