'Some idiots are still building F-35': Why is Elon Musk calling world's most-advanced fighter jet 'obsolete'?

Defence expert Mauro Gilli countered Musk's views...

Expert in what, exactly? Another (young) academic egghead, who's never done anything in real life, wants to lecture a man who catches rockets out of the air about technology.

“Lockheed Martin’s next-generation stealth fighter jet that has been in service since 2015.”

Shouldn’t it called a current generation fighter jet>

Agreed.

We must be careful and examine who objects to reductions in spending and why.

Nothing wrong with making anyone justify their positions, especially when they are spending other people’s money.

We still need manned fighter jets in case Skynet takes over and re programs the drones.

Humans in the cockpit can give better on site control to a fleet of drones fighting along side the human.z

The problem I have with drones is that it is far easier to program a mission of murder and terror with a drone than it is to convince a pilot to take the same actions. The further militaries remove humans from the weapons dealing death the more inhuman their tactics will become.

Good. Now start building the F22’s again.

Rumor has it that is impossible because all the tooling required to do so was scrapped by order of Obama...

How do the drones work if RF jamming cuts it off from remote control? AI? What if the GPS is also cut off, or worse, scrambled?

The F-35 is so loaded with computers and electronics, it can be disabled by atmospheric lightning. It happened recently, making it no longer controllable, causing the pilot to have to eject while the $80-million-dollar jet flew ten miles further before crashing.

The F-35 is an absolute DOG. Pilots call it “Fat Amy.” It is a camel - a horse designed by a committee.

It is absolute crap, will quickly lose in a battle with a modern adversary, and Elon Musk has correctly identified it as a monumental waste of money !

It is the poster weapon of complete lunacy at the Pentagon.

Elon's perspective on this (and he is completely correct) is the basis of all his engineering, "No part is the best part". As demonstrated here in the evolution of the SpaceX Raptor engine.

Notice the thrust improvement, this graphic does not show weight or a reliability factor, which both are impressive.

Translate that to Fighter Jets - The most expensive and unreliable component in the platform is the pilot. We should have little use for a manned fighter jet.

Musk is right - jack of all trades, master of none...and terribly expensive.

My opinion - a super-stealthy forward observer aircraft that can direct the deployment of numerous drones or missiles carried by “trucks” such as the F-15 (more forward) and B-52 (kept further back).

I believe though that Grumman still has tooling for the F23 which was as good.

Skynet acknowledges your comment.

He’s only half right on this one.

We have too many manned platforms and not enough unmanned platforms.

It takes both.

AI Overview

A typical human can withstand around 4-5 G-forces before experiencing discomfort or losing consciousness, with highly trained individuals like fighter pilots potentially handling up to 9 G-forces for short durations with the help of special G-suits and muscle straining techniques; however, exceeding these limits can lead to serious injury or death depending on the duration and direction of the force.

Eventually, we'll be able to make drones more advanced than F-22s or F-35s. And a human pilot wouldn't be able to handle operating one of the drones manually.

Good. Now start building the F22’s again.

Not entirely impossible. But 'unlikely'. The supplier network has moved on, merged, gone out of business. Tools & assembly jigs were likely scrapped. You could reconstitute some of that, but the time & expense might rival building an entirely new aircraft.

OTOH, weapons designers sometimes play games. Witness the F/A-18E/F being considered "the same basic aircraft" as the F/A-18 A/C/D Hornet (they are not). But it got the funding thru congress, so the gambit was effective. So an "F-22C Super Raptor" might be a possibility.

But (on the 'other' other hand), the USN & USMC have to shoulder the cost of the F-35 program alone. The F-22 isn't a 'navalized' fighter and the only aircraft that were really successful in both the USAF & the USN were the A-1, F-4 Phantom & the A-7 Corsair II. All of those started as Navy designs. Every attempt to 'navalize' a USAF design has failed.

I know. But still start making them again.

The most obsolete tool on the planet is the academic “expert.” Give me a practical expert all day, every day — someone who actually creates or improves on something — hands-on experience — instead of someone who writes or lectures about it.