alt Hacker NewsAll of this random F-35 shit is completely missing the point. The F-35 isn't "there" - no aircraft is "there" because the costs to operate them far eclipse their acquisition costs, always.
If you said "scrap the F-35s, spend money on humanitarian purposes" - you'd have a cogent (albeit naive) point. "Use one of the most expensive per-flight-hour aircraft in the world to do a mission it can't do and wasn't built for" is not intelligent.
Roughly, just considering fuel: the F-35 burns ~10,000 lbs/hr of JP-8 and can haul just 18,000 lbs of relatively small/multiple payloads. A 747 burns ~20,000 lbs/hr and can haul over 300,000 lbs of palletized loads. See the issue?
We paint the F35's pink to make amends for the murder they have caused.
You know, amends. One of those spiritual concepts you can't eat, since you don't know what salad is and you're too busy serving yourself lines off The Mirror™ you made from some billet somewhere ...