

Marine Version of F-35 Deemed 'Combat Ready' - peterkrieg
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/31/428129352/marine-version-of-f-35-reportedly-deemed-combat-ready

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jmnicolas
If it was not for HN policy to have meaningful comments I would have just
answered "LOL ?".

I'm certainly not an aviation enthusiast (I don't go out of my way to read
articles about it) but each time I hear about the F35 it's about its non
combat readiness or its costs overruns or just how late it is and it will
never amount to anything really usable.

So I'd take this announcement with a (massive) grain of salt. It looks more of
a PR move to save face than anything else.

Now the only way to convince me otherwise is to effectively put the planes in
real combat.

~~~
orthecreedence
Creating one thing with the purpose of doing everything well is usually a
terrible idea. Why not have different planes for scouting, bombing,
dogfighting? It just makes more sense to build for a particular use case, and
send the right plane(s) for the job.

The whole thing seems like a bunch of guys with a bunch of other people's
money got together and thought of all the cool things they wanted to see in a
plane and set out to build it without really thinking about why, only to try
to justify it after the fact.

In investing, you never double down on a stock that's sinking because "it
might come back!" you get out of that stock and look for another one. I wish
we'd just let this stupid plane die instead of sinking more tax dollars into a
worthless project.

~~~
sevensor
Exactly --- F35 went off the rails at the concept stage. The "focus" mentioned
in the article is incredibly diffuse:

> he said they stayed focused on “delivering a stealth fighter that could fly
> faster than the speed of sound, carry its weapons internally, conduct short
> takeoffs and vertical landings, and be deployed from amphibious ships and
> austere bases.”

The justification was, if you can believe it, that having a single platform
would reduce costs.

