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Comment by wcdolphin | Hacker News Reader

I find it interesting the US jet was an FA-18, which entered service November 1983 (USN) is actually more than 30 years old as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F/A-18_Hor...

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This is equivalent to say a couple years old Ford F-150 is a truck from 1975. The branding is the same, the shape is similar, but it ain't the same plane.

Super Hornets are still being produced, upgraded and improved and will probably still be in the assembly line in 20 years. A 30 second Google didn't show the year of the F/A-18 in question, but I assume it is from the mid 2000 or something like it.

This was even more true for Soviet tech. The American B-52 are ancient, but the Soviet Bears were produced, upgraded, replaced and improved until the very end. Cost-plus programs like the F-35 with enormous upfront R&D are good for the manufacturer, suppliers and lobbied politicians, but iterative designs, like evolution, also just works.

The Tu-95 "Bear" is still is service:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

Yes, but my point was more about the Soviet program of continuous improvement associated with it. According to your link, they stopped the assembly line at the collapse of the USSR. It doesn't prevent them from upgrading the existing airframes like for the B-52, but it isn't a true rolling replacements/improvements program anymore like the F/A-18 [almost] is.

Edit: Maybe the F-104 starfighter program would be another good example.

Worth noting that the Su-22 is actually just a variant of the Su-17 which first was produced in 1966.

Actually it was super hornet. It has so few common parts with the original, that many people consider it completely different airplane. The program costs we're also big enough to hint new design if I recall correctly.

The reason it is called "hornet" and why it shares so much external similarity is some kind of domestic propaganda reasons. To make people think that US Navy doesn't have modern equipment when they actually do.

The more commonly cited reason is that it was easier to get Congress to approve a budget for an improvement on an existing fighter than for a brand new fighter program.

And indeed there is much less risk in improving a good design over starting a new project from scratch. One wonders what we could have accomplished if we have invested the trillion dollars we are putting into the F-35 into say unmanned drone fighters, or batteries so that we dont have to defend the middle east.

Block III F/A-18E : FA-18 :: Core i7 : 386DX.

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