Has the f-35 been the biggest waste of money in human history?

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>t. increasingly nervous fifty-center
We're going to poke holes in the Three Gorges Dam and all you can do is cry on the internet.

>>31920029
fpbp

>>31920029
I love Trump though...

The LCS

It cost as much as a proportion of GDP as the F-16.

And proportion of GDP is the only really relevant measure of cost.

>>31920122
I guess so, but still you cannot say that it was worthwhile expenditure, especially since it was all put on American credit cards...

>>31919958
The issue it had was that it was horribly managed for about 10 years and the original timelines they set out to achieve (made in the early 90s) were maintained even until a few years ago. This led to politicians and people wondering why it wasn't fielded yet when it ran into issues (which every plane has).

As a program it is going to make up the majority of the multi-role air power of the USA and most of its close allies for the next fifty years. It has also matured many new technologies for widespread use in combat aircraft. Of course it has been expensive.

Whether it is a waste of money will be judged by whether it is a success in future conflicts.

Also, you need to compared it to the alternative. Replacing so many fourth gen aircraft with a closely related family of single engine aircraft is still likely to save money over directly replacing those individually (AV-8B, A-10, F/A-18, F-16, eventually F-15C).

>>31920187
Correction, every government project has gone over budget and past schedule. That's why we need Donald Trump to Drain the Swamp and make America Great Again.

>>31920254
>Also, you need to compared it to the alternative. Replacing so many fourth gen aircraft with a closely related family of single engine aircraft is still likely to save money over directly replacing those individually (AV-8B, A-10, F/A-18, F-16, eventually F-15C).
This is also why the LCS was supposed to save a lot of money if it fucking worked properly.

>>31920101
Then why are you uneducated and stupid? It's literally the best, and cheapest plane you can buy. It's better than everything it replaces by leaps and bounds.

>>31920153
Well, 3000 VLO aircraft is pretty nice.

The most common VLO airframe before this was the F-22, and there were only like 200 of those.

Low RCS isn't magic, but it gives you a lot more options as far as dealing with IADS.

>>31920254
Nobody is saying that the F-35 will or wont be a capable aircraft, as we don't really know it yet, though it seems highly likely that it will be a superb plane.

The program that created it was a horrible mismanaged moneypit that literally sucked US R&D resources fairly heavily. Can the US afford it? Sure. Could it have been made at half the cost? Maybe.

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>>31919958

If the military weren't spending money on the F-35, they'd be spending that same money on a different part of the military.

Why the fuck do you even care where exactly the military is spending its money?

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>>31920453

>Could it have been made at half the cost?

The answer is a resounding "No!"

>>31920424
I was asking the question, not implying anything.

>>31920459
I want the money to be spent efficiently if it has to be spent. I don't understand why they just throw money at the military that it literally uses to build tanks and dump them in a parking lot in the desert of Nevada.

>>31920478
You see, "F-35 money pit" became the flavor of the week talking point among vatniks, Europeans, hippies, and other forms of pond life.

/k/ is quite sensitive to the presence of this pollutants.

>>31920503
SORRY MAN FOR HAVING THE OPINION THAT SPENDING 2 TRILLION DEVELOPING A PLANE IS A LITTLE STEEP! IT'S NOT LIKE LOCKHEED MARTIN WOULD RIP OFF THE GOVERNMENT????

>>31920556

If anything the government is ripping off Lockheed-Martin.

We will see who's laughing when F-35s escort space shuttles to Mars.

>>31920556

If you're going to throw around big numbers related to the program, at least do some basic reading as to what part of the program what number refers to in which years dollars.

That $2 trillion figure is a high end estimate for r developing, building, operating and upgrading thousands of aircraft for about seventy years. Claiming that is just the development costs is exactly why you get treated like an idiot.

>>31920556
It's like 1 trillion for the lifetime cost.

The development cost was in the tens of billions.

O&M is the big ticket cost for any aerospace project, and a third of that 1 trillion dollar is just the projected inflation over the 50 years the aircraft is expected to be in service.

>>31920262
I dont think his tactic of "small lones" and filing for bankrupcy will be usefull at that level

I'm here from the /sci/ F-35 thread, which boiled down to "it doesn't need to be as capable a fighter or as fast as other aircraft out there, it can use its vastly superior radar to shoot down enemy planes before being detected". My response was simply to cover an AEW aircraft with air-to-air missiles and give it better radar than the F-35. Poo flinging commenced. Thoughts?

Yfw you realize they could have spent less than 1% of the program cost and have procured a new rifle and handgun

>>31921211

That AEW aircraft would then be putting itself within range of enemy BVRAAMs, and due to its size and massive radar emissions would probably not get the first shot off against an enemy stealth fighter (and would make an unfavourable trade if they both fired at similar times).

Then you have other issues like not being able to operate in places where the enemy has a theatre level air defence system, a sub-sonic top speed (F-22 can supercruise, and exceed mach 2 to intercept), inability to operate from carriers or forward airstrips, Inability to carry out a strike missions.

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>>31920499
To be fair, those tanks are still serviceable, and you don't always want all of them active at once due to costs too. When they need to replace a tank that's been totaled, they pull it from there after giving it a quick refurb. Meanwhile, that tank that got wrecked is sent back, fixed up, and either put in that same desert lot, or sent back out.

>>31921211
What >>31921441 said. Turning on the radar is like turning on a flashlight with a dying battery while in the dark when everyone has a rifle and flashlight too. It's a double edged blade. Stealth fighters use passive sensors or have someone else light up the enemy for them if they want to stay hidden. It can be another stealth fighter or something dedicated for that. I don't know how it will go, but I'm guessing that if a stealth vs stealth scenario occurs, the engagements may end up close enough to use IR seekers, and in worse case scenario, guns.

Also, the F-35 is apparently the love child of the F-16 and 18 in terms of handling characteristics. It's no slouch, and anything you've heard otherwise is probably disregarding the programmed limiters used for testing.

I'm very curious on how air combat tactics become once VLO aircraft become common on both sides of conflict. BVR shots are very denied and WVR an advanced missile like AIM-9X rarely misses despite the aspect

>>31921748

You might enjoy these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxNo4ackNwY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0

>>31921748
Presumably you use very high band radar to get a general heading and then use VLO aircraft to close into IR range.

>>31919958
>iraq war cost 1.7Trillion
>F-35 projected to cost 1.5 trillion though 2070 when the last aircraft is scraped out of the boneyard, has currently cost ~700 billion.


Man its not even close, 2/10 try again.

>>31920499
Because its' cheaper than shutting down the tank factory and then reopening it when you want to build the next tank, or repair a battle damaged Abrams or whatever. Like we are talking hundreds of millions saved by bring tanks to park in Nevada.

>>31920453
>Could it have been made at half the cost?
Not the final production cost. I could buy halving the R&D cost, though, which is a significant portion of the overall program cost.

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>>31920556
>SPENDING 2 TRILLION DEVELOPING A PLANE
Why do people make posts that so obviously demonstrate their own ignorance?

My opinion is the F-35 is going to be a perfect bread and butter aircraft.

Its a VTOL stealth fighter/bomber.

Its literally a jack of all trades. It will be even more useful than harriers.

The only thing it might not be good at, is being a high speed long range interceptor.

>>31922160
If you account for inflation, neither R&D nor like numbed craft to like numbered aircraft pricetags are very different from the F-18 program. But we are not just getting an F-18 replacement out of this, we are also getting an F-16 and Harrier replacement, with an effective R&D cost of zero and with multiple services helping each other out with economics of scale.

>>31921663
>>31921441
The other great thing posted on that thread was the incredibly powerful radar's ability to jam enemy radar, essentially like turning on a kilowatt flashlight in everyone's faces, to continue the analogy. I'm wondering how effective this would be in the F-35's case and in the AEW's case.

Anyway, the F-35 is inferior at least in terms of flat-out speed and stealth compared to the F-22, but how much this will effect the F-35's combat style is less straightforward.

international war games sep 2008 the Chinese pilots in copy's of Russian interceptors said "It was like clubbing a baby seal" referring to the F-35

Then we have the F-35 in the ground attack roll, replacing the A-10's renown survivability with the actual cost of losing a single F-35 is pretty much the reason many are calling the aircraft a loser.

The F-35 was meant to create a hundred thousand jobs in 46 states while the sound milliary choice is to stick with the surprisingly extremely reliable osprey and let the A-10 do the ground work while the F-22 do its thing in the air.

All in all, the F-35 is probobly just an initiative to bring back aircraft part manufacture back to America and is hopefully for the American military sake just a cover for a real project.

>>31920572
under fucking rated post

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>>31922731

>international war games sep 2008 the Chinese pilots in copy's of Russian interceptors said "It was like clubbing a baby seal" referring to the F-35

I'm gonna demand some pretty substantial proof of this claim familia.

>>31922189
i was only pretending to be a retard

>>31922731
Oh, the Chinese said it's shit. Better cancel then.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-f-35s-air-to-air-capability-controversy-05089/

alternatively any search engine "f-35 clubbing baby seals"

>The whole program so far has cost as much as the Iraq war did

Not even anywhere near fucking close

>>31922859
>F-35
>international wargame
>year of 2008

You already have your answer.

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>>31921663

>>31923048

What's this supposed to be?

>>31920697
And yet a couple of days ago Lockheed Martin tried to add more to the bill, unfortunately the government did not agree.

>>31923048
oh god it needs sound so bad

>>31919958
It's actually cheaper to build and maintain 2,000 f35 over the next 40years than maintain our current jets for 40yrs.

Stupid people can't look past the present.

>>31923082

Funny.

It is supposed to be funny.

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>>31923048
lmao

>>31923461
>>31923449
>>31923103
>>31923048
Here's one with sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfcTEimn0es

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>pic related
>it's the biggest waste of money in human history

females in the military.
>at least at those lower non officer ranks.
>non college degree holder.

>>31919958
>The whole program so far has cost as much as the Iraq war did and it'll probably end up costing more.

>Iraq war: 1.7 Trillion
>F-35 high end of all costs guesstimate out to 2065, as in, money not spent yet: $1.5t

36 pyблeй были cдaны нa хpaнeниe в вaшeм aккayнтe.

>>31920187
It's actually far more arguable that the original timeline was completely imaginary and built on fairy sparkles and pixie dust than that it was "mismanaged."

>>31923366
1/4th the cost, in fact.

>>31923048
Sweet God that must have taken some effort, is the air force getting nervous?