Check out all these videos of the F-35 landing on the USS Nimitiz, off the coast of San Diego. Watch it at any angle you'd like, as many times as you can stand! If you're an American, Canadian, or from many of their allies, you've collectively paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 billion to watch this.But the results are right in front of you, not only proving wrong all those who have called the fighter jet too expensive and shitty, and but also proving that they solved a major problem with the F-35!No, not the engine fires; they're still working on that one, the problem from two years ago. No, not the software issues, and they especially haven't solved the issue of the F-35 being too expensive, heavy, and slow, and vulnerable to the advanced technology such as large birds.No, the other F-35 problem, the tailhook problem, remember that one? The initial design of the tailhook, which is supposed to snag arresting cables on aircraft carrier decks to slow carrier-based F-35Cs down for the Navy, didn't reliably engage the cable and wasn't strong enough to do the job.But after tests on the ground, the Navy was scheduled to test the F-35C on a carrier in October. Missing that deadline by only three days makes this one of the most-on-time accomplishments in the F-35's troubled young life.Of course, not everything went perfectly— according to the UT San Diego, "the two jets were unable to perform the scheduled catapult-launched takeoffs from the Nimitz because equipment expected to measure their performance was glitchy."Well, hey nothing's perfect, right? So this fighter doesn't work and is projected to come in four years late, and costing $38 million, or 40 percent more per plane, than the Navy's target price, but…uh…but….Hm. Here, watch it land from another angle!
Advertisement