Could be, perhaps that's a safer option as well? (chamber integrity). Traditional Si/SiO CCD's are OK in the presence of high fields though. Modified linescan CCD's with MOS sensors replacing the photodiodes have actually been used as magnetic sensors for high discrimination applications in different fields in physics and chemistry, located at times in high pressure vessels at the focal point of some fairly high fields (12 to 20 T). But I still can't figure out how to use my GoPro. Have fun.

I've repeatedly discounted your comments, but I simply can't seem to make headway.

The F4E ICE was a modified German version of the F4E. It had much better engines than any other version of the craft, a dedicated WSO, and it still only barely outperformed the F16. The other F4 variants absolutely did not turn better or have a higher rate of climb than the F16.

Dogfighting hasn't been around since WW1? Are you crazy? What would you call the numerous dogfighting techniques developed during WWII? Admittedly there was a drop off in dogfighting during the Korean War, but that was because we were shifting to jets as our primary fighters and people didn't have the speeds worked out. When we went to Vietnam, we found that many times the planes were so fast they were closing into gun range before they could get a missile solution. Hence the creation of the Fighter Weapons School (aka TopGun).

The Air Force couldn't believe it was a skill issue and decided to go a different way, loading more sensors and different cannon onto the airplanes. They still relied on missiles primarily, assuming that dogfighting was DEAD. Well, after some time passed, Navy kill to loss ratios went from 3.7-1 to 13-1 and (SURPRISE) Air Force kill to loss ratios got even worse.

After this, the Air Force quietly created their own DACT program, unwilling to be vocal about how wrong they were. Now, if you primarily play video games about air sorties, you might get the idea that you get a lock a couple of miles before you even see the enemy, confirm the engagement, click a button, and then fly back home. Actual pilots will be glad to set you straight on that, since you might have to get close to the intruding craft and follow them, waiting. What happens when you get close? Dogfights happen.

As far as the capability of the plane, of course it is going to fail tests. But the problem is that, like in the case of the Marine's test, so much money has been invested in this plane that people are ignoring the failures because they are scared the program is going to get shut down. Realistically, that just is going to increase the time this plane takes to get ready for service, increase the costs, and it isn't going to fix the underlying problems in the design of the craft.

I don't know what else I can say. The plane is going to turn out to be a much more expensive version of the F22 and it will most likely quietly be cancelled later down the line like the F22 was. The bad thing is, the government will immediately jump to the next jack of all trades plane and once again we will find it is a master of none.

Um...who called you a pig? The voices in your head? Certainly not me. I don't know why you would say you can't be both though. That's just silly. ;-)


That's a pretty big 'If it can' that's already been proven to be an 'it can't'. Even IF it did everything it was supposed to, yes, it's 10 years too late and at least double an acceptable price tag, and still not ready for prime time, or even the 2am slot.
Yes, modification happens, but the idea is not to produce something that needs to be modified out of the box in order to do anything well.
No, many bombers are in use that were designed as bombers. Sorry, but that's just wrong.
Once again, the idea of the F-35 doesn't grant air superiority, neither does a few of these planes, especially if we are too afraid to lose a $200+ million plane so we just don't use them, which is the most likely outcome. It is in NO way a deterrent to full scale war with any foe we might ever use it against, like Russia. If it was some magic anti-war bullet, that might be money well spent, but is simply isn't in any way and NEVER will be, so that argument is just silly.
In 10 years, the stealth properties of this plane will be 5 years past obsolete....and it may STILL not be in the air.
There are no countries with air forces that can come close to ours, not one. I don't think there's even a group of 10 nations combined that come close to ours. We will NEVER be in a fair fight excepting a nuclear one where every one dies, and we'll still out nuke everyone else 10-1, it just won't matter.
Yes, Trump likely would take us to war, that's no reason to waste more money on unneeded weapons for a possible, unknown, unlikely future conflict with an unknown, unestimated enemy.
Still testing....and still testing....and still testing....$1.3 TRILLION later.....Still testing (and failing those tests)....still testing...still testing. Eventually it should be admitted that it's a failure, more testing won't help (it hasn't yet), and quit throwing mountains of good money after bad.
No, it doesn't. It's TASKED with all the same stuff the aging, multi types of planes do, but it can't do it. Stealth is not something new, BTW, we have many stealth planes already, better ones that work.
Again, out of the box needing to be upgraded is a fail. A massive, indisputable fail. That an engine powerful enough to move this pig like other planes already can doesn't exist should tell you something. It's aerodynamic....great....that's one part of a dozen that have to fit together.
The price tag is multiplied 10 fold because it has a pilot.
You want them to eventually pass ALL required tests...not fail them all, then change the parameters so it isn't canceled.
Nope...Warthog.
Not so far. So far, other stealth planes do what it's supposed to...better. Upgrading them is clearly a better plan.
Not true. All I hear is 'it sucks' because I don't read Lockheed Martin's press releases. When you look at test results, it sucks. When you look at price, it sucks. When you look at upkeep, it sucks ass. When you look at a fleet of them doing everything a dozen different planes today do, we're bankrupt and far less capable militarily, and that sucks.

But it seems no amount of logic and results will dissuade you from your love of this unmitigated debacle. That's your choice, but you aren't convincing anyone else to go along with you.

LOL I can't be a pig and Sarah Palin at the same time. Make up your mind

Those are all valid criticisms, but nobody apart from the flight engineers and test pilots truly know whether this plane is a lemon or not. If it does everything it's supposed to do, then it's exactly what the military asked for, just 10 years too late....

Any suitability and fit for purpose criticism that anyone has ever come up with for the F-35 also applies to just about any piece of military equipment that has been created in the last 70 years. Engineering is a balancing act, and an iterative process. Almost every aircraft, and vehicle in the military today was built to fight a soviet army. Luckily that never happened. But that means that most aircraft and vehicles in the military today have been grossly modified to make them fit for a different purpose. The F-35 will probably go through this as well over the next 30 years, because it's a normal part of the life-cycle of military equipment. Almost every plane dropping bombs now was previously designed as a fighter. But nobody ever calls them out for being mutants like they do with the F-35, they call it additional capability. The F-35 was born with these capabilities instead of being added over time.


Expensive: I'll agree. Could the money have been spent better else where? Definitely. You could argue that the cost is tiny compared to that of a full scale war, maybe F-35 is a good deterrent. Air superiority is the key to winning a war. If you're going to spend money then that's where it should be spent. When the oceans rise enough, is a country like Indonesia going to lash out and try to take land and resources for their civilians? Maybe. I doubt all 200 million of them will just stand there and starve. (Ok I'll concede, this does make me sound a bit like Palin. But hopefully not as dumb )
They could have probably made 3 different stealth planes for 1/2 the cost, but that has it's own strategic downsides. You have to have the right assets in the right places or you have to spread them quite thinly. With a multi-role plane you have all of the capabilities everywhere. Just a matter of a loading it with different weapons.

Not needed: Time will tell whether this is the right plane, but new planes are needed. And they absolutely must have stealth. Within 10 years, weapon systems will be so advanced that if you are spotted, you're as good as dead. We are currently dropping bombs on fairly unsophisticated enemies, but wars tend to escalate quickly. You just never know either way, and it's better to be prepared for the worst. There are plenty of countries with very good planes and pilots that could get sucked into a conflict. If you're really unlucky you could be fighting US made planes with pilots trained in the same way, and you don't want to be fighting a fair fight.
Further still, Russia, China and Japan are developing their own stealth planes, which pretty much forces everyone else to do the same thing.
Especially if Donald Trump gets elected. You never know who that crazy asshole is going to provoke into a war

Doesn't work: It's still in development and testing.

Overtasked: It does the same stuff the aging multi-role planes (that were originally built as fighters) do. With the addition of stealth, and better weapons/sensors/comms. Small performance variables don't win wars, superior tactics and situational awareness does.

Underpowered: Almost every plane ever built has had it's engines upgraded to give it more thrust through it's life. And engines on planes are almost a disposable item, they're constantly being replaced throughout the life-cycle of the plane. Like a formula one car.
The current engine, is already the most powerful engine ever in a jet fighter. It is good enough to fly super sonic without an afterburner, which none of the planes it's replacing are capable of.

Piloted: Agreed. But who knows, maybe a Boston Dynamics robot will be flying it soon

Test Failing: That's only a good thing. You want things to fail during tests, and not in the real world. Testing and finding flaws is a normal part of developing anything.

Fragile: That can be said for all US aircraft. They all need to have the runway checked for FOD, because one little rock can destroy even the best plane. Russian aircraft on the other hand are designed to be rugged though, because they're runways are in terrible condition. But in reality, all sophisticated equipment needs constant maintenance, especially when even a simple failure at 40,000 feet becomes an emergency.

Quickly Obsolete: Time will tell. Perhaps it would have been better to keep upgrading current planes with more technology like plasma stealth gas that make then partially stealthy, better sensors and more computing power. But by the time you've done that you've got a plane that's as heavy as F-35 anyway, and not as capable. Although it might have been cheaper in the long run.

Like I said in my previous comment. All of this doesn't make an interesting story so you'll only ever hear the two extremes which are "the plane sux" vs "it's invicible!!11" depending on your media source.

It failed due to two reasons. The F4E was a two seater aircraft with a dedicated radar and weapons co-pilot, meaning it was really more comparable to an F15, and the weapons loadout that the F4 could carry was greater.

The only other area that the F4E was even close to the F16 in was rate of climb, and it still lost there. Now if you mean the German ICE F4E that was modified with better engines, etc, then yes, it was slightly better in RoC and turning radius.

The design and per unit cost of the F16 were much lower than the F35, because it was built on data learned from the Vietnam War, not theoretical data on a conflict that hasn't occurred yet (or may never occur). I agree we should update our weapons as needed, but we should only ever update with field tested data, not on theoretical combat.

For instance, if I came to you and said I predict our future soldiers will need to be protected from man portable rail guns, and that I needed a trillion dollars to make the new body armor, would you give it to me? Or would you say that manport rail guns are highly unlikely to be used in the near future and we need to wait and see?

There are a number of other techniques for suppression or elimination of particlular pest species around the world. Check out the Sterile Insect Technique being used against the screwworm fly which has already 100% eliminated that particular nasty from the US and Mexico. There is also the Daughterless Carp Project in Australia aimed at eliminating an invasive carp species from the Darling River system. It involves releasing genetically modified male carp that are incapable of producing female offspring. Unlike 20 or 30 years ago I think the possible consequences of these various techniques are now being considered.

Kahn is a genetically modified human, a leftover from Earth's Eugenics Wars. Played by Montalban and ruled over Asia and the Middle East before being deposed, some books place him as North Indian and a Sikh, but then who knows what genetic modification might do to someone's racial appearance.
So while Montalban is still not white, he's not Indian either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Noonien_Singh

If you get a brand new rubics cube out of the packet there's no way a person could solve it in 5 seconds or whatever the world record is. The cubes used for speed solving are worn in, may have different tension springs in them and will certainly be lubed.

If human cubers can modify the basic cube then it seems fair that the robot cubers can too. I'm not sure there's anything in the actual rules that would prohibit a cube as in the video.

The humans also get a period of time to look at the cube and figure out the moves they need to do before starting. The robots don't get that. At the end of the video the robot figures out the moves and solves the cube in less than 1.1 seconds, without seeing it before hand.

They've sure come a long way... we used to use our old chain driven potato harvester to dig up carrots after a slight modification. With potatoes sitting in a hill and the tops killed with spray before you harvest, it's a little easier as the front blade just cuts through the hill and you sift out the taters with a series of metal belts and a shaker tray, with one or two folks standing on the sideboards tossing out the rocks, dead animals and rotten ones. To do the carrots, we welded a modified ridging plough blade ahead of the scoop to break the land and free up the carrots, and up the conveyor they'd come. Had to move along a bit slower because the tops sometimes got snagged or bunched, but it worked pretty well, and was easier on the back. The potato harvester we had was built in 1928, lots of cast iron parts but held together for at least 46 years.

or, to get 1 step closer to sanity- how about just modify the law that all 'districts' have to be contiguous areas, comprised of neighboring municipalities. If you can't draw a single polygon of the district without lifting your "pen", then it's illegal.

Atoms are insane.

A Corvette Z06 has around 505hp "stock" giving 355 BHP per ton, a 600hp modified would be around 420 BHP per ton.

If that's (and I'm fairly sure it is, by the sound) An Atom V8 500, it's pushing 863 BHP per ton. 20 BHP per ton more than a Hennessey Venom GT. The Bugatti 16.4 GS Vitesse is 594 BHP per ton, and if it's "just" an Atom 300 SC, it'll be grunting out 545 BHP per ton.

So, if it's a V8 like I believe it is, the power to weight ratio is double the 'vette's.

The Atom V8 is easily in the "Superbike" area of performance. Not bad for a car that is completely legal on almost every road on the planet.

*Figures from http://www.autosnout.com/Cars-Bhp-Per-Ton-List.php

Anon hotline releases taped calls without modifying voices...

It's funny, I just spoke to a friend about his doctoral thesis where he records an American Indian language. He said in his thesis he doesn't use IPA because it's too confusing even for academics. I think he said he modified some simplified phonetic alphabet and used a key...but I was on my third IPA myself so...whatever.

My personal journey these past couple of years is one that certainly reflects the points made in both of his videos on the this topic.

I started with modifying my calorie heavy diet in concert with a sustainable fitness level. Diet was straight forward reduce meat, eat more veggies, eat less or no processed foods. I started with walking 5 miles a day and have moved on to jogging that distance every other day.

My optimum weight based on my height and build puts me between 170-180 pounds, the last time I was at the weight was 25 years ago. During those intervening years I had managed to put on as much as 65 pounds of extra weight. With making the changes I outlined above I was able to get back down to 180 pounds in a little less than a year and I have been steady at that weight since. Also... I was able to do all that while hitting my 50th birthday.

Making your goals sustainable in both diet and exercise is the key.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I run right before bed - it seems to keep me from getting hungry and negating my exercise by eating more.

It is true that it should be easier to modify diet rather than burn off what you're eating. I think about that when I eat a handful of cashews and realise that's a two kilometre run.