You cannot be serious....

Where a Tesla has similar components and designs as other cars, the front suspension is going to be totally different than 90% of other sedans it's size. The Tesla Model S is rear wheel drive, which is a departure from the normal front wheel drive for most other cars. I'm sure they omitted the CV joints/boots and half shafts from the front end. So, where the design may be classic, it's not all that common any more.

But more importantly, manufacturers have abandoned the use of grease fittings in most cars decades ago. They never got greased and everything fell apart faster. Not to mention that it is more convenient and maintenance free to have a sealed system. One could argue that sealed systems are less prone to wear because the dust and grit cannot get in and the grease cannot get out, but I'll skip making the obvious point. Go ahead and drill and insert grease fittings if it makes you feel better, just don't try to sell the car to me, I don't want a mess like that.

Both are true. We have a fleet of aging aircraft which are slated to be replaced so we are not buying new ones, at least not enough of them to keep pace with retirements. Many of the aircraft are reaching the end of their service life and will need to be retired. This is a slow but steady decline in the fleet and requires that you back fill with new equipment to keep the same force readiness levels.

Also, the F-18 is based on a design that went into production in 1980. That is 34 years ago. Yes there have been improvements and bug fixes over the years but that means that the basis of the airframe is generally 30+ years old. We've rewired, re-engined, replaced avionics and even made structural changes since then, but the base of the aircraft is pretty old. The F-18 will be flying for many decades in the reserves or for other countries. Just look at the history of the F-86 or the F-4 phantom. But the problem is about the nature of war and conflicts.

If everybody has the same weapons, prevailing becomes about attrition and tactics. In a conflict, you want/need to have as many advantages as you can and you never know for sure if your tactics are best until the shooting starts. Unless you can clearly demonstrate that the F35 is less effective as a weapon (and I don't think anybody can) we have to take the upgrade, we have to buy F35's, because the F-18's limits which are fundamental to the 30 year old design are going to show and the playing field will be tilted less in our favor.

So on both grounds, we buy the F-35 wars and all...

The youngest of the aircraft it is replacing went into initial production 34 years ago. That's like 120 years old in fighter aircraft years. The F-86 was in fighter service only 20 years. The planned retirement for the aircraft being replaced is fast approaching and extending that date will be expensive (if not impossible as in the AV8B's case). Could we keep flying what we have? Sure, but we are going to pay in logistics costs and readiness problems, not to mention that many of these aircraft are reaching the end of their airframe lives and will be forced into the scrapyard at higher and higher rates as time goes on.

So it's not a hard and fast, date sure, deadline, but a continued decline of readiness and increased maintenance time and attrition for what we are flying now. And it's time to start buying replacements to stay on plan and keep the mission readiness requirements. At this point, the F-35 is the only game in town, so we buy them, warts and all.

Now you can argue that we don't need to be as ready as we are and that we can stand having a fleet that is less available than previously planned, but neither you nor I are in a position to say with authority either way on that question. But this is really just disarmament, albeit a slower version of it.

If you cannot get Congress to fund your "viable" aircraft, it's a non-starter to argue for them. Sorry but the reality of the political situation makes doing what you suggest extremely unlikely to succeed and even if you could prove it would be better and cheaper, your idea will never "fly" so why waste time? You can moan about how this shouldn't be the case, how politics shouldn't decide the question all you want (and I may even agree with you), but it won't change the fact that it does.

If you think the guys at the local quickie lube place is going to know what to do with a Tesla, you are nuts. Most of those guys only have experience with changing oil and usually only for as long as they've worked there. You are lucky if they know "rightie tightie, leftie loosie" and don't cross thread the drain plug putting it back in.

I would suggest you just take it to Tesla and pay them the $600/year to do the maintenance you may need.. In the end it will be cheaper than fixing the mess the oil change places will cause you. If you can afford a Tesla, surely you can afford to keep it maintained...

Oh yea, they do... http://www.wheresgeorge.com/

Actually, the serial numbers are generally NOT tracked much beyond being used by the Federal Reserve to verify a bill is valid and properly monetized. Not that a bank couldn't, which is why the rumors are running about the tin foil hat lobby. If you really care or think they do this, just get cash back on your purchases or cash a check at the bank.. No way they can track that.

Excellent point. What on earth do they mean by "hack"?

You give me a Tesla and a box of tools, I can hack the thing in some interesting way. Perhaps I can make it produce toast and keep your coffee warm.... In today's parlance, that would be a "hack" of a Tesla. I saw a story where a guy "hacked" his Prius by adding his own charging circuits to get more distance out of the battery pack, then figured out that he could run most of his home electronics directly from the 200V DC the battery provided. Billed the car as an emergency power supply of sorts, and a large one at that.

Now if they are asking you to hack the security or systems using only the exposed connection points, that's totally a different thing. Some how this is what I think they mean...

Jiffy Lube for your Tesla? What are they going to do to a Tesla? Change the oil and filter?

I don't care who you are, that there is funny...

On that I disagree. The Harrier had it's issues too, some really SERIOUS issues which caused us to loose a number of airframes. I am very aware of these because I worked on this aircraft as an electrical engineer back in the late 80's trying to fix some of them. They had engine problems, wiring problems, software problems and even operational (what switches you put in what positions when) issues to work out. We got grounded a number of times for some of these.

All aircraft have these kinds of issues, especially military only designs like the AV8B and F35. We should not be surprised when they pop up.

The F18 is 30 years old, which is like 120 in fighter aircraft years. We flew the F-86 Saber only 20 years, the F-4 phantom flew 20 (as a fighter), and these are the grey beards of the fighter world from the past. The F-18 is a fine platform, to be sure, but like it or not, it's getting really old for what it does.

If you want to buy F-18's, fine, but I don't think it is wise to scrap the F-35 to do so. There are just things that the F-18 doesn't do and will never do that the F-35 is supposed to. Any way we go, we need to keep buying F-35's for now.

Personally, I think we should start the replacement program for the F-35... It will cost some money, but I'm sure it would light a fire under Lockheed to get some stuff fixed on their gravy train project.. If we had another option, I'm sure Lockheed would be working hard as they can to fix the F-35 as fast as they could. We just don't have any other viable options.

I see your point, but I don't think we have time to develop anything else. We really have no viable choice but to fly the F-35 for now so we need these planes in production. Where some of the goals of the program haven't been realized, the thing flies and does the job... mostly.... Working out the operational problems in a system like this takes time (and money) so I'm not yet ready to conclude it's a hopeless cause.

Now I'd not argue with a NEW program or programs to replace the F-35 getting underway right now, but this will be IN ADDITION to F-35 production and I'm not sure where the extra money will come from.

Sorry for the spelling mistake... The browser they make me use has such TINY print sometimes this old man has issues reading it. (BTW it's "civilian" not "civilain")

I'm going to stop you there because the size and state of the US forces would have made a GREAT difference. Maybe not in the fact that war happened, but in the length and breadth of the resulting conflicts. Had we been ready to prosecute even one front of the war in December 1941 we could have easily saved Europe from being totally taken by Germany and prevented the massive loss of life wrought by the bombing campaigns necessary to stunt industrial output of the German war machine AND the invasion of Normandy needed to take back Europe. But we where not ready and it took time to build up and mobilize, time the enemy used to advance their positions in ways which cost us dearly to take back.

You argue that stealth isn't a big deal (in the parts of your post I just snipped), I'm not so sure. I'm also not sure that the F-35 compares as badly to the other options from our NATO friends. It seems to me that ALL your suggestions might fit the current need in the roles you suggest, with three critical flaws.

First, none of these are American made and that is a political problem first and foremost. No congressman in his right mind would suggest we scrap the F-35 in favor of buying our jets from someplace in Europe. So where they MIGHT be viable alternatives in features and performance you can bet it won't be funded to any large degree by congress and anybody at the pentagon that tries to suggest it will likely find themselves on the fast track to retirement. Nope, none of these will fly politically. Remember that the AV8B was a HUGE struggle because it was based on a UK design, and any program from Europe would suffer politically from the start for the same reasons.

Second, is commonality. The F-35's claim to fame really is Multipurpose, multi-role, multi-service and multi-country. Like it or not, realized or not, this is a huge selling point for the F-35 and one of the primary design goals. Having to maintain only one major design with slight variants will prove to be a HUGE gain in the long run. Now when you add a weapon to one variant of the F-35, the cost delta to get it on another is going to be pretty low. So when the Air Force buys a super duper air-air you cannot dodge it missile, the Marines and Navy get it too or when the Marines go buy some never hits the good and always hits the bad guys super smart bomb the Air Force can drop them too. Then there is the whole spare parts logistics thing... No, the F-35 has some definite advantages over randomly selected stuff.

Finally there is the stealth issue. Why carry some EW package when you can do without it? If they cannot see you some how, they cannot shoot you. Besides, the F-35 can do that role too, when necessary, then just flip the switch and disappear into the night when jamming isn't needed anymore. I personally think stealth is a big issue, even for close air support roles, where the aircraft is low and slow. Being stealthy will be an advantage in most situations and where the F-35 isn't 100% about stealth, the extent that it can just disappear will be an excellent advantage, if not a game changer in close air support.

So, Where I don't argue the capabilities of your suggestions, I just don't think they will fly for the US.

I don't think so. If you think we've spent too much already, doing all this again would be even more expensive than it was the first time. Perhaps replacing Lockheed as prime would help? Perhaps just the threat of doing that would be enough? There are a lot of options short of starting over that we really should try before sending the F35 to the scrap heap. This program has problems, but the whole system isn't total junk or fundamentally flawed. This is like a house where the foundation is sound, the structure is good, but the fixtures have issues and the paint job is botched. It can be fixed, things will get worked out.

The problem here is that we have 30+ year old designs in the field now which are rapidly becoming obsolete and have exactly ONE option for mufti role utility aircraft to replace them. A new program would take a decade and blow billions more dollars before we'd be where we are now. Perhaps they could start with the F35 design and shave a few years and some dollars off, but a new program (or programs) would just burn through more money. In the mean time, we'd be trying to beat the rivets back into the F-15, F-18 etc to keep the wings on and just taking the AV8B's out of service (no rivets in composite wings) and buying spares for another 20 years of service. I don't think it's a good idea to try and fly what we got for another 15 years and hope for the best while we throw good money after bad on some other program.

So... It might be time to start a new project but it's NOT time to ditch F35 production. I just don't see us having any other options.

I totally agree with you. We are committed and have no other options. As you point out we could scrap the F35 and start over, but if one is upset over the program costs so far there will be no way you will be able to do it cheaper by starting over. One might be able to pull the project from Lockheed and give it to somebody else, but even that will likely cost a lot of money we don't have.

Those who think we can do without the F35 are ignorant (or just plain nuts). The planes the F35 is going to replace have been flying for decades and many of the airframes are at the very end of their design lives. The F35 is designed to replace the AV8B (34 years old out of production), the F-15 (47 years old but in production), the F-16 (39 years old but in production) , F-18 (34 years old in production) etc... Every one of these aircraft are based on airframe designs which are 30 plus years old. We'd be stupid to buy many more of them, but if we don't buy the F35 what other choice is there? The only other possible choice that comes to mind is disarmament, unilateral disarmament by the USA, and that's basically suicide.

The F35 is the only game we can play right now, best we get used to that and get used to having Lockheed take advantage of us. Let's not do this sole source "pick one vendor" thing for such development efforts in the future.. Please....