Re: Still, one day...
"There are quite a few flat-out falsities in the article that I wont [sic] even go into ..."
Funny, I'd have thought you'd be falling over yourself to list them, if they're "flat out falsities".
Some posters defending this project seem to be arguing with appeals to authority "trust me, I worked on this/that ..." and "You have no idea what's involved ..." rather than addressing the actual history of the F-35 development or the simply enormous litany of failings, failures, faults, cost overruns, magical accounting etc which are a matter of public record. It's true that previous planes have had teething problems, even the much-admired teen series like F-14, -15, -16, -18 and the celebrated A-10. But none endured such a hellish journey as F-35: not even close.
And it's notable that the planes I've mentioned were all designed, built and operated with a lesson in mind. That lesson was the F-111.
The F-111 was propagandised as the One Size Fits All combat plane, a multi-purpose multi-role flexible aircraft that could fulfil all necessary combat missions better than any previous dedicated aircraft, and would save oodles of money because of universal adoption and standardisation.
Does any of that sound familiar?
The F-111, of course, was an expensive disaster, setting the west's combat air power development back by at least a decade (yes, the UK's idiot, lying politicians got sucked into that disaster too).
Foolish and gullible as they had been, senior military and politicians resolved to act upon the lesson, realising that it is indeed far better to have three planes that each do a specific task brilliantly well, than one which does everything badly. The result was a series of unparalleled aircraft designs which have worked well for nigh on 50 years. For merely one example, ask any experienced infantry grunt which plane he'd prefer to have providing close air support when he's beset on all sides by hairy foes—it'll be A-10, not F-35: the latter is simply too limited, too fragile and too expensive.
I won't list again all the manifold warnings and failings of F-35 because, unlike the "flat out falsities" they are matter of record for anyone with a browser.
The Russians and Chinese are not cowering beneath their beds over the F-35 designs (the entirety of which they appear to have had on their computers for years now). They are delighted to see the US and UK pouring countless billions into an inferior aircraft, so expensive that there will never be nearly enough of them, so fragile that they will fly rarely, so dependent upon their vaunted "stealth" that Russian and Chinese engineers can almost cry with laughter as they dust off and improve suites of technology (multiband active/passive; IR; optical; acoustic; with multidomain integration), some of it actually quite old, which renders that stealth frequently useless¹. For them it is even more incredibly, hilariously welcome than watching the UK piss billions away on a Trident system it can't use, or float its Great Big Targerts ("supercarriers") without any aircraft. (Or escort ships. Or a modern operating system. Or—)
General and politicians forgot, or more likely were too arrogant, to heed the lessons learned by a previous generation and were, once again suckered by the lies of contractors and tempted by the prospect of congressional pork. And, just as with F-111, they have betrayed their nation's defence, again, and this time probably for much longer than 10 years..
¹ Useless, that is, when merely opening the weapons bay doors; or carrying a fuel tank; or a missile; or encountering a stone flake on the runway doesn't render the stealth already useless.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
