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.
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.
It’s expensive, sure.
In some cases, it has no use. In a small Eastern European country, it makes more sense to buy drones, artillery and air defense. If the possible opponent is right next to you, an airfield hosting the F-35 would simply be smashed with ballistic missiles, leaving the fighter homeless. The same money in the form of other items would serve one better.
Far over the ocean, far in the rear - different things make sense. Projecting force quickly to a big distance or intredicting an opponent that does that - requires fighter jets.
For a country whose threat model involves supersonic bombers launching hypersonic missiles at its navy or shipping or coastline from beyond air defense range - that cannot be solved with today’s drones, but can be solved with F-35: “intercept the bombers before they launch anything, destroy their airfields”. Drones cannot currently stop a stealth fighter, or even stop an ordinary fighter: it will outrun them and possibly run circles around them.
Drones of the future? Could take any form. Maybe some day, the F-35 is indeed a mobile command post in the sky and drones do the hard job. But not currently.
what a take
yeah this must be why south korea, japan, singapore, israel, finland, poland, romania and greece don’t have, or procure, F-35
hardened hangars are a thing, and unlike magic drones, F-35s already exist
On one hand, unmanned airplanes (drones or remote controlled) will outfly anything with a human on board, because humans are generally the weakest part of the plane. No human = no cockpit or life support, no hatch, no windows, no ejection seats, etc. An equivalent drone plane will be lighter, more structurally sound, and can maneuver at g-forces that will kill a human pilot.
That’s the hardware side of things, of course.
The software and information security is definitely not there yet… But I’m sure Elon thinks it’ll be ready “next year” just like Full Self Driving…
The guy that can’t deliver self driving cars wants to talk about self driving planes?
The cars were going to fly short distances too.
He said he was going to use monopropellant thrusters to make his cars fly.
Hopefully I do not need to point out the many reasons this is a very bad idea, if not functionally impossible.
He also said he was working on an electric aircraft at one point.
Other companies have actually made such things… not Musk though.
if lithium battery fires were bad, i’m sure that firefighters are thrilled to see hydrazine fires, several hundreds of kg at a time, after random crashes. lmao. what the fuck was he thinking?
To be fair™ planes are a bit easier. Fewer obstacles up there and typically a lot of things broadcast that they are there. They were landing the Russian space shuttle by computer in the 80s.
No one was jamming the Russian space shuttle, or shooting missiles at it.
It’s one thing to have an autonomous landing program on an aircraft, it’s another thing entirely to have a program that can react to surface to air missiles, enemy jamming, and over the horizon air to air missiles.
Elon musk is an idiot if he thinks a drone can replace all of the capabilities of even an F22, let alone the F35, which is a multi-role aircraft capable of handling all of the above and more. The F35 can jam, do reconnaissance, network with friendly fighters to fire over the horizon missiles, and drop bombs that weigh 1000 times what a drone can carry. Was it a good use of tax dollars considering the budget overruns? Probably not. But can it be replaced by drone swarms? Hell no. The F35 is an unmatched weapons platform, that’s why nato countries have been buying them.
Oh yeah Elon is a wanker for sure. I just wanted to point out that though they seem similar the problem spaces are different
all from the power of one potato no less!
Is he doing this just to stay relevant?
You know, no publicity is bad publicity (in both meanings).
Why not criticise hospitals, roads, electric transport, burgers, breathing when he’s at it?
he might be doing this because he has no idea what he’s talking about
Or his PR team makes his twitter “say” this and that. Or both.
He fired his twitter account manager decade agk and has been increasingly more unhinged ever since
Elon is such an idiot.
This is the same shit he pulled back when he pushed drones as a solution to all those kids trapped in a cave. They weren’t even remotely viable, and when human beings rescued them, he called the leader of that successful operation a “pedo” for absolutely no reason other than his own childish idiocy.
he called the leader of that successful operation a “pedo” for absolutely no reason other than his own childish idiocy.
Come on Muskrat call the CEO of Lockheed Martin a pedo
Normally I’m opposed to the MIC drone striking US citizens, but apparently there are some exceptions
Elon isn’t a citizen I thought. More of a foreign combatant I’d say.
he called the leader of that successful operation a “pedo” for absolutely no reason other than his own childish idiocy.
I think it’s darker than that. Their solution involved doping the kids so they were heavily sedated during transport. This was out of fear they would panic and threaten their own life and that of the person transporting them.
The dark part is how Musk’s mind associated sedating a child to make them more docile with sexual assault.
He tried the “have sex with me and I’ll buy you a toy, but you can’t tell anyone” routine with a worker and got caught. Now he knows those tactics don’t work as well on adults.
Wow, source please!
Thanks!
Edit: I hope he will have to not have any normal people around him any more, as its that easy to get 250.000$ out of him. What a piece of shit.
or like when he brained up hyperloop to prevent normal high speed trains development in california, but this one is too glaringly stupid and it’s going against thing that already is proven to work, and with no equals
That was the first time heard about Musk other than a few articles about him. And it was the moment I knew that he was an actual dumbass.
“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”
it’s rich coming from dude whose brainchild is cybertruck to say that F-35 sucks
Regardless of what you think of the F-35, China stole the schematics and built their own.
But did they build a thousand of them to the same standard?
But then you miss out on guessing whether or not your weapons will fire in the middle of a vicious dogfight
Doesn’t the Chinese plane have twin engines?
Drones can be jammed. You cannot match a trained human pilot with an onboard AI pilot, as much as Mr Snake Oil would like you to believe. Imagine fighter jets with the piloting equivalent to the Tesla “FSD”.
Edit: here’s a paywall free mirror for the curious
he piloting equivalent to the Tesla “FSD”.
Seems perfect for suicide bombing drone. They are meant to crash after all.
it is also supposed to hit what it’s supposed to and not a random pedestrian
Not exactly fair to put the bar so much higher than most human operated US drone strike.
If the AI only hits a wedding every ten strike that would still be a massive improvement.
Yup, I’m sure that autonomous aircraft will eventually be able to fly better than humans, but that’s very far out. If musk wants to start funding it he can start selling stock and do it himself, don’t give him a dime of taxpayer money
overly expensive and poorly designed
Oh, like a flying cyber truck?
Count down until Musk throws a hissy-fit and calls Paul Livingston a “pedo”.
maybe he lost interest in F-35 because its first flight was 18 years ago
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.
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
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.
I’m literally just a cancer patient in the states, but go off bud. I’m not being defensive, I’m telling you my experience. I’m not disputing the possibility that a disinformation campaign went on that long. But cool cool, your original message was kind, but this is being a jerk. Not everyone can know everything and you can take what people tell you about their experiences or you can say they’re “being defensive” for admitting they hadn’t actually thought about it in years.
You mericans don’t read a lot. Y’all expect it all on tv from some talking head. This is why y’all get bamboozled all the time.
You’re*
Yes, the F-35 is so bad that literally every single allied country is ordering and is willing to wait for like 5+ years just to receive it. It is the best selling aircraft out there, with insane capabilities for its price. America cant produce these things fast enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II#Operators
More than 20 allied countries have bought/ordered it and in significant numbers. It is going to be the future backbone of the airforce of most of those countries. Just because it had issues, doesnt mean that it isnt good or that many of its serious issues havent been resolved.
Also the F-35 has built-in networking and infrastructure to work as a mothership for “drones” or other remote controlled/ai platforms.
I guess you have never heard of the concept of “too big to fail”? because you basically just made an argument that pretends that massive, corrupt and ethically dubious corporations don’t routinely employ this strategy as a defensive bulwark against society getting upset about the extreme degree of systematic theft they are doing.
I dont understand what you are trying to say. Too big to fail is used to describe something that is failing but cant be allowed to fail because it is too big.
As i wrote, the F-35 is far from failing, it is one of the most successful airplane ever made, at least in terms of sales. Many european countries, which were big proponents of the Eurofighter and kinda ignored the F-15/F-16/F-18 platforms, are buying the F-35 simply because it is not only better than the Eurofighter/Rafale/Gripen, but it is also cheaper.
If the F-35 was bad or even medicore, those countries wouldnt be so willing to buy it, in mass quantities, with deliveries all the way into the 2030. Many of these countries also intend of creating a similarly featured plane but they wont be able to make one for another 10-15 years. So in the meantime, they are dependent on the F-35. They could use their older planes but they obviously see something in the F-35 that makes it a must have in the meantime.
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
The F-35 is so bad that it was used to destroy almost all iranian air defense with impunity. Elon is such a dumbass
wow the terrible, frightening might of Iran’s air defense network! Good thing we have essentially (like…literally) infinite money to spend on negating and penetrating it or else those Iranians would sweep all of western Europe under their iron fist!
Iran had top shelf russian air defense systems, including radars that were promoted as “making stealth obsolete”. it was, of course, complete horseshit
Ignorant and racist. Well done.
Wait I thought it was patriotic to be casually racist about Iran? Did I do that wrong? Damn I didn’t slip in enough jingoism did I?
I am not insulting Iranians and their capacity to develop weapons, I am in fact ashamed my country overthrew democracy there and yet pretends Iran is just irrationally evil like a stupid disney villain or something. Most of my country (the right, center and center “”“left”“”) isn’t interested in understanding anything beyond a superficial association of Iran with evil.
I am insulting all of you who unreflectively accept these ridiculous framings of war and national security that feed right into the cancerous growth of the military industrial complex.
I also wasn’t making fun of Iranians or being racist, I was pointing out the absurdly unfair matchup in military budgets between the US and Iran makes the comparison between the two and evaluations of the effectiveness of US weapons programs in terms of resources consumed an absolute joke.
The difference between an F-35 and a drone is that the F-35’s Electronic Warfare suite can force the drone to do a factory reset in mid-air and return it to the sender.
Okay that’s an exaggeration, but cutting it’s communication link and spoofing it’s navigation to make it crash are in the realm of possibility.
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.
…and the third option was a nextgen fighter development aircraft program that didn’t have horrific ballooning costs?
You mean inflation? Or the regular financial fear mongering? I can go back into the NYTimes Archives and find similar articles for the F-15, F-16, and F-18. Hell I’m old enough to remember the articles about the Super Hornet.
And now all of those planes are considered the gold standard. By the way, the F-15EX is literally just new F-15s with all of the updates applied, new engine, and stronger wings. Which strongly suggests this is just the cost of a new fighter jet in 2024.
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.”
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
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.)
The A-10, good lord… 🤣
Why not bring back the p-51!
The Air Force just selected to use pilots in their NGAD fighter. Drones are not capable of standing up to humans yet. Especially in an electronic warfare situation where maintaining a communications link is not possible due to jamming. So the drone has to rely on on board tech for decision making. It would certainly be different if a super computer AI could control it over the communications link but that’s not where we are.
Edit to Add - The Air Force has more F-35As than they do all types of F-15, and about a 1:2 ratio of F-35 to F16. The F-35C had been slower to roll out but 100 have been delivered to the Navy and Marine Corps and the Corps is already using them in Yemen.
Also, as a former infantryman I love the A-10. But it’s time is done. The AF did it dirty and tried to cancel it a hundred times but it still did it’s job. But the F-35 is everything we asked for in a replacement except for grass stains on the fuselage. It carries a similar load, has a good loiter time, and benefits from more advanced precision technology so danger close is slightly more survivable.
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.
no, as a manned fighter the f35 is an embarassment of an arms development program independent of any discussion about the effectiveness of future manned vs. unmanned fighters. The program is a historic cost overrun and makes the litoral class of us navy ships look downright functional and frugal in comparison.
“We made waaaay too much money off that jet to be idiots!”
