Post Axbuq88WiQCT8IESyO by simonbp@social.linux.pizza
 (DIR) More posts by simonbp@social.linux.pizza
 (DIR) Post #Axbuq4ZJyrFy4EjoBM by wikkit@mastodon.social
       2025-08-27T20:40:05Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       I have made up a bunch of processes around the design and testing of very hazardous rockets, and have sometimes thought I couldn't possibly be doing it as well as heavily resourced programs.And then I get insight into a trillion dollar program where they are filling the hydraulic system with water and operating it in Alaska, and writing software that misinterprets touch-and-gos and crashes the plane.
       
 (DIR) Post #Axbuq64uMu7KkUWY3U by wikkit@mastodon.social
       2025-08-27T20:40:36Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       > At that point, the F-35’s sensors indicated it was on the ground and the jet’s computer systems transitioned to “automated ground-operation mode,” the report said.> This caused the fighter jet to become “uncontrollable” because it was “operat(ing) as though it was on the ground when flying,” forcing the pilot to eject.https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/27/us/alaska-f-35-crash-accident-report-hnk-ml
       
 (DIR) Post #Axbuq6wn8ZDdRbja2i by wikkit@mastodon.social
       2025-08-27T20:45:06Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       A single F-35 and its share of the development program is more than the cost to hire a team and build a new orbital rocket from scratch.They could have built the Superconducting Super Collider as a side project in the F-35 program and it would have been a minor footnote in the budget.
       
 (DIR) Post #Axbuq88WiQCT8IESyO by simonbp@social.linux.pizza
       2025-08-27T20:54:53Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @wikkit You could do an entire semester long course about "F-35/JSF and the Sunk Cost Fallacy".I honestly wonder what fraction of people now at LM were there 24 years ago when F-35 was selected. Not a lot, I imagine.
       
 (DIR) Post #Axbuq8yHbzbHioRne4 by publius@mastodon.sdf.org
       2025-08-27T23:37:48Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @simonbp @wikkit Being here in Fort Worth all this time, and being in engineering school part of that time, and because of where and with whom I tend to socialize, I am not at all surprised by any of this. I've never really met anyone who was working on the F-35 program and thought it was a good aircraft, much less a good use of money.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxbyfuaEeNnq1GZkrg by simonbp@social.linux.pizza
       2025-08-28T00:20:47Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @publius @wikkit My dad worked the rebuild of the Lockheed Georgia wind tunnel around the time F-22 was wrapping up there and I remember him calling it "depression city". I imagine LM management very purposely tried to make F-35 an unkillable program.