Well, it isn’t currently falsifiable, because we don’t know that it can’t. LM/USAF defines supercruise as M1.5 or greater, not just the ability to fly faster than M1 without AB. What this means is that the only thing that can be said unequivocally is that the F-35 doesn’t cruise at M1.5 or greater, without AB. It may very well not be able to break M1 without AB, but no one here can say that with certainty. In fact there’s a great deal about the F-35 that can’t be said with certainty, as we’re simply not privy to all of the details. That being the case, I’m not prepared to say what it can’t do.
I was not trying to dispute facts of what it can or cannot do. My problem was with your phrasing, as I said in the first post about that, and has nothing to do with which numbers you assign to supercruise.
If you have a negatively worded working hypothesis (‘no evidence that it can not’), you say that there could be an as of yet not encountered set of parameters that could bring about fulfillment, which with a lack of demarcation leads to an unlimited variety of circumstances that would necessitate infinite retesting, which makes it impossible to validate or falsify this hypothesis, which means it holds no insight while upholding a claim.
It can be easily abused and should be avoided. It’s unscientific.
Or do you think it’d be right to say: “There’s no evidence that I can not run 100 miles per hour.”?
Right: There’s been no evidence that the F-35 can supercruise.
This can be easily proven wrong. The F-35 just needs to demonstrate supercruise.
Wrong: There’s been no evidence that the F-35 can not supercruise.
This can never be proven wrong. One could always claim circumstances like defects, environment, deception, secrecy, spin, intention or others whenever it fails to supercruise.
I hope you see the difference.
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