Nuclear Powered Stealth Fighter Jets - It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time
In honor of April (Easter) Fool's, I thought it would be fun to take a look at an idea that...well, seems like it could be a bit foolhardy.
Like something straight out of an arcade shoot-em-up, Lockheed Martin is now (attempting?) to strap micronized fusion (nuclear) reactors to stealth fighter jets in what I hope is not a misguided attempt to deliver nuclear munitions with a technique that would have been fashionable in the World War 2 era.
Plane 1.jpg
For those who don't regularly follow developments in aeronautics (or, in other words, normal people,) you may not be aware of Lockheed Martin's recent problems. They are currently responsible for the "most expensive military weapons system in history," which is really just a fancy way of saying they have absolutely botched the development of the F-35A Lightning II.
Plane 3.jpg
Can't fault the aesthetic design fellas, though.
Critics around the world (mostly from NATO countries that may hope to field the Jet have called it "plagued with design flaws" and vastly overpriced. By 2014, the project was a shocking 7 years behind schedule and $163 billion over budget ($465 over-budget per every American), yet is still often seen as too big to kill due to the sunk cost.
Plane 2.gif
This hopefully provided no inspiration for this project whatsoever...although it looks kinda like an A-10.
Remember this the next time you file your taxes - you've probably already kicked in a year's worth of returns to this project that may never produce a (cost-efficient) serviceable aircraft!
April Fool's...on all of us.
Anyway, back to our headline...some crooked bureaucrat diligent public servant decided these were the competent engineers and corporate employees to trust with the task of strapping a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier's nuclear reactor worth of power onto a jet that can probably exceed triple the speed of sound. This is an amount of power that would run approximately 80,000 residential homes.
I guess this means we are back to designing piloted bombs.
Plane 4.jpg
History is not supposed to be cyclical.
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Sources: Google, CBS, Lockheed Martin, Wikipedia, Zero Hedge
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