Elon Musk’s F-35 ‘idiots’ remark was wrong, says Lockheed Martin boss

Every word out of elons mouth is complete and utter bs.

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.

The guy that can't deliver self driving cars wants to talk about self driving planes?

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...

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.

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.

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?

"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 rich coming from dude whose brainchild is cybertruck to say that F-35 sucks

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

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".

"We made waaaay too much money off that jet to be idiots!"

Regardless of what you think of the F-35, China stole the schematics and built their own.

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.

The broken clock strikes

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.