Summary
Lockheed Martin UK’s chief, Paul Livingston, defended the F-35 stealth jet program after Elon Musk called it obsolete due to advances in unmanned drones.
Livingston emphasized the F-35’s unmatched capabilities, including stealth, battlefield data-sharing, and cost-efficiency by replacing multiple aircraft types.
While Musk labeled the program overly expensive and poorly designed, Livingston argued drones alone can’t match the F-35’s capabilities or defend against threats like China’s J20 jets.
Despite criticism over cost and reliability, the F-35 remains integral to NATO defenses, with widespread adoption across 19 nations, including the UK.
I mean everybody is right by accident some of the time…
I love libs defending the f35 like the good warhawks they pretend to not to be.
Yes the f35 is a good fighter jet, if you ignore THAT IT COST 1.7 TRILLION and completely forget about the concept of lost opportunity cost.
Lol downvote me you fools the f35 was set in stone as strategic catastrophe before it ever entered combat by virtue of destroying an incomprehensible amount of our shared wealth. The f35 is a tool of the military industrial complex designed to suck up as much cash as possible, the functionality of the plane is a distant concern in practice which explains why it barely works even given the obscene amount of money spent on it.
F-15s cost 55-100 million depending on make and year. The F-35 is on the high end of that at 80-100 million but it is not outside the range of what we pay for aircraft. Furthermore Boeing’s Eagle upgrade the EX is actually more expensive than the F-35.
The only other option was to keep buying legacy aircraft. Which might work with Russia but the Chinese are actually figuring some stuff out.
The problem with the F-35 is their high maintenance cost and low reliability.
As it ever was with new military vehicles. Costs come down and reliability goes up over time. This isn’t the big deal Russia makes it out to be.
What does Russia have to do with anything? It’s the US military itself that has been having problems with it
Because this -
Aircraft that were combat-coded—which typically receive priority for spare parts and maintenance—achieved the best performance for availability, the report stated, noting that 61 percent were available on an average monthly basis. But that was still below the goal of 65 percent
Isn’t the horrible thing Russian propaganda makes it out to be. And every time people run around repeating their talking points they’re spreading misinformation crafted by Russia.
Another, less sensational way of stating it’s readiness would be, “Deployed F-35s were available for missions 94 percent of the time expected.”
The F-35 would be good if they hadn’t wasted so much time and energy and weight on having a pilot in it. On board pilots are a complete waste.
(Plus I bet dollars to doughnuts every F-35 we’ve sold to an “ally” has a secret switch somewhere to turn it into a drone.)
It would be impressive if it didn’t have a meat sack in it that needs climate control and fresh air and not to turn to hard…
there’s a reason the F-16 and F/A-18 are still the major US workhorses in the skies. (And of course my favorite the A-10 for blowing shit up on the ground.)
And of course my favorite the A-10 for blowing shit up on the ground
Your favorite is the one famous for friendly fire?
Yeah, not surprising you’d hate the F-35 if you like that POS
Please explain how the cost overruns on the development program have any bearing on the effectiveness of the finished product?
Because anything you make with 1.7 trillion is going to look impressive unless you just throw all the money into barrels and just burn it?
Excluding the context of astronomical amounts of money like that is fundamentally disgenous to any accurate description of reality.
edit go on people, keep downvoting me to feel better because you don’t have an actual response, the jet looks cool and Musk is a pathetic loser with a billion dollars, but to admit the f35 is the same species of rot that the rise of oligarchs like Musk are an indicator of is too high a dose of reality for you :)
Hey I get your beef with the f35 but leave the national money hole out of it
“Fifth columnist says top of the line weapons system that is already paid for and being fielded is actually fucking stupid and you should totally divest from it and pursue some vague futuretech solution.”
It’s all so tiresome.
it’s all “hey don’t do the thing that works, instead give money to meeee”
I mean, Musk isn’t totally wrong, the F-35 isn’t all we’d hoped for. It had a well documented history of cost over-runs, problems in development, and failing the way all multi-tools do, they generally don’t do as good of a job as specific tool. Further, the drone war in Ukraine/Russia is showing how effective drones really can be. However, drones are also a specific tool for a specific type of job.
I think it’s reasonable to think that both types of flight-based warfare will continue to be relevant, and neither will necessarily dominate the other, because… once again… the right tool, for the right job.
it’s a superior replacement to about any other plane (with single exception of F-22 for air dominance, but it’s not made now anyway) absolute state of the art apex predator in air, and scale of procurement brings costs down
there is a reason why no one makes single-purpose planes anymore and it’s degree of flexibility multirole allows, simplified logistics, less number of airframes needed for mission and a couple others. drones are very narrow purpose tools with short range relying on unjammed radio spectrum, or else extremely specialized long range heavier systems available only in small numbers. these things are replacement of ATGMs and cruise missiles, not aircraft. these things don’t even come close to each other
Let me repeat myself because this keeps coming up,
It’s a superior replacement to about any other plane
Sure, if you pretend money doesn’t exist? Baseline for getting your money’s worth from spending 1.5 TRILLION more than anybody else on development of a type of airplane is that your airplane should be the best airplane of that type.
That doesn’t prove that money was well spent, it just proves you have way more money than anybody else to throw at things though I guess the confusion makes sense, we 'muricans have such a very hard time telling the difference between those two concepts.
These massive cost overruns aren’t just a single one time strategic failure, like a good modern western tech product the f35 is built to burn money over its entire lifetime by having WAY higher operating costs. Thus the failure is compounded and compounded and as Sun Tzu would point out, the battle has been lost before it even began.
Baseline for getting your money’s worth from spending 1.5 TRILLION more than anybody else on development of a type of airplane is that your airplane should be the best airplane of that type.
and it is
if you read the article:
Before the F-35, if I was going to fly a mission into a peer nation’s territory to strike against a well-protected target, I would need a minimum of 16 aircraft,” he said.
“You would have jamming aircraft – which, by the way, says, ‘Hello, we’re coming’ – then you’d send in suppression of enemy air defence aircraft, because you’d have to kill the radars off, then you’d send fast strike aircraft in.
“I can now do that same mission with four F-35s and no support. And they don’t need protection afterwards, because they can fight their way out.
this is in a war against a peer opponent, like everyone in europe is preparing for. F35 is not a COIN plane, you’re looking for something like skywarden there (A10 sucks balls and was outdated the day it appeared on drawing board - you cannot change my mind). advanced aircraft like F35 allows you to both decrease package size and allows you to do things that you straight up can’t do without them, and comparing to loads of other older aircraft needed it is cheaper to use the new shiny thing. because of sheer scale of manufacture - 1000 was made and deliveries are 5 years away because demand is so high - development costs will be spread across all of these. both russians and chinese develop their own stealth multirole planes, su-57 and j-20 respectively, chinese additionally are working on stealth bomber, h-20, so it’s obvious they see their utility too, unless your conspiracy involves them all.
another random example
you need separate AWACS less because F35 has powerful radar, and it can also double as EW suite so there’s less need for dedicated EW aircraft too. without stealth aircraft you can’t sneak on your target and if done right this can give you massive advantage
or this one https://mail.ausairpower.net/API-VLO-Strike.html
maybe you’re just a fan of human wave tactics in comically obsolete planes like F104 soaking up most probable adversary’s SAMs like there’s no tomorrow. but don’t pretend you know shit about fuck
if you prefer video format https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGwU9HKH_Eo extra details there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-aJEloMbs
I mean, Musk isn’t totally wrong, the F-35 isn’t all we’d hoped for. It had a well documented history of cost over-runs, problems in development, and failing the way all multi-tools do, they generally don’t do as good of a job as specific tool
Your views hew ridiculously close to talking point that heavily associated with Russian state media. Please don’t be offended, this isn’t an insult It’s an FYI.
Ask yourself: how does the F-35 (in cost overruns, accidents, re-designs, ect…) compare to other fighter jets developed by the US and her allies? If you don’t know, wonder how you only bumped into info that paints the project in a bad light. Who benefits from the F35 being perceived as a boondoggle?
Youtuber Lazerpig addresses all of this directly and with sources if your interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxVsS9ZNUOU
The F-35 is good bc… Russia says it’s bad so we have to knee-jerk in the opposite direction? Am I interpreting that right?
It’s the worst fighter jet we have xD the cost is inexcusable and the reliability is dog shit, we don’t need to be defending overpriced balsa gliders just bc russia bad or something
If you’re saying it’s bad for the exact same reasons Russia said it’s bad you may want to consider your position a bit more thoughtfully.
You have no friggin idea of whether it’s a good aircraft or not. Of that I’m sure.
Thanks for the heads up, but yeah, my opinions of this were developed during the Bush era and it was from US media sources discussing the issues with the F-35’s development. I honestly hadn’t thought about the F-35 in years and had to go to Wikipedia to make sure I was thinking of the right plane. I’m generally anti-war so I thought it was pretty wasteful in general at the time.
during the Bush era and it was from US media sources
Your being defensive. Yes, the misinfo campaign is that old, and yes plenty of Western journalists have repeated the talking points.
You’re*
Elon thinks bcz he’s rich the defense contractors can’t get him? Michael Hastings got ended bcz he talked a little too much about a general.
Elon might have an accident with his Special K.
“We made waaaay too much money off that jet to be idiots!”
