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F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

(www.cnn.com)
279 points Michelangelo11 | 4 comments | 27 Aug 25 11:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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sschueller ◴[27 Aug 25 12:21 UTC] No.45038675[source]▶
Switzerland, if they want something they can fly for air policing is forced to buy the F35 at what every price the US feels fit (even though the contract with Lockheed states a fixed price, naive politicians and consultants found out the hard way). Of course the CHF to USD conversion is fix at a shit rate from many years ago and from what I understand there is no way around that because the SNB did the conversion back then already.

We have no alternative we can get before 2035. They are talking about extending the F/A-18 but since we would be the only ones still using them we would have to pay for that too at who know what price.

The public approved 6 billion and now it looks like it will be way more, excluding skyrocketing maintenance which is not included and a patriot missile system that when it is finally delivered will cost who knows how many billions.

The whole thing is an absolute shit show here and that's ignoring the technical issues this thing has...

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1. UltraSane ◴[27 Aug 25 13:24 UTC] No.45039349[source]▶
Israel's attack on Iran using the F-35 proves it is a very effective, if expensive, weapon.
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2. jajko ◴[27 Aug 25 13:57 UTC] No.45039787[source]▶
Only if US lets you use it, and given constant instability current government shows, next generation of fighters won't be bought from US.

Better to have something even worse on paper that can actually fly and lock targets than an expensive paperweight.

3. borlox ◴[27 Aug 25 14:30 UTC] No.45040251[source]▶
That's been a single strike.

I wonder how good it would still be when the enemy had resources and time to adapt in an ongoing conflict. In russia's war with ukraine, we saw tactics and tools quickly evolving.

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4. FridayoLeary ◴[27 Aug 25 14:49 UTC] No.45040501[source]▶
Not on the level of responding to fith generation fighter jets. Most of their advances are in quadcopter technology. They both started with ww2 tactics. Its not surprising that they would take advantage of the low hanging fruits of 75 years of progress. If anything it's shocking how little both sides have changed fundamental tactics like not using meatwaves, which went out of fashion in ww1.