You could argue that the “Swedish Airplane Inc.” (Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, SAAB) also does cars.

The centerpiece of their advertising campaign at some point was "born from jets" with fighter jets flying in the background.

Aerospace and defence!

Canada is (rightfully) re-thinking their F-35 commitment after the current U.S. Administration bullied them in trade negotiations: https://youtu.be/ukYxk31zXWg

The DoD changing its mind several times did not do the F-35 project any favors

The DoD needs a kick in the opposite direction.

Make the Pentagon finally pass an audit. Cut its funding. It is clear the profligacy is incentivizing bad decisions - the new normal in the Strait of Hormuz being only the latest.

It's clearly too much of a toy and too much capability for the past few decades of both civilian and military administration. An entire generation only knows the United States military as an institution of blunder, excess and failure.

After cleaning house, the United States should also bring back the draft. More social spending should be paired with more public service. It will be harder to start wars of choice and treat veterans like beggars when everyone's kids will have to sacrifice. This will not degrade capability, as many of the most capable militaries in the world have a draft - notably Israel. Making people from Iowa and New York serve together would be good for a dangerously fracturing country. The "volunteer professional" military was created to get around opposition to Vietnam. It's a disgrace.

Industry and wealth transfer and job creation programs have different goals. Congress is at odds with efficient industries.

> Competition showing they can build a jet faster and cheaper is what we need to kick the DoD into gear with the large contractors.

The problem is, will there be enough of a demand? Part of why military procurement programs are stretched so long now is because the hot war that these things might be used in (aka, an all out direct war with Russia or China) is... increasingly unrealistic, but at the same time the US (or EU) still have to maintain the know-how, and we don't need hundreds or thousands of unit which makes the unit price including R&D extremely high.

F-35 took nearly 3 decades.

As it stands US tech companies don't want to do high volume low cost drones, so ukraine will likely end up doing it and become the supplier for other countries.

With the bare minimum of modern electronics. The dream.

my goodness how i miss mine!

Rare moment on HN where I can share that I had a 9-3 Viggen. Such a wonderful car, wish I didn’t need to sell at the time.

I'd be happier with a 9-3t (small t not large T) redo.

But nooo, SAAB sold their auto division to GM in 2005.

I would be willing to try a Saab 4dr EV...

Or just bring the 9-3 Turbo back!

The article says this one is autonomous

is it manned? I assumed autonomous means unmanned?

“Saab has unveiled its A3 collaborative combat aircraft concept—an autonomous, tailless, supersonic, double-delta-wing air vehicle”

All of the current conflicts (russia / ukraine, us / iran) would consider drones as a nuisance if:

#1. For russia / ukraine neither side has air superiority. If one side had it, they could be obliterating the other side with a constant stream of 500 lb gravity bombs. Each of which has more explosives than 100 drones.

#2. For us / iran, the US is unwilling to risk any pilots. And iran has some air defenses in place. The US could drop bombs from up close, gravity mk-82's and jdams every hour for months. Currently they are using standoff weapons which are either minimally effective (drones) or crazy expensive (Tomohawk, Standard Missile, etc.)

One B1 gets shot down, and 4 crew get paraded around in downtown Tehran, and what little support trump has will vanish.

What am I trying to say? Drones have a place. They don't obsolete anything. The key is to have the weapons available to meet the time in which they are needed.

Be careful that you're not able to fight the next war because all your effort is working on solving the problems of the past war when your enemy has found a better way around it.

It would be nice if humans could find ways to not kill each other, but the reality is humans have a very poor track record and you would be a fool to not put at least some effort into defending yourself.

> not something like this

When all you make are hammers, all your enemies look like nails.

You can't fly a micro drone thousands of km's