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Comment by blunte | Hacker News Reader

The F-22 is such a marvel. I really wonder why the F-35 is plagued with so many systemic problems since it should be no more complex (and has the F-22 as an example for many of its own requirements).

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The F-22 had plenty of problems during development as well. One reason that you don't hear about the problems is because the F-22 was never sold to foreign countries, so it was easier to keep quiet about the issues. If an issue was deemed a vulnerability it could be declared classified and illegal to discuss publicly. And anything that wouldn't be deemed a vulnerability isn't worth discussing on the news.

In contrast, the F-35 has a crazy fast development timeline, and is being sold to several countries. So they are biting off a much bigger chunk, and being much more public about it as part of the political game. So it's harder to keep quiet when you make a huge deal about showing up at an airshow in the UK and then have to cancel because your fleet got grounded because of fuel system issues. The overall difference isn't that the F-35 has more problems, it's just that they are finding them quicker and you're actually hearing about them. (Edit: the missed airshow was because of engine fires, the fuel system was a separate issue- sorry for the mistake. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/de...)

The F-22 has also killed pilots, caused others to eject with unknown causes, and had other reports of pilots losing consciousness but eventually recovering. They grounded the whole fleet several years ago, the oxygen generation system has been the subject of several complaints. This probably wouldn't have made the news either except for the fact that people died.

The F-22 was designed to do one job and do it well, the F-35 was designed to do every job and do it well enough.

The F-22 is designed first and foremost as an air superiority fighter. The F-35 was intended to replace half a dozen wildly different aircraft with a single plane. That was a horrible idea right from the outset.

According to one AF general, the purpose of the F-35 is "to spend money". So in that aspect it is performing admirably :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw

This is such a silly conspiracy theory. It may make sense for US congressmen to lobby for pork in their districts, but why would the Israeli Air Force invest in defective machines?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...

Their existing fleet of F-15 and F-16 fighters is getting pretty old. I have been a “fan” of the F-16 since I was a kid and I’m in my 40s now.

I think for political reasons they don’t have access to Russian or European aircraft and they probably don’t want Chinese ones. This is the first new fighter we have available to them.

It could be political reasons, or it could be that there are no Russian or European stealth aircraft. And it looks like Israel values the ability of F-35 to fly all the way to Tehran undetected [1].

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/18/f-35-has-freaked-out-iran-an...

They can't buy F-22's?

No, F-22 is not up for export. Also, F-22 serves a specific role vs F-35 which is geared towards multiple capabilities. There are neither mutually exclusive nor substitute for each other.

Arguably it works well enough for the Rafale. But it is an older plane with less specifications constraints, designed mainly for a single small country, and still the development up-to real usability took an insane amount of time (first prototype flight in 1986, really operational since a few years according to former pilots, and still missing some capabilities of former platforms in some roles).

Right now the F-35 is simply not ready, but I'm not sure anybody seriously expected it to be? Comparing the timescales, we should check again in 15 years, or if it goes really fast maybe at least 5?

Now specifically the software dev history of the F-35 is an interesting story..

The F-35's various issues have been exaggerated by the media. All aircraft have teething problems. The F-15 was infamous in its early days, there just wasn't a bunch of websites covering it at the time. The F-22 also has had its issues. The oxygen system has had repeated problems, severe enough that at one point the pilots straight up refused to fly the aircraft until action was taken, believing their life was at risk.

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