Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon say the F-35’s superiority over its rivals lies in its ability to remain undetected, giving it “first look, first shot, first kill.”

Hugh Harkins, a highly respected author on military combat aircraft, called that claim “a marketing and publicity gimmick” in his book on Russia’s Sukhoi Su-35S, a potential opponent of the F-35. He also wrote, “In real terms an aircraft in the class of the F-35 cannot compete with the Su-35S for out and out performance such as speed, climb, altitude, and maneuverability.”

Other critics have been even harsher. Pierre Sprey, a cofounding member of the so-called “fighter mafia” at the Pentagon and a co-designer of the F-16, calls the F-35 an “inherently a terrible airplane” that is the product of “an exceptionally dumb piece of Air Force PR spin.” He has said the F-35 would likely lose a close-in combat encounter to a well-flown MiG-21, a 1950s Soviet fighter design.

Robert Dorr, an Air Force veteran, career diplomat and military air combat historian, wrote in his book “Air Power Abandoned,” “The F-35 demonstrates repeatedly that it can’t live up to promises made for it. … It’s that bad.”

The development of the F-35 has been a mess by any measurement. There are numerous reasons, but they all come back to what F-35 critics would call the jet's original sin: the Pentagon's attempt to make a one-size-fits-all warplane, a Joint Strike Fighter.

History is littered with illustrations of multi-mission aircraft that never quite measured up. Take Germany's WWII Junkers Ju-88, or the 1970s Panavia Tornado, or even the original F/A-18. Today the Hornet is a mainstay of the American military, but when it debuted it lacked the range and payload of the A-7 Corsair and acceleration and climb performance of the F-4 Phantom it was meant to replace.

Yeah, the F/A-18 was trash when it first came out and it took YEARS and multiple changes/fixes to allow it to fully outperform the decades old aircraft it was designed to beat when it was released.

The F35 is not the best at anything it does, it is designed to fully be mediocre at all roles in order to allow it to be a single solution aircraft. That may change with more money, time, and data retrieved from hours spent in actual combat, but as it stands it is what it was designed to be. A jack of all trades and master of none, not something I would want to be flying in a role where I could encounter a master of that role.

As @ChaosEngine says, it is far beyond time that we move to a design where the pilot is not in the plane. There is no reason at this time that we cannot field a plane that could successfully perform it's role with the pilot in a secure location nearby. Such planes could be built cheaper, could perform in g-forces that humans cannot withstand, and would be expendable in a way that current planes are not. However, this would mean that our corporate welfare system for huge defense contractors would take a massive hit. We can't have that, can we?

Anyone else happen to notice the gas can at the bottom right of the screen? A little less about the leaves and a little more about the petroleum accelerant I think.

Love the effect though.

I've thought for decades that when methane hydrates start to melt in large quantities our ability to do anything meaningful is gone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
That cycle seems to be in full effect and accelerating at the same time we are also accelerating our greenhouse gas emissions.
I think the short and long term situation is worse than even recent reports suggest.

Along the lines of BSR, don't know why the rocket is accelerating that close to the moon. It's basically going to pancake. More appropriate physics is to point the vehicle in the opposite direction and do an orbital insertion burn. But hey, its a game based on physics, why get the space part right?

I hate when people ignore to check and don't accelerate when merging, no matter if on a freeway or else where. Unfortunately no matter how good or careful you are of a drivers, you are always sharing the roads with others that can be completely unreliable.

That rest stop is very poorly designed. An on-ramp onto a freeway should be long enough to give merging traffic enough distance to accelerate to the speed of traffic on the freeway. Also, there should be signage to indicate there might be merging traffic.

To me, this looks very much a case of poor driving all around. The truck driver obviously wasn't paying attention to the on-ramp. He had six seconds to react and did nothing to avoid a collision for five of them. I imagine the letter of the law says that it's the merging car's responsibility to merge safely, but if you're driving in the outside lane past an on-ramp, you ought to be watching for merging traffic. Just having the right-of-way doesn't excuse you from being vigilant about avoiding accidents.

"The Ghia had good aerodynamics from the start..."
It has terrible aerodynamics. That rounded front pushes air underneath the body.

Over 300kph? (~190mph) I don't think so.
Only in very short bursts. They show him hitting 174mph but I'm guessing he backed off quick.

I have about 130hp in mine and I once had it just under 120mph At that speed, the front wheels were scary loose. It felt like a sudden headwind would have sent me airborne. It's fun for short bursts of acceleration though.

Skoe-skoe-skoe!
F1 acceleration, no power loss at altitude...why not go for the overall record?
Can't wait to see it run.

Your video, Tesla semi acceleration, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 245 Badge!

Haven't viewed the video yet, but just common sense tells me no propulsion system is 100% efficient, so the losses over time will be larger, and less efficient in overall fuel use.

It's like the most efficient way to drive a hybrid is to floor the accelerator to get to speed, then try to go as fast as possible, using as little accelerator pedal as possible.

Conversely, the rocket would just be wasting fuel trying to slow down before it had to full burn to stop in time.

I'm just impressed they keep the terminal velocity down enough they don't need to use drogue chute(s).

Except that you CLEARLY see after heavily accelerating to pass 2 cars he hits his brakes and slows down when the other guys blinker goes on.

Uh, what? Nobody said that at all. It is neither a "classic example" nor an assumption. The trajectory has been tracked since it was discovered, which is hyperbolic around the sun, and the speed of the object is such that there is no way it could have accelerated to its current velocity due to the gravity of our sun alone, hence it has to be interstellar, picking up kinetic energy from another system outside of our own. The orbit is not improbable, it is unusual compared to trajectories of asteroids that exist within our own solar system. Sharpen your crayon there bud, and stop trying to impress people with your new thesaurus for hipsters (come on, "undergird"?? Really?)

I want to know what they are smoking if they think that ~9g of acceleration is going to be tolerable or safe for the general public.

Trying to imagine a mom and three kids strapped into one of these pods in the family minivan as it suddenly accelerates at 9g. Of the sweet lawsuits.