Veterans

unhappycamper

(60,364 posts) Wed Oct 17, 2012, 08:35 AM Oct 2012

Superman Reboot Will Be Pentagon Stealth Jet’s Silver Screen Debut

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/superman-f35-man-of-steel/

The Pentagon has picked next summer’s Man of Steel film to be the cinematic debut of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, shown here in a 2011 ceremony at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

Superman Reboot Will Be Pentagon Stealth Jet’s Silver Screen Debut
By Spencer AckermanEmail Author
October 16, 2012 | 6:30 am

Faster than a sluggish bureaucracy. More powerful than enemy radar. Able to scale tall buildings with a single engine. Up on the screen in the forthcoming Superman reboot, it’s — it’s — it’s the debut of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive weapons program in human history.

Long before the family of stealth jets known as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will ever fly a combat mission, the F-35 will appear in theaters for the first time next summer in Man of Steel, Zach Snyder’s anticipated re-imagining of the Superman franchise. It’s perhaps the best cinematic debut possible for an aircraft program that’s suffered numerous budgetary and engineering woes.

“It was a target of opportunity,” Phil Strub, the Pentagon’s Hollywood liaison, tells Danger Room. When the filmmakers visited California’s Edwards Air Force Base in January to get shots of military aircraft for a scene, they were excited to learn that the base hosted a complement of F-35s for flight testing. The base arranged for two of them to be towed into the shot.

~snip~

Offscreen, the F-35 is in about as much trouble as a superhero in the third act of an action movie. The advanced stealth fighter — intended to be the backbone of the Air Force, Navy and Marines’ future combat air fleets — is estimated to cost as much as $1.5 trillion over its half-century lifespan. It’s several years late and several hundred million dollars over budget. Its software is complicated, its engineering flaws are numerous, and the Pentagon no longer predicts when it will enter service. The Navy appears to be hedging its bets against the program ultimately collapsing under the weight of its costs — and inside the Pentagon, there’s concern over whether the F-35 remains, as Sen. Claire McCaskill once called it, “too big to fail.”

unhappycamper comment: Towing two of these pigs into a movie scene does not a fighter make. On the plus side we get to see half a billion dollars of military holeware being towed to.... ? to.... ? Bueller?

on edit to change paragraph #4

4 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Superman Reboot Will Be Pentagon Stealth Jet’s Silver Screen Debut (Original Post) unhappycamper Oct 2012 OP

The B-2 costs $1B each. The F-35 only costs $154M each. tclambert Oct 2012 #1

NAVAIR ROBROX Oct 2012 #2

I am opposed to these, expensive & not needed............ kooljerk666 Oct 2012 #3

Hi kooljerk666, unhappycamper Oct 2012 #4

tclambert

(11,087 posts)

1. The B-2 costs $1B each. The F-35 only costs $154M each.

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Wed Oct 17, 2012, 12:56 PM

Oct 2012

That's for the base model. The carrier ready model and the Short Takeoff Vertical Landing models cost around $235M each. (Pretty sure the dealer will throw in the rust-proofing for free.)

Honestly, how can you afford to risk any of these planes in a hostile environment? What target is worth risking assets this expensive?

(Edited to add: a MiG-31 Foxhound costs about $60M. So ours must be four times better, right?)

ROBROX

(392 posts)

2. NAVAIR

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Wed Oct 17, 2012, 02:33 PM

Oct 2012

As a person who worked on A-3, A-6, and A-7 are jets which paid for themselves with great service records. Each generation requires an expense and today there are jets which cost so much and have great performance like the FA-18.
The marines need their jump jet and this jet may be the ticket.
I still don't know why a jet would cost 1/4 of a billion? Anything over 100 million should be VERY good for the buck.

kooljerk666

(776 posts)

3. I am opposed to these, expensive & not needed............

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Wed Oct 17, 2012, 04:22 PM

Oct 2012

The fighters we have now are good enough. If they are to old, fire up the production lines & make more F15,F16 & FA18's

The total cost of this F-35 program is projected to be over 1 TRILLION DOLLARS!

Why do we need them?

F-15 with stainless steel frames instead of titanium are pretty affordable & weigh a bit more, so what! Take 2X500lb bombs less.

The F16XL was a F16 w/ a canard & delta wing. It was overlooked to make the F-15 fighter bomber, even though it carries almost the same payload & has close to the same range and was cheaper.

The FA18 is no work of art, but it is good enough.

The F-20 Tigershark, an updated F-5 was a great fighter, cheap, effective & based on tried & true tech, I liked it.

The Harriers are still good enuff too, they are cheap & reliable. Just make new ones.

What gets my goat is Rumsfeld ordering the destruction of F14 tooling, the BomBcat was an awesome machine but F14 takes like 50 hours of maintenance for every hour flown, expensive but man what a great airplane.

I used to Fly Mig Alley against a guy that had 2000 hours in every Navy Jet u ever heard of, on SimHQ his name was Chunx. He kept us all pretty well versed in Air to Air & whats up tech wise.

In my MiG15bis vs him in an F-86D I won about 1 time out of ten (at the most) & was all sweaty by the time it was over.

Money saved by avoiding wasteful weapons systems should go to VETERANS & the VA!!

I am not trying to start a fight, if any of this is wrong or right, I want to learn the truth.
I just saw it was a Veterans thread, I am not a vet, so I hope i did not stomp on any ones feet.

SORRY NOW THE THE POINT

The F-35 was already in the Green Lantern Film last summer!!

Aspect ratio looks bad & Green Lantern The Animated Series is 10^120000000000 times better experience
Than the crappy movie.

unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)

4. Hi kooljerk666,

Reply to kooljerk666 (Reply #3)

Fri Oct 19, 2012, 08:18 AM

Oct 2012

You don't need to be a Veteran to post in this forum.

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