[HN Gopher] The F-35 may be unsalvageable
___________________________________________________________________
The F-35 may be unsalvageable
Author : SQL2219
Score : 103 points
Date : 2021-03-26 14:27 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehill.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehill.com)
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Just tangentially related, but I find it very weird that people
| push one-system-that-replaces-all (or, in this case, planes) as
| cost cutting measure, compared to few specialized systems. Which
| do not have to take tons of compatibility stuff. In this case,
| probably some problems of Air Force's F-35's are related to the
| constrant that the requirement of being able to land on carriers
| pushes.
|
| At the end, results are at best mediocre, costs exceeded, and
| everyone is unhappy.
| imtringued wrote:
| The VTOL capability of the F-35B is nice in theory but the vast
| majority of navy aircraft are going to be launched off of
| carriers anyway. VTOL needs its own ship+aircraft concept or it
| is dead on arrival.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| The F35 CAN VTOL, it is not meant to be used that way since
| it extremely limits fuel and armaments.
|
| The carrier variant is meant to be STOL, since its a JOINT
| Strike Fighter meant for multi-country use, and many
| countries do not have large carriers with catapults. Namely
| Great Britain, whose largest carriers are not equipped with
| catapults, since they are designed to use STOL planes.
| jabl wrote:
| Considering the total program cost, one wonders if a VTOL
| F-35 plus slightly smaller carriers really is cheaper than
| skipping that model entirely and using the R&D money to build
| slightly bigger carriers with catapult launchers and arrestor
| wire gear?
| rjsw wrote:
| The UK has done the costings and VTOL is cheaper.
|
| You need a much more expensive training pipeline to get
| pilots who can do arrestor wire landings and they need to
| keep practicing it, doing this also results in more
| accidents which result in the loss of the aircraft.
|
| The VTOL system also allows a country to more easily switch
| pilots from being based on land to using the carrier.
| jabl wrote:
| > The UK has done the costings and VTOL is cheaper.
|
| Sure, but that decision was made before the full
| trainwreckage of the F-35 was clear. In hindsight, with
| what we now know of the cost of the program, perhaps the
| decision would have swung the other way.
| rjsw wrote:
| I don't think the F-35B is seen as a trainwreck by the
| UK.
| openasocket wrote:
| While this seems like a good idea in theory, in practice
| there are some serious hurdles.
|
| - Adding catapult launchers and arrestor wires adds a lot
| to the requirements. It's not just a matter of making the
| ship bigger, you need to provide the power for those
| catapults. Here's a RAND study that looks at alternative
| carrier designs that has some information on the costs:
| https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2006.html
|
| - Even if you decide to build these bigger carriers and
| phase out the LHDs, that takes time. It would take decades,
| during which you have no fixed wing aircraft you can launch
| from your LHDs, unless you want to try and revive the
| Harrier jet program as a stopgap.
|
| - Keep in mind the F-35B (the STOVL variant) is meant to
| replace the Harrier, so it makes sense to compare the F-35B
| to the Harrier instead of the F-18 or F-16. The Harrier
| also had poor availability rates and reliability issues.
| While the F-35B is worse, it is continuing to improve. And
| it has both stealth and is capable of supersonic flight,
| which the Harrier was not. In fact, the F-35B is the first
| production STOVL aircraft capable of supersonic flight.
|
| - An STOVL aircraft can be used from more than just LHDs.
| They can be launched from short, improvised airfields on
| the ground. The marines could potentially operate them from
| parking lots or just open fields. That's actually a part of
| some new doctrine the marines are working on, where they
| maintain a series of rotating, distributed air fields
| closer to the enemy rather than concentrating their forces
| on a ship which is easier to detect and potentially more
| vulnerable. Here's some more information: https://www.mccdc
| .marines.mil/Portals/172/Docs/MCCDC/young/M...
| jabl wrote:
| > - Adding catapult launchers and arrestor wires adds a
| lot to the requirements. It's not just a matter of making
| the ship bigger, you need to provide the power for those
| catapults. Here's a RAND study that looks at alternative
| carrier designs that has some information on the costs:
| https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2006.html
|
| Thanks. So from that report we see the estimated savings
| from dropping one EMALS (the fancy new electric
| catapults) is $160M, presumably including the extra power
| to run it. So for a smaller carrier with, say, two
| catapults, the difference between a STOVL option and a
| catapult one would be, say, roughly $.5B (allowing some
| extra for the arrestor wires etc.). Now, based on a quick
| web search, the price difference between the F-35B and
| F-35C is around $10M. So if you have an air wing of 35
| planes (wikipedia lists 36 F-35B for the new British
| carriers, and 30-40 Rafale's for the current French
| carrier, so 35 is probably a good ballpark figure for a
| smaller carrier), that's already a $350M difference,
| almost making up for the extra cost in the carrier
| itself. Now factor in the avoidance of the R&D cost for
| the STOVL variant, that the F-35C is a significantly more
| capable plane, and finally that over the life of the
| carrier you're likely to see several generations of
| planes used. This reinforces my preconceived notion that
| the F-35B development program made no sense.
|
| > - Even if you decide to build these bigger carriers and
| phase out the LHDs, that takes time. It would take
| decades, during which you have no fixed wing aircraft you
| can launch from your LHDs, unless you want to try and
| revive the Harrier jet program as a stopgap.
|
| The USMC apparently has some historical reasons why they
| really want to operate their own fighters, but it does
| seem horribly expensive compared to the alternative of
| relying on the navy for support in that area.
|
| > - Keep in mind the F-35B (the STOVL variant) is meant
| to replace the Harrier, so it makes sense to compare the
| F-35B to the Harrier instead of the F-18 or F-16.
|
| Why? The enemy isn't going to give you any handicap
| points for operating a STOVL aircraft instead of a more
| capable 'traditional' one.
|
| > - An STOVL aircraft can be used from more than just
| LHDs. They can be launched from short, improvised
| airfields on the ground.
|
| Sure, that's an advantage. Is it enough to offset the
| disadvantages of a STOVL aircraft? I'm not convinced.
| Many traditional aircraft can also operate from
| improvised airfields, for instance made from a straight
| stretch of road.
| aphextron wrote:
| We have plenty of supercarriers, and are building plenty
| more. That misses the point. The Marine amphibious assault
| ships serve an entirely different mission. Their size is a
| feature, not a limitation.
| mcv wrote:
| VTOL is certainly nice, but it's ridiculous to use it as a
| requirement of a variant of a plane of which most versions
| will not be using VTOL at all. Like stealth, it has a massive
| impact on the shape of the plane. It's ridiculous to burden
| non-VTOL planes with a design meant for VTOL. Just make a
| specialised VTOL fighter if that's what you need.
| wespiser_2018 wrote:
| This. You can see in the design of the f-35 the massive
| space in the middle of the body for the lift fan that
| partially obstructs the pilots view behind them.
| u10 wrote:
| The VTOL capability are for Marine squadrons operating off of
| LHD ships (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Essex_(LHD-2)),
| or for partner nations who don't have aircraft carriers
| CATOBAR launch systems.
| openasocket wrote:
| I see this argument being raised a lot, but there's not a ton
| of evidence suggesting the problems with the F-35 is that it
| has to have these three different variants. The lion's share of
| the issues with the F-35 have to do with the acquisition
| strategy and the avionics. The acquisition strategy of
| procuring the planes before they were fully operational, like
| CI/CD but with fighter jets instead of aircraft, has made
| everything much more expensive and has really hurt availability
| because you have a dozen slightly different builds of the same
| plane, and across three variants. Any time an issue is fixed
| they have to roll it out to all of the different builds, which
| adds to costs. The second major issue is the advanced avionics
| and the software for associated systems, like the MDL and ALIS.
| In short, it's a software problem. Neither or these are really
| related to having three different variants.
|
| It's not really fair to compare this to the F-111 debacle,
| because there we genuinely saw incompatible intended uses for
| the same plane. The Air Force wanted a tactical bomber, while
| the Navy wanted an interceptor, these are very different
| designs. But for the F-35 everyone wants the same thing: a
| multirole fighter.
| blackrock wrote:
| I've heard it said that stealth is a lie.
|
| That radar technology from World War 2 era is able to detect
| stealth aircraft. The Russians just built up more of that kind of
| radar band to detect current stealth planes.
|
| This is how the F-117 got shot down in Yugoslavia. It was
| supposed to have the radar cross section of a small bird.
|
| Can anyone provide insight to this?
| jabl wrote:
| > I've heard it said that stealth is a lie.
|
| The pop culture version of stealth providing perfect
| invisibility was always a lie.
|
| But it does provide decreased detection range. If your radar
| detects a traditional plane at 300 nm but a stealth plane at 30
| nm, you're effectively blind as a bat.
|
| > That radar technology from World War 2 era is able to detect
| stealth aircraft. The Russians just built up more of that kind
| of radar band to detect current stealth planes.
|
| > This is how the F-117 got shot down in Yugoslavia. It was
| supposed to have the radar cross section of a small bird.
|
| Stealth technology apparently isn't that good for old school
| low frequency radars, so yes, there's a grain of truth there.
| But such radars provide poor resolution (which is why modern
| radars tend to use higher frequencies) so they are not that
| useful for targeting. That F-117 case was AFAIU a combination
| of poor operational planning (flying the same routes over and
| over again), as well as a 'lucky' shot.
|
| There's of course a lot of research into 'stealth-defeating'
| technologies. IR guided missiles, multistatic radar etc.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > This is how the F-117 got shot down in Yugoslavia. It was
| supposed to have the radar cross section of a small bird.
|
| The US got complacent and was flying the same route at the same
| time daily. I think in this case the pilot also did a maneuver
| and the angle reflected radar. So it was incompetence.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| How many times have you heard the cliche phrase: the US spends
| more money in its armed forces than the top K other countries
| combined?
|
| Well, spending and results not always go hand in hand. And in the
| case of aerospace contractors, they can be rewarded for being
| inefficient at the expense of the taxpayer.
| nickik wrote:
| Another service update, nuclear weapons exist. Any situation that
| involves high tech piloted planes fighting each other in the sky
| is almost impossible to happen.
|
| Dropping insane amounts of resources into piloted figher plane is
| bordering on insanity.
|
| The same money could have literally created a Mars, doing far
| more for US politically and done wonders for its global
| credibility. Or you know, become global leader in electric
| mobility or many other things that would have been useful to both
| the US government and its people.
|
| Bombing the shit out of pure Arab, Africans and peoples from
| central Asia without a government can be done with planes from
| the 90s just fine.
| bendbro wrote:
| > Another service update, nuclear weapons exist. Any situation
| that involves high tech piloted planes fighting each other in
| the sky is almost impossible to happen.
|
| This is falsified by the Vietnam war. We had apex US fighters
| fighting apex soviet fighters in a period where nuclear weapons
| existed.
|
| And I'm sure you are aware of this common trope, but it is
| claimed (and I think supported) that countries will not use
| nuclear weapons against another nuclear power due to the risk
| of nuclear war. And further, I think apex air and land vehicles
| would be required whether nukes are used or not. After the nuke
| has been deployed, land forces would need to be deployed to
| take the area cleared by the nuke, and air forces would be
| required to support those land forces.
| Rochus wrote:
| Does anyone have first hand information on how big of an impact
| the decision to use C++ instead of Ada had on the "staggering
| array of persistent issues"?
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| On a related note, an F-35 shot itself a couple weeks ago on a
| training run in Arizona causing over $2.5m in damage:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjp7nq/one-of-americas-dolla...
| SQL2219 wrote:
| It is one thing to build a complex piece of technology, it is
| quite another to deploy it and expect it to work 24-7. $1.7
| Billion was spent on this program.
| FlyMoreRockets wrote:
| It gets worse. From the article: "Total acquisition costs now
| exceed $428 billion, nearly double the initial estimate of $233
| billion, with projected lifetime operations and maintenance
| costs of $1.727 trillion."
|
| Much like the SLS, it seems that it is more a jobs program to
| dump money into select congressional districts than a project
| actually focused on deliverables.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Funding_hi...
| woofie11 wrote:
| I think it's helpful to focus on dollars per citizen. $428
| billion means I spent a bit over $1000 on this failure. My
| family spend a few thousand dollars. Adjusted for income (I
| pay above-average taxes), it probably cost my family a
| minimalist car.
|
| The 1.7 billion price tag is around $5k per citizen. That
| could mean a lot to a lot of families.
| imtringued wrote:
| You could even get more than $5k per citizen out of it if
| you had put it into something that nets a return either
| directly or indirectly. Infrastructure projects like
| renewables, road upgrades, internet upgrades and so on. If
| you need busy work there is a lot of useful work to be
| done.
| rbanffy wrote:
| The major issue of the F-35 is trying to be too many things to
| too many people at once. It has to fly fast, yet be able to be
| slow enough to offer ground support. It has to be maneuverable
| to dogfight, but have short wings to land on carriers. It has
| to be light, but needs a complex nozzle and a fan to do
| STOL/VTOL.
|
| That's very hard to do.
| bewo001 wrote:
| The arguments for and against general purpose planes sound
| eerily familiar for someone in the telco space. You either
| have The Converged Fixed/Mobile Retail/Business platform that
| is complex, inflexible, and expensive or several smaller
| platforms where some parts have to be developed several
| times.
|
| The usual argument for the converged platform is drastically
| reduced operating cost. The price is drastically reduced
| flexibility, as each new feature has to be checked against
| all existing requirements and dependencies.
| typon wrote:
| Sounds a classic example of design by committee
| mbreese wrote:
| And that was the take home message from the article:
|
| _> The design by committee, Swiss-army knife approach has
| been a resounding failure._
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Well to be fair it never aspired to do all of those things
| within the same model. They did split it in three different
| ones.
|
| Also, maneuverability and short wings go together really
| well. Slow flying and short wings doesn't though.
|
| Still, it was clearly a mistake, three totally different
| designs would have been cheaper and better.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| Shared platforms seem to work well in the automotive
| industry, why does it seem to be such a failure in this
| application?
|
| My assumption is high performance constraints requires deep
| customization and the shared platform hampers that.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I think the VTOL in particular was too much of a stretch.
| If you see the complicated drive bar setup with that big
| fan, it really makes me wonder how this thing could
| possibly get airborne :)
| jabl wrote:
| My understanding is that in the aerospace industry,
| particularly at the cutting edge, margins are so low that
| common platforms don't really work out.
|
| In the car industry, say, a 10% penalty in, say, weight
| might be worth it if it enables the manufacturer to share
| the platform among many different products. In aerospace,
| not so much.
| selectodude wrote:
| Some platforms just can't be shared. You're not going to
| be able to turn a Lamborghini into a body-on-frame truck
| without changing basically everything.
| oetnxkdrlgcexu wrote:
| Consumer automobile manufacturers can use shared
| platforms because the biggest difference between their
| vehicles is the body, which are metal boxes of different
| volumes. This is sometimes seen in aircraft: look at how
| many models of 777 Boeing produced.
|
| Automobile manufacturers couldn't, for example, have a
| shared platform between a vehicle designed for racing, an
| armored limousine, and a golf cart, as these vehicles
| have different performance requirements. That's a better
| comparison to to what they're trying to achieve with the
| F35. The needs of the branches of service are very
| different.
| bewo001 wrote:
| I guess that in the automotive industry different models
| are often only done to achieve price differentiation or
| to serve local markets. The technical differences are
| superficial.
| Someone wrote:
| _"$1.7 Billion was spent on this program."_
|
| If only. FTA: _"Total acquisition costs now exceed $428
| billion, nearly double the initial estimate of $233 billion,
| with projected lifetime operations and maintenance costs of
| $1.727 trillion."_
|
| Also,
| https://www.airforcemag.com/massive-34-billion-f-35-contract...
| talks about a $34 billion contract for 478 aircraft. At that
| price, $1.7 billion buys you about 24 of these planes.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Holy. That's about 5x what's needed to eliminate world hunger
| (330B $, per https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/2020/oct/13/e...), which would probably have a
| _lot_ more positive effect in achieving / maintaining peace
| and mass migration than that fleet of airplanes.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| but not for managing climate change.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| Does anyone sue the us govt for recouping taxes due to such
| catastrophic results?
| walrus01 wrote:
| The F-35 isn't an airplane, it's a defense industry jobs program
| to spread subcontracts widely around a sufficient number of
| congressional districts and states that it can't be killed.
| polytely wrote:
| >There has also been significant investment in the program by
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and other allies.
|
| A lot of the time with these investments it seems like it is
| mostly a signal of investment in the alliance with the US and
| that getting the planes is a sort of side effect.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| One reform I would support would be mandating that all defense
| projects are made in ten states or less. That way you could
| spread the project around if you needed to, but it wouldn't have
| enough support to continue only as a jobs program.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| They'll just stick the program in three metro areas that are
| highly over-represented in congress.
|
| Jerrymandering runs both ways. If you carve <city> up into ten
| districts you've just created ten congressmen who give a crap
| about bringing muh jobs to the <city> metro area.
| [deleted]
| SQL2219 wrote:
| Military expert Pierre Sprey, the founder and designer of the
| F-16 & A-10 Warthog airplanes, Explains why the f-35 will not cut
| it on the modern battlefield.
|
| https://youtu.be/UQB4W8C0rZI
| u10 wrote:
| Pierre Sprey is on the wrong side of history. If the fighter
| mafia had their way the F-15 would have never existed. RADAR
| and BVR would have never existed. the F-16 would never have had
| a multirole purpose.
|
| And the A-10 was obsolete the minute it rolled off of the
| assembly line. Most estimates that the majority of A-10's would
| have been destoryed within 72 hours of the Warsaw Pact rolling
| across the German border. The gun is not particularly effective
| against modern armour, and the same mission can be carried out
| better by other aircraft like the F/A-18 or the F-16, as seen
| in the 1st Gulf War. It's found new life in Afghanistan and
| Iraq but even than drones would have been better suited for the
| role. In fact, the AF wants to get rid of the A-10, but
| congress wont let them.
| greedo wrote:
| The A-10 was designed to be a more modern Spad (A-1
| Skyraider). The Spad was well appreciated in Vietnam in CAS
| roles, but the Viet-Cong didn't have SAMs. The introduction
| of SA-6, SA-8 etc made this design a failure in any European
| conflict.
| mullen wrote:
| > Most estimates that the majority of A-10's would have been
| destroyed within 72 hours of the Warsaw Pact rolling across
| the German border.
|
| But that is in the design of the A-10. The A-10 was not made
| for anything other fighting in Europe for the first 72 hours
| of the Soviets invading Western Europe. If the Russian
| speartip was blunted and there was some A-10's left over,
| then the A-10 would have been considered a success.
| why_Mr_Anderson wrote:
| Oh well, at least get the facts right.
|
| A-10 was designed to kill T-55s, T62s and T-72s (most modern
| tank USSR had at that time), not today's tanks.
|
| GAU-8 was extremely effective against armor from that era and
| still is very useful against armored vehicles, structures,
| etc.
|
| F16's can't do what A10 does the best (CAS).
|
| In 1st Gulf War A10s are credited with something like 1000
| tanks destroyed (mostly with Mavericks though)
|
| AF is trying to get rid of A-10 for decades, but it still
| survives ..
| [deleted]
| u10 wrote:
| >A-10 was designed to kill T-55s, T62s and T-72s (most
| modern tank USSR had at that time), not today's tanks.
| >GAU-8 was extremely effective against armor from that era
| and still is very useful against armored vehicles,
| structures, etc.
|
| The GAU-8 couldn't penetrate the frontal armour of the
| T-62, let alone the turrent on the sides. With ERA armour
| it becomes even more ineffective. Those tanks? AA, SAM, and
| enemy CAP are covering them so good luck getting slow and
| low enough to hit the tanks in the rear and 1. surviving,
| 2. actually hitting the damn things.
|
| >F16's can't do what A10 does the best (CAS).
|
| This
|
| >In 1st Gulf War A10s are credited with something like 1000
| tanks destroyed (mostly with Mavericks though)
|
| contradicts this.
|
| an F-16 can carry mavricks just as well as the A-10, can
| get their faster, and has higher survivabilty rate compared
| to the slow as molasses A-10.
|
| Hell, you could replace the A-10 with a single engine
| turboprop with rough airfield landing capabilities and it
| would be way more cost-effective than the A-10.
| why_Mr_Anderson wrote:
| GAU-8 might not be that great against modern armor, well,
| it's from 70s, but it's still capable of M-kills even on
| Abrams (happened during one of those unfortunate
| friendly-fire incidents during 1st Iraq war). And
| immobilised tank is a dead tank. Or at least useless for
| the mission.
|
| A10 was designed for one specific task - to slow down
| Soviet tank armies rushing into Germany in case of
| European non-nuclear conflict. And while it was guranteed
| they would be accopmanied by mobile SAMs, it was tanks
| themselves that were major concern. The goal was to slow
| down the hordes by any means necessary and A-10 was the
| ideal solution for that.
|
| According to all documents I was able to find, including
| several US military assessments, GAU-8 was more than
| capable of achieving K-kills on T72s using top-down
| attacks or low-angle side attacks.
|
| CAS != tank killing, if your plane "gets there and out
| faster", you are not doing CAS but some sort of flyby.
| CAS usually requires visual confirmation of the targets,
| that means you _have to_ fly low and slow, which F16 is
| not really made for (bad maneuverability at low speeds).
| You might also need to stay in the area for extended
| period of time, which, again, isn 't F16s strong point
| (it's a great plane though).
|
| IIRC pretty much all Mavericks in 1GW were from A10s,
| something like 95%.
|
| I mentioned only 1k tank kills because I was lazy to type
| the other stuff, like trucks, armored vehicles, SCUD
| launchers, SAMs, all sorts of bunkers, command
| infrastructure, radars, etc.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| "In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just
| one tactical aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by
| the Air Force and Navy 31/2 days each per week except for leap
| year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra
| day" - Augustine's Law #16
| keanebean86 wrote:
| Original design goals:
|
| * Faster than light outside atmosphere (s model used by space
| force) * Take off from underground * Returns a vastly increased
| radar signal to damage ground radar * Air superiority * Water
| superiority * Negative emissions * Generates new car scent *
| 600,000 lbs of ordinances * 3 pilots * Autonomous * Made in
| Mississippi * Troop carrier * "None of those dumb green
| screens"
|
| Edit: single -> signal
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| That might be a worry. But the f35 is a good aircraft demo by
| Israel that it can strike without detection. Not sure it can
| beat the chinese as there area and drone might be an issue. But
| without replacement one can talk talk talk but the flight go
| on.
| ConceitedCode wrote:
| While there are certainly issues, the issues are more with the
| procurement process than the actual aircraft.
|
| Virtually every single aircraft program has been flogged by the
| press for being too expensive and less capable than the aircraft
| it replaced. This included the F-111, the C-5, the F-14, the
| F-15, the B-1, the F-16, the A-10, the F-18, the C-17, the B-2,
| the V-22, the F-22, and now the F-35. Overall the track record
| for these aircraft turned out to be outstanding, far exceeding
| the capabilities of their predecessors.
|
| The actual track record for the F35 has been very positive. Most
| the reports I've seen from pilots are generally very positive
| [1].
|
| Other countries continue to buy it over other platforms [2].
|
| Most the major complaints are around costs compared to the
| aircraft that are being replaced, but this isn't a fair
| comparison.
|
| _As for the cost to fly the F-35, a unit measure the Air Force
| terms "cost per flying hour," today the F-35 costs around $35,000
| per flying hour. Comparative aircraft in this class are generally
| in the mid $20,000s, a target the F-35 is slated to hit by 2025.
| However, it must also be remembered, as the F-35 pilot's above
| comment highlights, far fewer F-35s can accomplish far more with
| fewer aircraft than legacy aircraft types. It does not require a
| math major to understand this yields far lower real-world total
| costs to achieve a particular mission result._ [3]
|
| [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/italian-pilots-raved-
| about-f...
|
| [2]
| https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/5/24/i...
|
| [3]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/davedeptula/2020/07/20/f-35-pro...
| maxerickson wrote:
| My recollection is that the only aspect of the F-22 people
| screamed about was the price.
| selectodude wrote:
| Which now looks like damn near a bargain compared to the
| financial black hole that the F-35 has turned into.
| [deleted]
| akvadrako wrote:
| Um, what? F22 program cost about $334 million per aircraft
| and is roughly $60k per hour of flight.
|
| F-35 is a comparative bargain at $95 million and $35k/hour.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Um, what? F22 program cost about $334 million per
| aircraft and is roughly $60k per hour of flight.
|
| > F-35 is a comparative bargain at $95 million and
| $35k/hour.
|
| But that might not be a fair comparison. IIRC, the F-22
| project was ended _far_ earlier than originally planned,
| so development costs were amortized over far fewer
| planes.
|
| According to Wikipedia, there were only 187 non-test
| F-22s built in total (out of an originally planned 750) (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
| ), but there are already "620+" F-35s and production
| continues (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_
| F-35_Lightning...).
| greedo wrote:
| The big complaint now about the F-35 (and the goalposts
| keep shifting) is the cost per flight hour. This should
| get better as the Air Force trains more maintainers, and
| LockMart actually starts to provide the level of
| parts/supplies they are contractually obligated.
| phonon wrote:
| Apples to oranges. The last block of F22s had a flyaway
| cost of $137 million.[1] At the F35A volume of 1000+ the
| costs would not be majorly different.
|
| [1] https://archive.is/aPCca
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Wasn't the F-22 actually _good_ at something, though?
| akvadrako wrote:
| From what I get the F-22 is still the best air
| superiority fighter.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Well the B-2 definitely was and still is too expensive with its
| ultra-sensitive coatings :)
|
| But a lot of the others you mention did complete on budget. The
| extreme cost overruns are a relatively recent thing.
| ConceitedCode wrote:
| "Many of the F-16's past problems are mirror images of the
| issues we see in the F-35. According to the article, the Air
| Force expected the F-16's research and development costs rose
| by some $7 billion to reach $13.8 billion by 1986.... The
| fly-by-wire mechanism of the F-16, in which an
| aerodynamically unstable but highly maneuverable aircraft was
| tamed by computers to keep it flying, was an expensive
| problem that was eventually solved. Like the F-35, the F-16
| had problems with its engine and also had to be modified to
| placate U.S. allies who wanted a fighter capable of air-to-
| ground missions, a real multi-role fighter. " [1]
|
| Almost all of them have similar stories from what I've seen.
| To be fair, most of these were developed before I was born so
| I certainly could be missing some context from that time
| period.
|
| [1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/
| 197...
| 8note wrote:
| You'd think they'd have learned from their mistakes and
| included the air to ground missiles from the get go this
| time
| tw04 wrote:
| If you read the source article, that's not what it actually
| says. What it says:
|
| >Program costs--originally estimated at $4 billion for the
| United States -- increased by $7.7 billion last year with
| $6.3 billion of this resulting from the addition of 73
| F-16B two-seater aircraft to the program. The Air Force
| believes it can justify the addition of the other $1.4
| billion.
|
| So... it increased $7.7B with $6.3B of that being
| additional planes ordered.
|
| That's a FAR cry from the F-35 costs which increased...
| because increase. Not because more orders were placed.
|
| The F-35 program is at $1.8 TRILLION dollars, the F-16
| would have needed to be $360 BILLION to be equivalent
| waste. They're not even in the same universe.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| >The F-35 program is at $1.8 TRILLION dollars
|
| That is the projected costs for it's lifetime, i.e.,
| through 2070, an astounding 50 years from now. It is not
| at 1.8T in spending at the moment.
|
| You're not comparing the same things.
| tw04 wrote:
| The total cost of the F-16 program which was started in
| 1973 (an astounding 48 years ago) isn't anything
| approaching $360 billion.
|
| I am comparing the same thing.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| No, you're not. You're not accounting for inflation.
| You're not accounting for capability. You're not
| accounting for length of service times number of planes.
| You're not accounting for sales. You're not accounting
| for a host of relevant factors.
|
| You're simply taking two numbers, looing at the nominal
| values, and doing a simply multiply, then concluding
| these are equivalent waste. You ignored so many relevant
| factors that it makes this simplistic "comparison"
| irrelevant.
| dublin wrote:
| Stealth coatings have proven to not be able to survive the
| real world on at least three major recent aircraft: B-2,
| F-22, and F-117. Stealth is nice, but a plane you cannot fly
| in the rain without destroying it's outrageously expensive
| coating is not really very practical.
| dingaling wrote:
| The F-111 was a capable strike aircraft once they worked out
| the intake issues, but failed as a Navy interceptor and was
| inadequate as a strategic bomber
|
| The C-5 suffered expensive wing cracking issues early in its
| life and even after that was fixed it had the lowest
| reliability of any Air Mobility asset
|
| The F-18 was short on range and bring-back payload compared to
| its predecessors and had to be redesigned mid-life into a
| basically new aircraft
|
| The B-1 was cancelled once and brought back as a less capable
| but horrifically expensive-to-maintain aircraft that failed to
| replace its predecessor
|
| The F-14 was cursed with inadequate engines that hampered its
| flexibility and it had crippling maintenance requirements
|
| The C-17 is one of the most expensive methods of moving
| payloads ever invented, since it is compromised by tactical
| requirements that aren't relevant to its actual role
|
| And those are just off the top of my head.
|
| So much in invested into so few platforms these days that they
| simply have to be made to work to a tolerable level. The fact
| that they remain in service is more a reflection on need rather
| than merit.
| [deleted]
| wespiser_2018 wrote:
| When it comes to sensor fusion, there isn't a fighter jet out
| there that's better than the f-35! The issue is that the f-35
| program failed to deliver a low-cost replacement for the f-16,
| and the program used a couple of practices (concurrent
| delivery/development, and shared components between airframes)
| that have a sketchy history in defense contracting. IMO, it's a
| great plane, but built in a time where near-peer pressure isn't
| as strong as it is now, and some very contractor favorable
| terms crept in.
| ttfxxcc wrote:
| The public is unaware of the capabilities that makes the F35
| stand out. It is not a traditional fighter. Sensor fusion is
| just one of the major components.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Wow, the F-14, F-15, F-16, and F-18 were all first flown in the
| 70's. The F-35 was 2006. It's easy to see some of the
| motivation for the F-35: there were a silly number of fighter
| models built in that decade.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Here in Canada a major issue of the 2015 elections was whether to
| buy in on the F-35 project.
|
| The liberals wanted open procurement and specifically said they
| wanted the to avoid the F-35.
|
| The conservatives wanted to continue with the process that was
| basically designed to justify procuring F-35s.
|
| In the meantime, Canada's F-18s are absurdly old, and we have a
| tradition of screwing up open procurement by sandbagging it for
| decades.
|
| So the Conservatives looked quite reasonable in wanting to buy in
| on this internationally supported plane made by our closest
| allies.
|
| I think the liberals are vindicated at this point.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| What's interesting is how Trudeau changed his mind after he
| bowed down to Trump and submitted when the Bombardier CSeries
| was slapped with tariffs (later judged illegal and promptly
| removed) by Boeing. He immediately changed his tone and seemed
| happy to buy an American plane from Lockheed this time.
|
| That, subsidizing another US plane maker, was in fact the only
| thing he did to try to protect his country's aerospace leader.
| zepearl wrote:
| I just did a search => this article (Dec 2020) sounds funny:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/f18-fighter-jets-canada-aus...
|
| > _Only three of seven F-18 fighter jets purchased from
| Australia by the Canadian government have been integrated into
| the air force so far, and the Department of National Defence
| says key upgrades to as much as one-third of Canada 's fighter
| force will take up to five years, according to documents
| recently tabled in the House of Commons._
|
| > _The slow introduction of the used warplanes -- meant to
| bolster Canada 's existing CF-18s squadrons -- and the long
| timeline for radar refurbishment have the opposition
| Conservatives questioning the value of the interim fleet._
|
| > _When it first announced the plan three years ago, the
| government said it expected to keep most of the existing CF-18
| fleet flying until 2032._
|
| Is the article correct? Anyway I'm not laughing because here in
| Switzerland we have as well to replace our relatively old F-18
| which might generate a huge debate with the potential result of
| nothing happening (F-35 is as well one of the candidates, but
| I've personally always been against it for various reasons).
| Pxtl wrote:
| Yup. Canada's F-18Cs (aka CF-18s) are _ancient_ and were so
| bashed up that we ended up buying used Australian leftovers
| for parts and repair as a stopgap until we can decide what we
| 're doing for our next-gen fighters.
|
| Basically we're procrastinating on the decision because the
| F-35 is at once the best and worst option - our closest
| allies are heavily standardized on it. But it's also a
| boondoggle.
|
| For a while Canada looked to be moving up to the modernized
| version of the F-18 platform, the F/A-18 Super Hornet. But
| then Boeing started a fight with Bombardier, a company that
| the Canadian Liberal government is very protective of. So the
| plans to invest in F/A-18 planes was scrapped.
|
| So Canada is basically endlessly procrastinating on what new
| jet to buy because of the F-35 boondoggle.
| rjsw wrote:
| The Eurofighter is probably the best fit for Canada's needs but
| I gather that the US has blocked that.
| [deleted]
| jabl wrote:
| Seems a lot of the problems are due to how the government
| develops and acquires military hardware, with incentives for the
| various players massively misaligned with the interests of the
| country as a whole. I wonder what would a sane acquisition
| program look like?
|
| A company developing a product and then offering the more or less
| completed product to the military worked during WWII, but a
| cutting-edge fighter (or many other pieces of cutting-edge
| military hardware) development project is such an expensive and
| risky project that a company can't do it alone and hope that the
| government then comes and buys the finished product. So going
| back to how things were done back in the day isn't an option.
|
| Likewise the government taking the main design responsibility and
| using the companies only for building the products the government
| has designed probably won't work either, as the government
| doesn't have the expertise.
|
| So what would a sane strategy look like?
| oetnxkdrlgcexu wrote:
| Part of the problem with the acquisition process is the number
| of people with their finger in the pie. It's very easy to
| propose and implement new procedures/regulations that add
| additional gatekeepers to any project. Creating new procedures
| and being a gatekeeper is viewed as important and it helps the
| careers of those who behave that way.
|
| New procedures generally have risk-reduction as part of their
| justification. For gov employees, if you take a risk, and it
| pays off, it doesn't help your career. If you take a risk, and
| it doesn't pay off, you're in trouble for going outside
| procedure. If you don't take a risk, no one will punish you
| even if things fail, because you can place all the blame onto
| the procedure.
|
| For this reason, there are almost no bureaucrats who will
| reduce the number of procedures or regulations. Doing so is a
| risk, and if something bad happens later it will be your fault.
| So, no cost is too high to pay for risk reduction, and no one
| will challenge any proposal whose goal is to reduce risk.
|
| This incentive system is a structural and cultural sickness in
| government work. Changing it would be an order of magnitude
| more difficult than successfully implementing a genuine
| cultural change at a large organization.
|
| EDIT: Just to be really, really clear: government employees are
| rewarded for completing work items defined in their procedure
| documents. They are also the same people responsible for
| writing those procedure documents.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I'm not sure what a sane system would look like, but the main
| problems you have to address are:
|
| 1. In the current system requirements come from the military to
| the contractors (I'm simplifying a bit here). The people on the
| military side generally don't have much knowledge of
| technological capabilities, so they are limited in what they
| can conceive of. It dissuades outside-the-box thinking.
|
| 2. The military generally looks to existing contractors. I'm
| not even sure how you would sell to the military unless you
| hired some executives away from an existing contractor.
|
| 3. The way security clearances work and the length of time it
| takes to get them makes it hard to rapidly develop products.
|
| At this point I think the big companies are too big and slow,
| they need to find a way to get smaller companies involved.
| GcVmvNhBsU wrote:
| I'm going to disagree with all three points.
|
| 1. To think that the military does not know what they need
| shows a very narrow understanding of the people fighting a
| war. If you ask a pilot "What do you need to accomplish your
| mission", they will tell you. They may not know how to
| necessarily do sensor fusion or "cyber" things or the
| math/physics involved, but the way they will describe the
| problem and what their solution would be will show that they
| are thinking outside the box. Now, I will be fair and say
| that there is probably a disconnect between the end user and
| Air Force Materiel Command and it's therefore up to the
| program management office to solicit feedback and
| requirements from the expert users.
|
| 2. The military follows the Defense Federal Acquisition
| Regulation Supplement. There may be instances where
| contracting officers prefer and write requests for proposal
| that target specific contractors, but that should be an edge
| case and not the standard. I'd argue the real challenge is
| the scale of federal acquisitions and consolidation of
| industry players. In order to meet certain contractual
| obligations, you have to be large enough, which brings us
| to...
|
| 3. Security clearances take a long time to adjudicate, but it
| does not follow that that causes the inability to rapidly
| develop products. Going back to size, the problem is DOTMLPF
| - you cannot just design and purchase one thing, you need to
| build the entire logistics support chain for the next XX
| years. Maybe you squeeze a JUONS out that gets a capability
| "rapidly" developed but there's still the expectation that
| you re-evaluate and create that long supply chain at a
| certain point.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > To think that the military does not know what they need
| shows a very narrow understanding of the people fighting a
| war.
|
| To think that they clearly and unequivocally do shows a
| very narrow understanding of the rather extreme diversity
| of opinion within the defense establishment.
|
| And if you recognize the disagreement but are somehow
| deluded into thinking that the actual policy decisions
| always reflect the side with the objectively stronger case
| within the community...well, that's also wrong.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I don't really disagree with your criticisms, but I don't
| see them as direct rebuttals. For what it's worth, I work
| in the defense industry.
|
| Edit: I should also mention I was writing this with regards
| to the challenges a new entrant to the defense industry
| would face (i.e. a company that wants to start selling to
| the military with no prior experience doing so).
|
| 1. I agree the military knows what they want. The problem
| is the military does not know what is possible. And they do
| not know what could be possible. In the past contractors
| came up with products (e.g. the sidewinder missile) that no
| one in the military was asking for, simply because they
| could not conceive of it. The engineers could conceive of
| it however and were able to build it and then sell it to
| them. This does not happen today.
|
| The military can only ask about things it can imagine. It
| can't ask for things it can't imagine, and those are the
| things that ultimately lead to breakthroughs in warfighting
| ability.
|
| 2. If you are not Raytheon or Lockheed or whoever you
| aren't going to get in the room with the people who make
| purchasing decisions. That's why I said you'd need to hire
| an executive from one of these companies. They have the
| relationships already and know who to talk to. I'm not
| saying it's literally impossible, just that it isn't going
| to happen in practice. If you wanted to sell something to
| say GM or Tesla you could get on LinkedIn or ask around for
| someone who could put you in touch with someone high-up
| there. And if your product was interesting they would
| probably meet with you. Who do you even contact if you want
| to sell to the military? There are people, but no one is
| going to tell you who they are if you're just some random
| person with a company.
|
| 3. With regard to clearances. Let's say I'm developing some
| new weapon system. We're now dealing with classified
| information. So now everyone working on that needs a
| clearance. It is absolutely a barrier to getting new ideas
| off the ground because you need to wait > 1 year for the
| clearances to finish processing before they can start doing
| real work. There are a lot of smart people who could bring
| new ideas into the industry, but they basically have a
| choice between making a bunch of money working at a high
| paying job or doing make-work while they wait for
| everything to process. No surprise that many talented
| people choose to go work elsewhere.
| Symmetry wrote:
| The "developing a product and then offering the more or less
| completed product to the military" is how we got the Predator
| drone though.
| jabl wrote:
| I'm not that familiar with that drone, but it seems to be a
| very modest R&D cost to develop. And by all means, when such
| an acquisition process works I'm sure it generally works
| somewhat well.
|
| My concern was more with larger more complex projects, where
| no individual company can afford to take the risk to develop
| it and then having the government say "nah, we're fine, we'll
| pass this time".
| greedo wrote:
| Yet another anti F-35 article that really doesn't bring anything
| new to the table.
| g42gregory wrote:
| I remember when F-35 was just coming out, it was cast as a
| significantly cheaper alternative to F-22s. I think it was in the
| documentary "Battle of X-Planes" (not sure of exact title)? I am
| amazed how this turned out. Should we have kept producing F-22s?
| randomopining wrote:
| The BS that I don't buy from the pacifists... "we spend 10x
| Russia!!"
|
| But yeah, Russia has a nuke deterrent and could use that to force
| a land war in Europe at the same time that China launches an
| attack on Taiwan and North Korea launches an attack on South
| Korea and Iran attacks Saudi Arabia.
|
| How could the US military respond effectively to all of those at
| once? Each of those countries wants to carve out their sphere of
| influence. Once a short term victory is in the pocket for each of
| them, there is diplomatic negotiations to end fighting and then
| the new facts on the ground materialize and now 1/2+ the world is
| under autocrats again.
| CyanBird wrote:
| What a poor quality comment
|
| > How could the US military respond effectively to all of those
| at once?
|
| 1st, why does it have to be able to "respond" anywhere in the
| world, this is not a capability any other nation has, all
| nations armies are inherently defensive
|
| 2nd, Russia has a Gdp lower than Italy with an ever decreasing
| military age population. They are not the Red Army and
| jingoistic toybox wanna be Internet Generals ought stop concern
| trolling they are
|
| 3rd, Spheres of influence are the natural state of Geopolitics,
| tell me, why is the unipolar hegemonic power policing bilateral
| relations between overseas sovereign nation states? What
| legitimacy does it invoke to do this? Other than "might makes
| right" which International Relations has thanks to rationalism
| been moving away of for the last 300 years
| crocodiletears wrote:
| Europe could be... Europe's responsibility.
|
| South Korea is plenty rich and advanced enough to field a
| modern military, and outclass its neighbor.
|
| Beyond TSMC, why is Taiwan's defense America's responsibility?
|
| I'm fine with having a big military budget, but 'because how
| else is the US supposed to shovel its children on top multiple
| grenades simultanaeously for the good of every other developed
| nation' is a poor sales job.
| roody15 wrote:
| The F-35 makes me wonder if US military superiority is as great
| as it appears on paper.
|
| For example our military budget is 10 times that of russia.
| However does 1$ russia spends vs 1$ the US spends on equipment
| equate?
|
| Think it may be very likely that Russia (and China) are getting
| more bang for their buck and the gap between forces isn't quite
| as extreme.
|
| No question the US has the most powerful military in the world
| and it's Navy presence is unmatched. However moving forward is
| this sustainable ? Russia and China catching up?
| randomopining wrote:
| Yeah that's the BS that I don't buy from the pacifists... "we
| spend 10x Russia!!"
|
| But yeah, Russia has a nuke deterrent and could use that to
| force a land war in Europe at the same time that China launches
| an attack on Taiwan and North Korea launches an attack on South
| Korea and Iran attacks Saudi Arabia.
|
| How could the US military respond effectively to all of those
| at once? Each of those countries wants to carve out their
| sphere of influence. Once a short term victory is in the pocket
| for each of them, there is diplomatic negotiations to end
| fighting and then the new facts on the ground materialize and
| now 1/2+ the world is under autocrats again.
| nickhalfasleep wrote:
| Imagine if we held a war, and nobody could afford to come?
| asdff wrote:
| Governments have realized it's easier and more politically
| favorable to pay and train local militias to shoot each other.
| It's taking a page from the corporate playbook of creating a
| shell company to hide liability.
| benjohnson wrote:
| It's for this reason that people (Bohr for example) who made
| the atomic bomb saw a ray of hope - it made large scale war too
| expensive to even try given that your enemy would nuke you
| back.
| asdff wrote:
| That is unless we all sign paperwork saying we won't use
| these big huge wastes of GDP we've stockpiled like someone
| with a hoarding complex, and resume war as usual.
| bluGill wrote:
| You don't even need the paper. Just the political will on
| both sides. That is what mutually assured destruction is
| about: I don't trust them to not use theirs, but I can
| assure they don't win if they do.
|
| It has been hotly debated on if mutually assured
| destruction is actually why we haven't got into a nuclear
| war or not. You can take either side of the debate with no
| way to know for sure who is right.
| bluGill wrote:
| The problem is what if we have a war and the other guy decided
| to bankrupt his country to afford the war, while decided we
| couldn't afford it and so didn't build as much. The end result
| is we lose the war and have to pay off the debt of the other
| country.
|
| There is no good answer once war is on the table. Keeping war
| off the table should be everyone's priority, but unfortunately
| it only takes one evil dictator to force you into war, so peace
| isn't always possible.
| nickik wrote:
| Yeah all those evil dictators who constantly want to attack
| super-powerful much bigger countries. Just incredible how
| often that happens.
|
| I mean super-powers with nuclear weapons just constantly have
| to fight of these dictators.
|
| What an odd as argument. This has literally never happened.
| bluGill wrote:
| You seem to have forgotten about WWII. (the dictators
| didn't have nuclear weapons, but it otherwise describes
| what you say never happens)
| hindsightbias wrote:
| People are always confused when I say I'm the F-35s biggest fan
| - because disarmament isn't a viable political option but
| aircraft programs like this effectively make it a practical
| one.
| scarmig wrote:
| It reminds me of a funny little anecdote. In 1989, the USA
| instituted an arms embargo on China after Tiananmen (which
| was itself performed with tanks outfitted with American-made
| guns). However, President Bush allowed a certain existing
| deal ("Peace Pearl") that would help modernize the PLA's
| airforce to continue based on the requests of certain well-
| connected military contractors.
|
| But in 1990, China cancelled the deal unilaterally, despite
| it being the only access they had to Western military tech.
| Ultimately it went with Israeli and Russian sources. Why? The
| US arms exporters were running into massive cost overruns and
| development delays. China thought it was some kind of
| intentional sabotage, but it was nothing of the sort: it was
| just the general fucked-upness of American military
| procurement running into the realities of a culture unused to
| that level of fucked-upness.
|
| An international arms embargo couldn't accomplish the
| disarmament of China of American weaponry, but the brokenness
| of the American arms industry could.
| quesera wrote:
| That would make a lot more sense if the competing militaries
| had the same problems.
|
| Shifting the power balance is unlikely to result in a safer
| world for most.
| yabones wrote:
| If we held a war, all of these fancy planes would be gone in
| the first week. So would all the aircraft carriers, a good
| number of ships, and likely all of the stealth bombers too.
|
| That's the funny thing about modern military tech, it only
| really works correctly in peacetime when the wars are fought
| against poorly equipped insurgents & rebel forces. "Stealth"
| only works on very old radar systems, any 1st world country has
| the capabilities to detect a B2 or an F35.
|
| After the second month of conflict, the only equipment left
| would be mid century jets that can be quickly built in single
| factories, without the complicated supply chains that F35 was
| built around. That's what matters, mass production and numbers
| - not $2B jets that can be shot down by a $100K missile system
| strapped to the back of a truck.
| varjag wrote:
| While most radars can detect a stealth fighter, few systems
| are able to hold a lock on them. E.g. no system that Russia
| or China currently possess.
| dmpk2k wrote:
| That's one reason why search and targeting radars are not
| the same thing. Missiles are fired (and aircraft are sent)
| in the general area of the detected aircraft, where they'll
| pick up the enemy aircraft on X-band more easily.
|
| And don't forget the networking. It won't just be the one
| targeting radar; networked missile groups have existed for
| decades.
|
| This idea that Russia and China can't "lock on" assumes
| that the Russians and Chinese are idiots. They've been busy
| trying to improve the odds of a stealth kill ever since the
| F-117A went public, and probably before. LO helps, but it's
| not magic.
| varjag wrote:
| Yes, there are no Russian and Chinese systems that can
| maintain weapons lock on a stealth fighter. Not airborne
| and not ground based. Russia scrambles to gain this
| capability with its latest s-300 upgrade (s-500), but so
| far it's not operational.
|
| This is why everyone in the world is queued to order
| F-35s: it's the world's only operational multirole
| stealth fighter you can buy, and it has no peer
| adversaries yet. Goes against the popular Internet wisdom
| of how crap F-35 are, but they sell like hot cakes.
| dmpk2k wrote:
| The S-500 is meant more for ICBMs and cruise missiles.
|
| The S-400 variant is claimed to be effective against LO
| aircraft, but since only Russia, China and Turkey operate
| the things, we cannot say either way. We definitely
| cannot claim it's ineffective against LO aircraft.
| varjag wrote:
| ABM capability is touted since the original 1980s S-300,
| it's nothing new.
|
| The struggles with S-500 are well documented, much
| discussed on Russian arms nerds forums and absolutely
| have all to do with the challenges posed by F-35.
| tormeh wrote:
| I don't expect a rerun of WW2. It's hard to tell exactly how
| things would turn out, but the concept of having factories
| beyond the reach of enemy bombers is obsolete with today's
| aircraft. It's more likely that whoever wins the first few
| battles will have an immense advantage over the other, which
| will be reduced to guerrilla tactics.
|
| This is all assuming it's a total war without nukes though,
| which is fanciful.
|
| A conventional war between nuclear powers over a third
| country (Taiwan?) could maybe possibly happen by attrition,
| but more probably by attrition of war morale, rather than war
| materiel.
| Someone wrote:
| But if you don't have those fancy planes, guns, tanks, etc.
| but your enemy has, that first week will (somewhat) be of the
| "when the wars are fought against poorly equipped insurgents
| & rebel forces." type _for your enemy_.
|
| After a week, they will still have many of their fancy
| planes, and, likely, will have destroyed a lot of your
| infrastructure, killed your pilots, etc.
|
| I think you need both fancy planes and the ability to rapidly
| ramp up production of less advanced weaponry.
| why_Mr_Anderson wrote:
| Finally someone who understands this! All modern weapons are
| no doubt very effective, but they are also very complex ,take
| long time to build, need specialized factories and skilled
| workers and the result is that there aren't that many
| stockpiled. Because that's not only expensive, weapons also
| deteriorate and might malfunction if stored for extended
| period of time. Most of the fancy toys would run out after
| 1st month of actual war (assuming non-nuclear conflict, of
| course).
| bluGill wrote:
| Aircraft carriers at sea are harder to sink than you think,
| and the ocean is big enough that you probably couldn't find
| them either.
| why_Mr_Anderson wrote:
| They are also very big, making them easier to find with
| satellites. Also don't forget that those subs are not just
| randomly wandering around, you can bet both Russia and
| China are keeping track of approx. location of every
| carrier group very carefully.
| bluGill wrote:
| True, but they can't get a sub close enough without being
| detected.
| albanread wrote:
| Any chance the UK can get a refund then?
|
| "Before the end of this decade, the F-35 Lightning will provide
| the ultimate punch of the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class
| aircraft carriers. The F-35 is an Anglo-American joint effort,
| designed by the best and brightest in the two nations' aircraft
| industries."
| arethuza wrote:
| For anyone wondering the UK's new carriers explicitly rejected
| the traditional CATOBAR approach to take-offs and landings in
| favour of a design that pretty much requires the F35B STOVL
| variant.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Such carriers could still be used for the UK's Harrier jump-
| jets, couldn't it?
| imglorp wrote:
| While it might be a failure from the taxpayer's and military's
| point of view, it's a raving success for Congress and the
| contractors. The metrics for the latter are jobs, grandstanding,
| campaign donations, kickbacks, crony benefits, and mountains of
| cash, plus guaranteed more mountains ongoing until it's killed.
|
| I wish this was the cynical view but it's more like reality of
| government procurement.
| baybal2 wrote:
| How much harm did those fellows do, and how much all communist
| spies/saboteurs/subversives/seditionists combined did?
| imglorp wrote:
| Not exactly a new problem.
|
| > It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there
| is no distinctly native American criminal class except
| Congress. - Twain
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| As a US military veteran that now does software at a large
| defense contractor the whole culture offends me to my core.
|
| The US Govt, taxpayers, and military service members are
| getting hosed- especially on the software side of things.
| seppin wrote:
| With all respect, do you feel odd about benefiting personally
| from a system you despise?
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Care to elaborate?
| imtringued wrote:
| This is a waste of jobs though. The only reason why you want to
| wastefully spend money on jobs creation is that you somehow
| discover new things in the process, you are building up a
| workforce that will work on productive things after they
| completed the boondoggle or you just want to hit inflation
| goals.
|
| I'd say the F-35 fails at all three. It's just a slightly
| cheaper F-22 that can be exported, the work was handed to
| existing companies for the sake of politics instead of creating
| new ones, the project is decades old and failed to hit
| inflation goals.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| Your presumption that F-35 is a delivery vehicle is flawed.
| It may be an unconventional capability codename.
| mcv wrote:
| If creating jobs is so important, why not simply create those
| jobs in other areas? There's plenty of infrastructure in dire
| need of maintainance.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Military spending is a jobs/makework program that's
| politically acceptable to conservatives. They wouldn't
| support spending that same amount of many on other things,
| even far more useful things.
| jonplackett wrote:
| The acceptable socialism
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| A good portion of the voters are okay with government
| spending on military versus "bad" guys, with almost no limit,
| but the same voters balk at other government spending,
| decrying it for waste or corruption or inefficiency, etc.
|
| The tribe opens up their wallet anytime they feel threatened,
| but not to help each other, to make sure no other sub-tribe
| is getting a disproportionate portion of the help (and/or to
| maintain their own sub-tribe continuing to get a
| disproportionate portion of the help).
| tgflynn wrote:
| I don't know, what you say about the voters may be true,
| but I'm not convinced. We see a lot of politicians and
| media personalities making these kind of statements but how
| often do we hear an average voter expressing such opinions
| ?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It can be pretty harmful (politically) to express such
| opinions on the record, but I infer based on actions. I
| most easily see it in the efforts which people will go
| through to make sure their kids get "ahead".
|
| I would characterize it as a general trait of people
| being happy with growth for everyone, as long as their
| piece of the growth remains consistent and stays ahead of
| the growth of those at or below them in society. Once the
| ordering starts getting disturbed, then people get tribal
| very quickly.
|
| I'm assuming this is a general trait present in many
| species that live in groups.
| mcv wrote:
| > _" but the same voters balk at other government spending,
| decrying it for waste or corruption or inefficiency, etc."_
|
| Oh, the irony.
| dublin wrote:
| Government is _always_ inefficient, even in the rare
| cases where it 's not utterly corrupt. As Bill Buckley
| famously put it, "What would happen if the Communists
| occupied the Sahara? Answer: Nothing--for 50 years. Then
| there would be a shortage of sand."
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Sadly, the candidates I trust to spend federal money
| wisely get trounced in every election.
| nickik wrote:
| Unfortunately the military is the most trusted institution in
| the US. Why I don't understand? People will scream about
| reducing military spending but scream about increase in other
| things.
|
| Its funny however since most people in the US are against the
| wars now also.
|
| The numbers on this are pretty paradoxical. The majority of
| people want the wars to end but also keep up military
| spending.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Politicians want steady employment within their own district.
| Having a contractor or supplier for the F-35 serves this
| purpose well, while infrastructure work is much more
| temporary and spread out.
| gruez wrote:
| getting a bridge fixed isn't shiny.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I'd argue that three distinct aircraft could have accomplished
| _that_ goal better too (as they could be assembled in different
| places by different companies, with different US-based
| suppliers).
|
| The F-35's initial "share parts" goal was good. But feature
| creep and overall complexity in the project weren't controlled,
| and now with hindsight we would have been better off with
| multiple task-specific aircraft even if that meant little parts
| sharing.
| caycep wrote:
| I kind of wonder if parts of the program would be useful,
| i.e. make a "platform" like the fighter plane version of
| React.js or Swift UI and manufacturers and plug and play a
| new airplane out of the tech developed for it?
| maxerickson wrote:
| Yeah, even in the cynical view that it's a spending program,
| you can still end up with more or less capability and might
| as well shoot for more.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The F-35 was trying to share more than just parts, but an
| entire airframe. Sharing parts is "normal", LRUs are designed
| to standard forms (both in connectors as well as physical box
| size, shape, and weight) on purpose. This allows them to use
| the same box in a variety of aircraft to cover the common
| subsystems.
|
| A greater emphasis on these modular components being flexible
| enough to meet each mission need while permitting each
| service to get its own tailored air _frame_ would have been
| the best option. Instead the F-35 program office has the
| population of a small town on its own who all have to
| coordinate in harmony (hah!) with each other and the
| customers who have _very_ different actual wants and needs.
| Divide that into 3+ airframe program offices (of reasonable
| sizes) with proper focus on their customer, and one larger
| program office that oversees the various LRU and other
| components and this alternate F-35 _family_ of aircraft could
| have been successful (at least some of them, even if, say,
| you end up trying to build 5 planes and only 3 really meet
| their goals, that 's better than the F-35 which doesn't work
| for any of its users).
| tabtab wrote:
| Even in the software design biz, factoring often looks
| easier on paper. Small-scale modules and components usually
| have a better reuse record in my observation because you
| can mix, match, change, and drop them as needed per
| project: you can date components without being forced to
| marry them. F-35 is a marriage made in Hell.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> While it might be a failure from the taxpayer's and
| military's point of view, it's a raving success for Congress
| and the contractors. The metrics for the latter are jobs,
| grandstanding, campaign donations, kickbacks, crony benefits,
| and mountains of cash, plus guaranteed more mountains ongoing
| until it's killed.
|
| > I wish this was the cynical view but it's more like reality
| of government procurement.
|
| > I'd argue that three distinct aircraft could have
| accomplished that goal better too (as they could be assembled
| in different places by different companies, with different
| US-based suppliers).
|
| Which I think is proof that the GP is wrong. If all Congress
| wanted to do was spend cash to create jobs, they could have
| done better than the F-35.
|
| I think Congress and the military were honestly trying to
| _save_ money by building the F-35, by getting more bang for
| their buck by filling more roles with it. It 's just that
| they failed at that. Some people can't help but assuming
| malice when incompetence is a far better explanation.
|
| Lockheed spread the work around to make it more politically
| difficult to kill, but that was for their own profit-seeking
| reasons.
| wisty wrote:
| Reminds me of the Space Shuttle, which was meant to be a
| combination people mover, freighter, and a construction
| machine. All while being reusable. The US space program is
| only just recovering.
|
| Multiple roles is hard when your biggest enemy is weight.
| dublin wrote:
| Don't forget that after the cancellation of the earlier
| Space Station (the ISS came much later) the "Shuttle" had
| no place to shuttle things _to_. Even after decades, the
| Shuttle never came even remotely close to its cost,
| reuse, and turnaround time targets. On top of that, two
| of them blew up, accounting for 14 deaths, a figure that
| is 100% of all actual in-flight spaceflight deaths. By
| any rational measure, the Shuttle cannot be considered
| anything other than a failure.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > 100% of all actual in-flight spaceflight deaths.
|
| How do you measure this?
|
| The USSR had deaths, including hitting the ground because
| parachutes didn't open with Soyuz 1 and from faulty
| equipment causing asphyxiation during flight on Soyuz 11.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1
| TrevorJ wrote:
| I'm not sure it's recovering at all, given the fact that
| SLS is just rummaging around in the Shuttle parts bin try
| and build a 'new' rocket.
| lostcolony wrote:
| >> and now with hindsight
|
| Just to point out, back then with foresight there were plenty
| of people saying "this is a bad idea". The GAO found numerous
| issues as early as 2005 with the F35 (even earlier, as the
| article mentions, if you go back to the JSF), and I feel like
| I haven't gone more than a year without seeing yet another
| report of problems.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I think in particular the Marines design was too much of a
| stretch from the start. VTOL just makes for a totally
| different aircraft. The differences between the land and
| carrier versions are much smaller.
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| The underlying concept of the program(1) was bad from the
| start, but to top it off, the thing can't fight:
|
| (TL;DR: the plane is in a catch-22 of not having enough
| range when it carries enough weapons and not having enough
| weapons when it has enough range - you can't load dirty and
| fly high in contested airspace, you'll get shot right down,
| and if you load clean you won't have enough range to engage
| safely or the numbers to do so effectively)
|
| * 1000 NM radius is not enough for SE Asia, at all,
| certainly not for defended airspace. Flying dirty
| (unstealthed), it flies LOLO for terrain masking, and now
| you're lucky to get 500 NM. * persnickety: pre-chilled
| fuel; exotic conditioned electricals; 30,000 dollar CPFH +
| regionally specific MDF for the active LO systems * Can't
| stealth mount BRU-61 * Can't mount AARGM-ER/AGM-88G,
| AIM-260 JATM, JAGM-F, SPEAR 3, JSM, APKWS, AGM-183 ARRW,
| AGM-158C/D LRASM/JASSM-XR, SACM/CUDA/PEREGRINE,
| Hammer/Hatchet at all * Can't supersonic launch missiles
| because no supercruise * So now subtract 30% from your
| missile range - a lot of power to make a shock cone that
| fast. * 8 seconds (A), 16 seconds (B) and 43 seconds (C)
| over KPP requirement for missile sprint, during the run up
| to IOT&E and OPEVAL. This is super duper bad. * 4 AMRAAMS
| internal, and you need 3 to guarantee a kill in ECM
| environment. Take more than 4 and you fly low, halving the
| combat radius _if you 're lucky_. * APG-81, MADL, stealth
| coatings were pirated in the late aughts, compromised *
| Offtopic, but they're not helping with the "Show The Flag"
| forward presence parades up and down the "Black Ditch".
| Free handout to PRC tech exploit teams hanging out on the
| trawlers sniffing all the ELINT. * Etc etc etc etc this
| could go on for some time, like the logistics system that's
| already forcing ground crews to cannibalize the few jets
| they have.
|
| (1) VTOL? VTOL!? Have you not noticed that the most
| practical form of VTOL is a hundred knot airframe WITH A
| GIANT FRICKIN FAN ON TOP? Also, since when is your fighter
| aircraft the most expensive one? They're supposed to be
| disposable for gods sakes.
| protomyth wrote:
| Yeah. The F-4 was fine for the Navy and Air Force, but the
| VTOL was a step too far.
| mgarfias wrote:
| No, the f4 could do the job, but it wasn't fine.
| protomyth wrote:
| Making more than 5,000 was probably good indicator of its
| value.
| mgarfias wrote:
| Read what Boyd had to say about it. It was of value to MD
| and GE, but a good fighter it wasn't. Nor was it a good
| bomb truck. It kinda did both, but not well.
|
| The DoD of course, followed it on with the F-111 (thanks
| McNamara!) that tried to do everything, but the only
| effective thing it really did was to cause the Soviets to
| build the MIG-23 and waste a bunch of cash on that.
| ch_123 wrote:
| A lot of politics go into deciding what gets adopted,
| which leads to some very questionable aircraft getting
| adopted in large numbers. The F-104 was effectively
| forced onto a lot of European countries (particularly
| Germany) and mostly succeeded in killing lots of pilots.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Indeed, they called it the lawn dart :D It was used in
| the netherlands too.
|
| I don't know why they even wanted an interceptor. I
| suppose the soviets were still a thing. But a handful of
| F-104s wouldn't have stopped them.
|
| In the Netherlands there was also a huge corruption
| scandal involving the queen's husband who was paid to
| lobby on Lockheed's behalf.
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| Pilots love it. Pundits hate it. It isn't going away or being
| "cancelled"...the US already has hundreds, will receive hundreds
| more. I don't know why these articles continue discussing the F35
| like it is a proposal...its in service and will be in service in
| 2060.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| _Although it has an extraordinarily poor track record, killing
| off the JSF entirely will prove difficult. According to a map
| showing the economic impact across the country..._
|
| I'm not a fan of maintaining bad/harmful industries to prevent
| job loss. If we're that concerned, redirect those _trillions_
| into beneficial jobs - like oh, say, badly needed infrastructure
| repair.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > I'm not a fan of maintaining bad/harmful industries
|
| US defense is not a bad or harmful industry - it protects the
| free world.
|
| WW2 wouldn't have happened if the US wasn't isolationist. We've
| had 75 years of relative peace thanks to being a superpower.
| F00Fbug wrote:
| Col. Boyd must be spinning in his grave!
|
| One of my favorite books: https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-
| Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/031...
|
| There's a lot about what's wrong with aircraft procurement in
| this book and how he fought against it. Idealism and pragmatism
| still lose to politics and money fifty years later!
| u10 wrote:
| Boyd and Pierre Sprey are hacks part of the luddite fighter
| mafia. If it was up to them the most successful fighter plane
| of all time (F-15) would have been replaced with cheap f-5
| clones without BVR or RADAR capabilities.
| F00Fbug wrote:
| I guess that's true to a point, but Boyd was singularly
| focused on ACM, maybe even obsessed with it. Which is
| understandable given his background.
|
| I guess it's fortunate that technology continued to advance
| to the point where the F-16 finally does have improved RADAR
| and BVR (Block 20 and onward).
|
| But, yeah, they had tunnel vision about the mission.
| dublin wrote:
| The "cheap F-5 clone" called the F-20 Tigershark would have
| been one of the most capable and cost-effective fighters
| ever, but it offered insufficient opportunity for graft and
| corruption, so it was killed by Congress. It was also no
| doubt the last time any manufacturer will ever attempt to
| develop a significant military aircraft at their own expense.
| jnwatson wrote:
| There's an argument, by Boyd causing the F-15 and F-16 to
| succeed, he delayed the inevitable rethinking of the
| procurement process. If not for Boyd, the Air Force would have
| had perhaps 1 qualified success (F-18 Super Hornet) in the last
| 50 years of air platform development.
| u10 wrote:
| The Air Force doesn't fly the F-18. Boyd was against the
| F-15, so I'm not sure where you are getting that from.
| F00Fbug wrote:
| The F-18 and F-15 prototypes were competing for the same
| job. F-15 won and MD managed to salvage their investment
| and sell the YF-17 to the Navy as the F-18.
|
| The F-16 was the card up Boyd's sleeve that nobody saw
| coming but couldn't argue against it once he put it on the
| table!
| greedo wrote:
| No, the F-17 and the F-16 were both part of the LWF
| (Lightweight Fighter) project. When the F-16 beat out the
| F-17, the USN decided to pursue the F-17 which became the
| F-18.
| u10 wrote:
| The F/A-18 was never in competition with the F-15 WRT the
| Air Force. It was mandated by congress for the navy to
| replace the high cost f-14 with something more reasonable
| costwise. It's true that the F/A-18 was competing with a
| navalized version of the F-15 but cost factors and the
| lack of organic multirole made the navalized version of
| the F-15 unfeasible.
|
| The F-16 did not conform to what Boyd wanted out of a
| combat aircraft, execpt for the lightweight part. The
| F-16 has a RADAR, BVR, and while designed as an air
| superiority it has exceeded expectations as a multirole
| platform.
| dublin wrote:
| The Navy has a strong preference for two engines (and so
| would you, if you were flying at sea), so the F-16 was
| never an option for them, anyway...
| [deleted]
| dwighttk wrote:
| Did the Air Force ever use the f18?
| greedo wrote:
| No.
| rjsw wrote:
| Other Air Forces have used it, Canada and Australia.
| Germany is thinking of getting some.
| jabl wrote:
| > There's a lot about what's wrong with aircraft procurement in
| this book
|
| So for those of us not interested enough to actually go read
| that book, what is the solution for such insanely expensive
| military programs?
| bluGill wrote:
| First, are the programs insanely expensive is a question that
| needs to be asked. I have no doubt there is waste to cut, but
| overall, a modern fighter much be complex. A WWI fighter will
| lose against the more complex fighter every-time, which will
| lose to the 1950s fighter (The jet engine was just becoming
| workable at the end of WWII, if the war had gone longer what
| I'm calling a 1950s fighter would be late WWII). And so on. A
| modern fighter must have high R&D, and overall we hope to
| only need a relatively small number of them, which makes it
| really easy to do division on a per fighter basis and get a
| really big number.
|
| The incremental cost of a F35 once you have designed it isn't
| too bad (and it could be made a lot better if it was worth a
| larger assembly line to make more).
| zepearl wrote:
| It was extremely interesting from a technological point of view
| (e.g. funny the mentions about "gold plating", if I remember
| correctly), but at the same time I thought that it was very
| depressing (his private life). I'm conflicted about that
| book... .
| sneak wrote:
| The amount of money spent on this weapon of war could have been
| used to build a $700k house for every one of the 550,000 homeless
| people in the USA.
|
| If you taxed Jeff Bezos at 100% of his wealth and simply
| confiscated all of his US$183 billion of assets and liquidated
| them, you would have to find another 1.3 of him to do the same to
| to cover the cost of this program, which is 2.3x his net worth.
| Even if you tacked on Elon Musk's US$164B, you wouldn't have
| enough to pay for this.
| xnx wrote:
| With advances in drones and remote imaging, is there still a role
| for manned jets like this? I similarly wonder about manned
| spaceflight.
| bluGill wrote:
| Yes, at least for now human at the controls is better than AI
| or remote control. This is quickly changing, but as things
| stand today you need a human for some operations. Soon though
| humans won't stand a chance.
| nickik wrote:
| And the major reason for it is that no program as expensive
| as the F-35 has been done to attempt to develop such a thing.
| Or rather multiple different drones depending on what thing
| you actually wanted to do.
| sneak wrote:
| The USAF/USSF seems to have already made the switch to unmanned
| spaceflight (the x37b).
| cyberge99 wrote:
| If this is a headline, it means that everything behind the scenes
| is happening as expected. US Gov doesn't leak. This is a
| distraction from current MILOPs capability.
| zaptrem wrote:
| Source? I'd be interested to hear about this.
| steve76 wrote:
| The J-20 copied the F-35. Now the international marxists are
| trying to junk it with their bought and paid for media.
|
| Bold move.
|
| A few dirty secrets about war. Really powerful people do start
| them over petty arguments at home. They loose power, and then
| make life as worst as possible for everyone until they are back
| in power. Some have a heart and things just gets out of hand.
| Some view other people's lives like poachers view deer in the
| wild or oil from a well. Mine it till it runs dry, move on. They
| are convinced of their immortality. Part of me sometimes question
| my doubt, like if they have some state secret medicine.
|
| A cockpit is not a pretty place to be. It kills you just the same
| as anything. Fumes, oil, vomit, sunlight, stressful long hours.
| Replace it with drones all you want. People will find out what
| really kills drone operators too, and it will probably be
| generational. Increasing the knowledge requirements so you only
| study, don't have a family, and your city is filled with junkies.
| Sap them across decades and centuries.
|
| War is killing first. How you do it comes next. Cold calculated
| killing, weaponizing everything we know.
|
| It's best to avoid it. And if you think about what provokes, and
| what soothes violent people. Materialism and moral license, with
| their drunkenness, boredom, search for meaning tend to provoke.
| It's then you have the street fights. Lofty moral standards, such
| as I just built a gravity application with the new black hole
| imagining data, something that will kill everything EVER, tends
| to calm things down, mystify and give them something to achieve.
| stanfordkid wrote:
| I think there is room in the market for an Elon Musk style
| entrepreneur to completely re-define the industry as was done by
| Space-X. I think defense filters out a lot of potential founders
| due to it's inherently bloody nature -- at the end of the day
| these are machines are designed to kill people efficiently,
| whatever the reason may be.
| greedo wrote:
| Bert Rutan tried to do that. Selling aircraft to the US
| military is a tough sell unless you're one of the big boys.
| sneak wrote:
| This is a kind way of saying that the defense industry and
| their sole customer are vertically integrated and serve as a
| way of transferring HUGE amounts of tax money into private
| hands without any accountability or real market forces at
| work of any kind.
|
| The whole thing is a criminal enterprise designed to rob
| public funds and enrich a small group. It's been widely known
| for decades and everyone who thinks this is a bad thing is
| powerless to stop it.
|
| It teaches one a lot about the true nature of the USA.
| greedo wrote:
| Well, part of this integration is inevitable. Defense
| materiel is so complicated, leading to high expenses that
| the DoD is required to manage vendors. Much of the
| aerospace consolidation that has happened in the past 30
| years has been "encouraged" by the Pentagon as they think a
| smaller vendor can't really compete. At the same time, they
| want to preserve the industrial capacity so that they have
| flexibility when the military equivalent of the 737MAX
| strikes. That's why ULA is still around despite SpaceX
| kicking its butt.
| chasd00 wrote:
| With Space anyone can try to get there and prove their
| technology. There's even an event held once a year out in
| Nevada where you can show up with whatever rocket you want and
| try for it.
|
| War fighting isn't the same, you can't prove your plane is good
| in combat on your own. You need a war and a side willing and
| able to fly it in combat.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I'm surprised they don't go for updated F-16s now, but instead
| for a new design. Which again will have the chance of running
| over budget, having teething issues, etc etc. With the F-16 these
| things are already long figured out. They were even built here in
| Europe for a while. I know it doesn't have stealth but it has
| proven itself in asymmetric warfare.
|
| I wonder what the EU partners will do now. The Netherlands wanted
| the F-35 as the successor to the F-16 which it never became. They
| had to scale down orders as the price went up. I bet they will
| need a new plane too to fulfill the F-16 role. They can't cancel
| the F-35 purchases though as it was an intricate patchwork of
| local supply deals in return for orders.
| rswskg wrote:
| I imagine they will just skip to drones mostly now.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I wonder... Right now the Netherlands has no armed drones at
| all. Just surveillance ones.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Switching to drones makes sense to me, it seems to give a lot
| of bang for the buck. However, the risks and operational
| requirements are very different than a traditional manned
| plane so it would require a lot of change everywhere.
| black6 wrote:
| This has all happened before, and it will all happen again. The
| Pentagon Wars is available for viewing on YouTube.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir0FAa8P2MU
| partiallypro wrote:
| This is a great movie and I highly recommend it. It used to be
| on HBO Go, so I'm sure it's on Max.
| Koshkin wrote:
| What's wrong with watching it on YouTube?
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