Here is a good look at a F-35 PR tour in Fort Worth. Make it a must-read.
The idea is not just to make everyone listen, but to prime for repetition – to turn every observer into an evangelical for the Church Of F-35, merely a conduit through which the product sells itself.
It’s not an unfamiliar technique. You’d probably face the same rhetorical mechanisms at any run-of-the-mill sales seminar for anything from a car to a timeshare, complete with the same kind of generalities, assumptions, repetitions, and immense timeframes that skew your ability to contextualize exactly what kind of money is at stake in the long run. It’s just rare that you have to face it for two straight days. Really, the whole experience was no different than watching the Shopping Channel selling the same product for 48 hours, receiving so much information at every possible moment that your senses are so overwhelmed, you’re finally incapable of deciding what bits are true, what might be useful to you right now, what might be useful in the future, and how much is probably just complete and utter bullshit.
It is also good that defence industry "journalists" help out too:
Flynn claimed the lag and jitter has been fixed. “The helmet works exactly like we wanted,” he said the first day. When another reporter and I asked Velazquez follow-up questions about the reports of flickering, one defence industry journalist from an aviation magazine actually stepped in to help him out, reminding us that the thing to remember was that the helmet was still in development. Twice. Some, it seemed, are more easily converted than others.
The reporter observes:
At more than one point, there was the suggestion that if anyone doubted the importance of stealth, one had to only look at what other global powers like China are developing. That is, perhaps one day, stealth might have to fight stealth. I found it strange, then, that when I asked a Lockheed simulator tech whether that computer program had ever been geared to train users how to fight other F-35s, the answer was no. It was possible, he said, but the concept of the Joint Strike Fighter was that only the U.S. and its allies would be using the planes. Quite the simulator.
The article is good with a few flaws: There is no $85M F-35.
Also; the reporter states some dumb things too.
There was a lot of talk at various points about the last stealth jet fighter, the F-22 Raptor, but none about how it still hasn’t seen a single combat mission. Ever.In any event, it will be more interesting if journalists put more focus on this kind of a story.
The reporter has just seen their last trip to LM and will be put on "the list".
3 comments:
Why do I read that stealth apparently is the solution to so many of the weaknesses?
Not enough speed? With stealth it's not needed.
Not enough munition? With stealth it's not needed.
Not enough turning rate? With stealth it's not needed.
Not enough acceleration? With stealth it's not needed.
Not enough range? With stealth it's not needed.
Not enough protection? With stealth it's not needed.
Not enough margins? With stealth it's not needed.
Not enough xxxxx? With stealth it's not needed.
It seems that if LM would have gone easy on the over rated stealth path the F-35 might have performed quite a bit better... Not god speed good, but better then now.
I can see where the F35 simulator isn't programmed to fight other F35s, OK but shouldn't there be some kind of "generic" 5th gen fighter to practice against? Not necessarily a PAKFA or J20 but some generic stealth fighter? Doesn't that make sense?
Epic commentary by Eric, once again.
God speed.
And God speed for USAF's TACAIR recap.
The most epic struggle in history within USAF to adequately recap itself, within it's means and sufficiently to best maintain a future value.
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