Elon Musk says F-35 is a "$#@!" design

[Matt Collins]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsiM0q8Oe6M




https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1861070432377737269

[sparebulb]

Pot/kettle from a guy that has skimmed billions from 'gubmint subsidies.

[Matt Collins]

https://x.com/mattgaetz/status/1861094277767434444




https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1860736980621156813

[Matt Collins]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7HiT0ZNp5U

[PAF]

Here's why:

[SNIP]


Weaponizing Reality: The Dawn of Neurowarfare

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Billionaire Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface (BCI) company Neuralink made headlines earlier this year for inserting its first brain implant into a human being. Musk says such implants, which are described as “fully implantable, cosmetically invisible, and designed to let you control a computer or mobile device anywhere you go,” are slated to eventually offer “full-bandwidth data streaming” to the brain.

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Led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and DARPA, its prominent private partners include the Allen Institute for Brain Science (Paul Allen, the founder of the Institute, was the co-founder of Microsoft), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Kavli Foundation, and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. This mix of actors effectively makes the BRAIN Initiative an opaque, public-private partnership.

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Adjacent neurotech efforts include DARPA’s Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N³) program, which has a budget of at least $125 million. According to DARPA’s 2018 funding brief for the project, a “neural interface that enables fast, effective, and intuitive hands-free interaction with military systems by able-bodied warfighters is the ultimate program goal.” In plain language, the project is about developing technology that can help warfighters interact and command military infrastructure (planes, drones, bombs, etc.) with their thoughts and without the need for an invasive, Neuralink-style implant.

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As the world endures major wars in Ukraine and now the Middle East with Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza, “neurowarfare” is also on the horizon. Indeed, the technologies outlined in the previous sections appear slated to transform geopolitical relations as both hard- and soft-power tools, which could then be used to manipulate populations’ life styles, world views, and even cognitive abilities to make them pliable to someone else’s will.

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Ultimately, such efforts towards transhumanism are being pushed from the top with little room for meaningful public debate. These efforts are also often intertwined with ongoing pushes towards stakeholder capitalism and efforts to hand decision making processes and common infrastructure to an unaccountable private sector through “public-private partnerships”.


Full article:

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2024/03...-neurowarfare/

[WarriorLiberty]

Elon is right.
The F35 always seem to have issues.

[CaptUSA]

They wanted that jet to replace the F/A18, the F15, the A10 Warthog (my fav), and the Harrier.

I always say, "the right tool for the right job". They wanted the F35 to be the right tool for EVERY job. Just dumb. It becomes less than ideal for every job. And the costs are crazy!

[Anti Federalist]

The B52 is still in service, a new one has not been built for over 60 years.

There is no reason that the F14 and FA18 for the Navy and the F15 and FA16 for the Air Force could not have been steadily upgraded with advanced electronic warfare capability, while the transition to pilotless aircraft was made without this flying $#@!up costing billions in the meantime..

[Matt Collins]

I always say, "the right tool for the right job". They wanted the F35 to be the right tool for EVERY job. Just dumb. It becomes less than ideal for every job. And the costs are crazy!

Yep, engineering 101: you can't win in everything. But politicians did this, which is why it suxor so bad.

[Voluntarist]

They wanted that jet to replace the F/A18, the F15, the A10 Warthog (my fav), and the Harrier.

I always say, "the right tool for the right job". They wanted the F35 to be the right tool for EVERY job. Just dumb. It becomes less than ideal for every job. And the costs are crazy!

Not just that, but it also had to meet the requirements of every nation that subscribed to development (United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Norway, and Denmark).

And how do they encourage Congress to finance it - well, they distribute production so that every state and as many congressional districts as possible have a piece of the production pie.

[fisharmor]

Yeah I've been looking forward to this ever since he got involved in this effort.
The only reason the F-35 has gotten as far as it has is because the designers have bullshitted everyone with technobabble.
Musk is exactly the right guy to question this. I'm really looking forward to the time when someone openly accuses him of not knowing what he's talking about. Should be a good show.

[69360]

From the guy who designed the cybertruck.

[Voluntarist]

There is no reason that the F14 and FA18 for the Navy and the F15 and FA16 for the Air Force could not have been steadily upgraded with advanced electronic warfare capability, while the transition to pilotless aircraft was made without this flying $#@!up costing billions in the meantime..

You need a couple more zeros there. Not billions. Not tens of billions. Not hundreds of billions. Trillions! Yeah, that's the one. Right up there with the order of magnitude the federal debt is measured in.

[TheCount]

The B52 is still in service, a new one has not been built for over 60 years.

There is no reason that the F14 and FA18 for the Navy and the F15 and FA16 for the Air Force could not have been steadily upgraded with advanced electronic warfare capability, while the transition to pilotless aircraft was made without this flying $#@!up costing billions in the meantime..

Have you seen the price of the F15EX and F16 block 70?

[nobody's_hero]

From the guy who designed the cybertruck.

I got a good laugh out of this.

[unknown]

It was only a waste of $2 Trillion.

Whats the problem?

[unknown]

[fisharmor]

Have you seen the price of the F15EX and F16 block 70?

Not previously but the results are pretty interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F-15EX_Eagle_II

The FY2021 defense appropriations bill funded F-15EX procurement at $1.23 billion for 12 aircraft

That's over 100 million per, and getting close to the (purely imaginary) cost of an F-35. Ridiculous. Something very, very rotten going on there. In every other historical case where a third party takes up a military design and starts producing it, they find cost saving measures as a way to try to undercut the original designer and that's how they line their pockets. But now they're spending almost twice what the original inflation adjusted cost of an F-15 was.

In May 2021, the U.S. Air Force had awarded a $14 billion (~$15.5 billion in 2023) contract to Lockheed Martin to build new 128 Block 70/72 F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets on behalf of Bahrain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Taiwan, Morocco and Jordan through 2026.

That's still over $100 million per plane! The original run of the F-16 was like $13 million. With zero cost saving measures that should be $40 million today.


Again, I'm really looking forward to this conversation happening. Musk is a fan of this stuff and he's going to know things like how the F-20 was a very capable fighter that would have cost pennies on the dollar and it was actively killed for political reasons, and how Northrop didn't complain because they knew which way the wind was blowing and had their own massive federal money spigot grift going on with the B-2 and didn't want to jeopardize it.

I really hope the American public gets schooled on how they made a conscious decision 40 years ago that money was not part of this equation anymore, and how for the last 20 years we've just been dumping it into a pit and lighting it on fire.

[TheTexan]

Not previously but the results are pretty interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F-15EX_Eagle_II


That's over 100 million per, and getting close to the (purely imaginary) cost of an F-35. Ridiculous. Something very, very rotten going on there. In every other historical case where a third party takes up a military design and starts producing it, they find cost saving measures as a way to try to undercut the original designer and that's how they line their pockets. But now they're spending almost twice what the original inflation adjusted cost of an F-15 was.



That's still over $100 million per plane! The original run of the F-16 was like $13 million. With zero cost saving measures that should be $40 million today.


Again, I'm really looking forward to this conversation happening. Musk is a fan of this stuff and he's going to know things like how the F-20 was a very capable fighter that would have cost pennies on the dollar and it was actively killed for political reasons, and how Northrop didn't complain because they knew which way the wind was blowing and had their own massive federal money spigot grift going on with the B-2 and didn't want to jeopardize it.

I really hope the American public gets schooled on how they made a conscious decision 40 years ago that money was not part of this equation anymore, and how for the last 20 years we've just been dumping it into a pit and lighting it on fire.

Part of the reason is that the F15/F16 is not simply an airframe, but a technology platform. If all they needed was the airframe then it would be a lot cheaper. I assume the high tech sensors and $#@! would drive up the price.

[fisharmor]

Part of the reason is that the F15/F16 is not simply an airframe, but a technology platform. If all they needed was the airframe then it would be a lot cheaper. I assume the high tech sensors and $#@! would drive up the price.

If anything, that's the best case for what I'm talking about. High tech $#@! always, always, always crashes in price while simultaneously improving in function and reliability.
That's why a brand new LCD TV has like 3x the resolution from 15 years ago and costs 1/3 the original dollar amount (not inflation adjusted!) and if you've ever crawled around in a couple you'd know that they've been going through constant engineering innovations that have also resulted in less material used overall, tighter electronic design, etc.

And again, that's why I'm thrilled Musk is the one looking at this. Because he's going to understand both sides of manufacturing - both the mass manufacturing like TVs where there is enormous pressure to streamline & cut costs, and also single manufacturing like Starship rockets where if there's any room to make those adjustments you kinda have to find it.

And he's going to be able to speak to the fact that just the helmet for the F-35 still costs $400,000 per unit. If you put one in his hands he'd probably instantly be able to point out a dozen things they're still doing that are 2000s era tech and way TF outdated and the reason why it costs so much. And he'd be able to look at the receipts for the last 20 years and say no, actually here's all the money you needed to do exactly what I'm talking about to drive that cost down to 10 grand or so.

[TheTexan]

If anything, that's the best case for what I'm talking about. High tech $#@! always, always, always crashes in price while simultaneously improving in function and reliability.

Tell that to flagship new phones. Same price as 10 years ago, and what, better camera? Seems same $#@! to me.

In any case, F16s of today have a lot more tech packed into it than they did. F16s of 30 years ago had 1 TV. Today they have like 15 TVs, 12 different radars, 17000 sensors, and 4 automated coffee holders. Doesn't matter if TVs go down in price. All that $#@! costs money

[TheCount]

That's still over $100 million per plane! The original run of the F-16 was like $13 million. With zero cost saving measures that should be $40 million today.

In order to get the price that low, Bahrain fronted the money for Lockheed to build the assembly line for the plane.

Not included in that cost.

Again, I'm really looking forward to this conversation happening. Musk is a fan of this stuff and he's going to know things like how the F-20 was a very capable fighter that would have cost pennies on the dollar and it was actively killed for political reasons, and how Northrop didn't complain because they knew which way the wind was blowing and had their own massive federal money spigot grift going on with the B-2 and didn't want to jeopardize it.

Elon Musk is a fan of what stuff exactly?

Low tech solutions?

Simple, effective solutions?

Not producing an overly complicated , overly specified product?

Saving money?

[Snowball]

Tier 3 garbage

All Lockheed's best stuff is in Antarctica. Above Top Secret.

[fisharmor]

Elon Musk is a fan of what stuff exactly?

Low tech solutions?

Simple, effective solutions?

Not producing an overly complicated , overly specified product?

Saving money?

He's a fan of the tech, and knows what he's talking about, unlike your average congressman. I mean Massie probably knows the technical reasons behind why the F-35 is a $#@!ing joke, but who else would?

Love him or hate him, Elon has objectively pushed technology in directions it hasn't gone before, and has pushed it farther than anyone else has in directions it was going.
He figured out how to land rockets for re-use. We saw that in sci-fi in the 1960s but literally nobody has done it prior to him. And he did it on a budget. Even though those budgets were astronomical they still are dwarfed by what the F-35 has cost so far and the difference is Elon has actually delivered something.

He's uniquely qualified to comment on the F-35 because he's done a bunch of different things that are way more complicated and for less money.
My point is that he's impossible to dazzle with bull$#@! on this topic. He's the one man on Earth who can face the people in charge of this massive scam and say "here are all the exact reasons why everything you're saying is an overt lie".

[TheTexan]

He figured out how to land rockets for re-use. We saw that in sci-fi in the 1960s but literally nobody has done it prior to him. And he did it on a budget.

He was also the first (and only) to fly a functioning full flow staged combustion engine

[Voluntarist]

In any case, F16s of today have a lot more tech packed into it than they did. F16s of 30 years ago had 1 TV. Today they have like 15 TVs, 12 different radars, 17000 sensors, and 4 automated coffee holders. Doesn't matter if TVs go down in price. All that $#@! costs money

Don't forget the bathrooms ... non-gendered of course

[TheCount]

He's a fan of the tech, and knows what he's talking about, unlike your average congressman. I mean Massie probably knows the technical reasons behind why the F-35 is a $#@!ing joke, but who else would?

Love him or hate him, Elon has objectively pushed technology in directions it hasn't gone before, and has pushed it farther than anyone else has in directions it was going.
He figured out how to land rockets for re-use. We saw that in sci-fi in the 1960s but literally nobody has done it prior to him. And he did it on a budget. Even though those budgets were astronomical they still are dwarfed by what the F-35 has cost so far and the difference is Elon has actually delivered something.

He's uniquely qualified to comment on the F-35 because he's done a bunch of different things that are way more complicated and for less money.
My point is that he's impossible to dazzle with bull$#@! on this topic. He's the one man on Earth who can face the people in charge of this massive scam and say "here are all the exact reasons why everything you're saying is an overt lie".

I think they already know how to land and reuse airplanes.

[fisharmor]

I think they already know how to land and reuse airplanes.

Well, the B model kinda disagrees with you.

[Matt Collins]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ktj4MK5qFY

[devil21]

wow, what amazing insight from Elon. It's a shame no one recognized the MIC money pit that the F-35 was before Elon declared it. Look at the big brain on Elon! All praise big brained Elon!

Should I bow to his big brain now?