I saw the F-35B do a demonstration flight at the MCAS Beaufort air show a couple weeks ago, and she’s a beauty, despite all the issues with development. The maneuvers that she was able to do were far more impressive than the Harrier demo I saw on the same day.

You’re assuming that no changes have been made to the data links since 2009, though. Yes, the capability exists to ‘hack’ into a data feed and/or take control of a UAV. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a lot of the systems deployed during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were deployed without appropriate controls,…

While China has made very significant advances, the biggest capability that the US has over any other country is integration. There has been a very significant increase in funding and capability, post-9/11, towards integrating data feeds, imagery, and commonizing many components (don’t think F-35) in the DoD. No other…

Everything costs money, one way, or another. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to how college is supposed to be free. I’ll wait.

You know, the funny part is that at no point in the history of mankind, have more people had education levels as high as today, yet most people, including those with degrees, can’t think critically nor use proper English. As a hiring manager, I’m appalled at the resumes that come in, and even worse, how people present…

That’s why very sophisticated data links are used, and the systems are programmed to fly pre-determined flight paths to safety, if the data link is cut or compromised.

Not necessarily. Since it’s essentially a testbed, they could fit all sorts of electronics in the avionics bays to test out any number of capabilities over time. Short spiral development, coupled with integration with the fleet via LINK and NIFC-CA, would allow for a nice test of the X-47B’s ability to share data,…

For now. Once they get them sorted on the GT350, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ford started offering them on the GT and whatever slots between the GT and GT350 (Boss 302?).

And I bet you that certain groups would buy everything they could find!

It was a joke. About stealth.

When I moved to South Carolina, my Mustang needed brakes. The car went up on jackstands in my apartment’s parking lot, and I did rotors and pads, then flushed the brake fluid. I was lucky enough to have not spilled any fluid on the ground, so they didn’t get all pissy about it (it was, at the time, a brand new, high…

Exactly what I was thinking!

<Insert 'Grounded to the ground' meme>

Most likely, yes. I’m sure there are other tests they can do on that, like measuring g-forces along a constant radius, as well as researching lateral stability, and how much the chassis leans when under a tight turn.

My two year old is OBSESSED with trains, and is constantly asking me to turn on red train videos on Youtube.

That’s the first thing I thought of. There are so many LM-2500 turbines out there, powering awesomely kick-ass ships, that they DEFINITELY deserved a mention. DDG-51 class ships look so much better than the rest of them, too!

As someone else said, the majority of the guts are the engines. The rest is just a big fuel tank and an adapter ring to mate it to the second stage. Even a rough landing would likely damage far too much to make much reusable.

The salt water would likely damage the engine and electronics too much to make it economical to refurbish the first stage. As is, they’ll still need cleanup and refurbishment, but nowhere near as much as if the thing landed in the ocean.

The Navy calls them ‘tacs’.