[hardspunned]

You will not believe what an insane waste of taxpayer dollars is going on here. Perhaps the biggest MIC boondoggle to date.

THIS is supposed to be our last ace in the hole against the Russians and Chinese.

[Carriage Hill]

Wasn’t the F-22 a good all-around plane? Why’d they dump it for the F-35?

[who_would_fardels_bear]

The best that can be said about the F-35 is that it is more like an aircraft carrier than a destroyer. Because it can "see" farther than any other aircraft, it is able to shoot them down before ever engaging.

But they could have accomplished more with high flying dirigibles if that was their aim.

[jimwatx]

The arms industry is totally ripping off American taxpayers with the help of corrupt politicians. Russia is able to maintain parity spending 1/10 as much.

[Chode]

somewhere, PukinDog is laughing...

[vonHarpo]

I got out in 98 so I’m not privy to current information. Historically every fighter had problems when it first became operational. The Eagle had engine problems. The F18 had trouble guiding semi-active radar missiles to the target. F-16 fly-by-wire flight control system failed in a nose down position when it failed earning it the moniker of “lawn dart”. Hopefully they are working the bugs out of the F35. The only complaint I remember about the aircraft when it was being developed was it had to fill multiple rolls for multiple customers. Because of the expense they wanted one fighter designed for the Navy, Air Force and Marines. Which left an aircraft that was multi-functional but a master of none. The only question between the time I was in and now is that the people working to fix the problems may not be hired based on merit.

[bert]

They killed the Iranian military leadership in Syria

They conducted successful missions in IRANIAN!!!

So bitch and whine.

[CodeJockey]

The military industrial complex is to white people as the US Postal Service is to African Americans.

A jobs program. Nothing more, nothing less.

[CodeJockey]

MCAS Cherry Point Air Show 5/11/24 will have a F-35B demo. I’ll be there. Hopefully it will be airworthy.

[Mr. Blond]

The F-35 is the world’s best avionics suite in the world’s most mediocre airframe.

[PLMerite]

The Israeli Air Force seems to be flying the crap out of theirs. Over Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, (maybe Iran), ivo Russian S-300 and S-400 air defense systems, no problems.

[CodeJockey]

Trying to mix three different roles into one airframe never seemed to be logical to me. The ironic thing about it is that that design was suppose to have been more cost effective.