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278 points Michelangelo11 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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efitz ◴[] No.45038686[source]
F-35 is a boondoggle.

$200M for one fighter plane is insane.

If the USA ever had to go to war with this weapon, a huge number of them would be offline at any given time, and every single airframe loss would cause a huge dent in overall combat power.

I don’t understand why our military and political leaders keep trying to buy ridiculously overpriced Swiss Army knife weapons (lots of flexibility but great at nothing) instead of mass producing combat knives (only good for one thing but great at it and lots of them).

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HPsquared ◴[] No.45039804[source]
Now they've made a lot of them, the cost per unit is actually kinda reasonable as these things go. Still way way more than drones though.
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1. TiredOfLife ◴[] No.45040626[source]
But manned planes don't have to keep thousands of kilometers of fiber optics cable on board.