Re:F-35 is a masterpiece built for the wrong war
by stackghost on Tuesday April 21, 2026 @02:32AM
(#47845319)
Oh, I know all about LM. I used to work on the Hercules when I was in the Air Force. Experimental flight permits, mods, block upgrades, the works. Greatest aircraft in history, if you ask me, but I digress.
Ultimately the F-35 remains Lockheed's intellectual property, which is what drives all this. They want to sell it to other countries, which they can't do if the USAF owns the IP.
This cluster** has led directly to initiatives for open (Govt open) architectures and vendor agnostic interfaces for talking between vehicles and components, and between component, between jets and drones and C2 etc. That has a long way to go too, but at least we've broken with the idea that it can be a closed system.
I'm familiar with the problems of service careers. There is a lot that could be done to improve that, but that's a different discussion. I think it's extra important now that we have jet engineers who know about AI in the aviation context.