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Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

armed-services.senate.gov

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Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#91

Post by gaius »

ecnal wrote: post #65
mrweasel wrote: post #25

>The combination of re-hosted immature software and new processors resulted in avionics stability problems that were significantly worse than Block 2B So, the upgrade actually made thing worse. I'm sure I'm colored by many of the negative articles about the F-35, but other than "we already spend a lot of money on this thing" and "there's no plan b", why aren't the F-35 scrapped? For the US, it would maybe make sense…

Because, for all their software and development delays, they significantly outperform 4.5th gen offerings and (the A, at least, which is the majority of what people are buying) don't cost nearly as much (~85-95 million for an F-35A flyaway vs. 110-120+ million for a Eurofighter or Rafale).

Wasn't the F35 spanked by an obsolete F16 recently? Which means modern MiGs are going to eat it for breakfast.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#92

Post by digler999 »

coredog64 wrote: post #12
wyldfire wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fagan-style code review is likely a net productivity gain over no-reviews-at-all. Sure, scope creep is a killer, but I'd imagine it's a herculean task to create software for a new fighter. The expectation would likely be that software could control and/or monitor many features that would not have been software-controlled in previous generations. Safety requirements for flight (active life support) and armaments would…

IIRC, the F-22 has the equivalent of a Harris Night Hawk computer onboard. That was a big deal 20 years ago , but computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today. My memory, faulty as it may be, seems to recall a two page ad in AW&ST touting the Night Hawk "supercomputer" that would be in each F-22.

your smartphone isn't formally verified.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#93

Post by GVIrish »

prodmerc wrote: post #54
johngalt wrote: post #8

The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project. A system designed to do everything for everyone. When it should be designed to do one thing better than everything else. Divide the F-35 into three different attack aircraft. Single engine CAS with STOVL capability. Big/fast/stealthy twin engine bomber. Carrier based attack drone. All three would likely fulfill their roles better for l…

Unsurprisingly, it's already divided into three different aircraft - F-35A, F-35B, F-35C. They were supposed to be 70% common, but that's simply not achievable so the differences are quite a bit larger.

By some estimates the parts commonality is now about 25%.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#94

Post by thearn4 »

johngalt wrote: post #8

The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project. A system designed to do everything for everyone. When it should be designed to do one thing better than everything else. Divide the F-35 into three different attack aircraft. Single engine CAS with STOVL capability. Big/fast/stealthy twin engine bomber. Carrier based attack drone. All three would likely fulfill their roles better for l…

That scene from Pentagon Wars should be mandatory viewing for every student in systems engineering and project management.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#95

Post by vonmoltke »

mrpippy wrote: post #86
vonmoltke wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unit production cost (the cost of building an aircraft, not including amortized R&D) for the F-22A is about 50% higher than for the F-35A. You could certainly argue that two F-22As is better than three F-35As, but that is an issue that needs to be considered. Furthermore, the F-22A was already running into parts obsolescence issues when I was working on it (2002 - 2006). Those would have continued to get worse ha…

If parts were going obsolete while it was still being produced, how is maintenance going to work for the next half century? I assume these were electronics?

Well, that was part of my job. In the defense industry, it is referred to as "diminishing materials suppliers" (DMS). When a supplier decided to stop producing a part, I had to identify an alternative. Sometimes it was a drop-in replacement and this was just a matter of ordering samples and testing them on our boards. Sometimes we had to qualify new suppliers to build our custom parts. Sometimes I actually had to modify the circuits to fit a new part.

Generally, near the end of production the program makes a final buy of parts to warehouse for "spares and repairs". The typical threshold is twenty years of support. If the spares run out during the support lifetime, it is up to the customer how to handle it. Sometimes we can cannibalize other aircraft, sometimes we repeat the DMS process for the parts we ran out of, sometimes (if the customer wants to keep the aircraft flying for a while longer) we do a tech refresh and design new replacement modules with current components.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#96

Post by enraged_camel »

hga wrote: post #15
johngalt wrote: post #8

The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project. A system designed to do everything for everyone. When it should be designed to do one thing better than everything else. Divide the F-35 into three different attack aircraft. Single engine CAS with STOVL capability. Big/fast/stealthy twin engine bomber. Carrier based attack drone. All three would likely fulfill their roles better for l…

The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project Or an example of how we don't learn from history, for the same exact thing happened with the '60s TFX, except the F-35 substitutes S/VTOL for air superiority. 5 models of it were planned, two for the Navy, all but what ended up as the F-111 were canceled, and we resumed building focused planes like the F-14 through F-16, and the A-10 I…

>>Or an example of how we don't learn from history

Of course we learn from history. The thing you have to understand is that everything is working as intended. F-35, and programs like it, are a way to use public money to create private sector jobs. They aren't meant to be efficient or even effective means to develop and manufacture military hardware.

You can see a direct analogy of this in the space sector, where SpaceX came along and severely disrupted the incumbents by doing things efficiently.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#97

Post by johngalt »

neurotech1 wrote: post #87
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RAND published a writeup of joint acquisition programs recently: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/MG1200/... Spoiler: they're a bad idea.

RAND didn't mention the commonality between the F/A-18A and the F-117A aircraft. McDonnell-Douglas significantly upgraded the YF-17 mission systems and cockpit avionics for the F/A-18A/B and it was more advanced than the F-16A version at the time. The F-117A basically used the same mission avionics and engines as the F/A-18 which was a few years ahead in development. Having inter-service commonality in major systems…

When designing for complex functions think orchestra not one man band.

Lots of standard interchangeable parts that can be individually replaced rather than one "do-it-all" pile of dependencies.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#98

Post by GVIrish »

engi_nerd wrote: post #46
Aelinsaar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-35 is a 1.5 Trillion black hole; a stark lesson on the sunk cost fallacy. The F-22 exists, and works. We already have bombers, and frankly it seems less useful to put humans rather than robots in harm's way for a bombing run.

Maybe it is an example of the sunk cost fallacy. But ruminate on this for a moment: if we were having this conversation in 1996, you could have easily said something like, "The F-22 is a $800 billion black hole; a stark lesson on the sunk cost fallacy. The F-15 exists, and works..." Maybe the F-35 is what you say it is, but when you look at the history of fighter development, I don't think the F-35 is significantly d…

Yes, to a degree, several modern fighter aircraft have run into significant cost and schedule overruns due to the additional complexity born of new advanced capabilities.

However, the F-35's woes are particularly bad because of some disastrous decisions made early on with the project.

First, the government decided not to start out with drafting detailed requirements for the JSF like they have for previous aircraft (and other weapon systems). The idea was that defense contractors know how to build planes so they could cut out some red tape. As it turned out, the result was a large number of oversights due to the contractors vision not lining up with the military's needs.

There was also a large reliance on computer simulation in lieu of real world testing. Predictably there were some sizable problems simulation did not catch, which resulted in major revamps and retrofits.

In the development of any weapons platform one would expect issues to be found in real-world testing with prototypes. But with the F-35 the government approved "concurrent production" which meant that production F-35's were getting built before all of the testing was complete. This resulted in extremely costly retrofits of existing aircraft everytime a major problem was identified (and fixed). Right now there are about 170 production F-35's out there, and operational testing is far from finished.

Put all of these facets together and it's a much worse situation than what we had with the F-22. Cost is tracking at around 200% more expensive than anticipated, and that's assuming we won't see a big drop in the number of aircraft partner nations order.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#99

Post by engi_nerd »

Someone1234 wrote: post #90
gaius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-35 could splash any harrier derivative from afar And an X-wing could take out an F-35, I mean, if we're talking complete hypotheticals. The Harrier is battle-proven everywhere from the Falklands to Afghanistan. Marry it up with modern radar and air-to-air missiles and you will have a very capable platform - one that the F-35 - if it ever flies in combat - which it won't because no-one will risk those mind-bogglingl…

I love the Harrier and agree that a modern one would be a better buy than the F-35. However, the argument you're making is silly. A Harrier won't beat an F-35 in combat. The F-35 would shoot down the Harrier before the Harrier had even detected it. The argument you SHOULD be making is one of cost, performance at roles (e.g. CAS, bombing missions, etc), proven for naval operations, extremely flexible, and would likely…

Please tell me what a modern Harrier would look like. Here is an (admittedly contrived) list of some design goals:

* Greater STOVL performance, without the limitations imposed by needing to carry water for thrust augmentation

* Low observability (certainly lower than a Harrier, which has a big RCS)

* Greater sensor capabilities. Built-in electro-optical targeting so that radar can be used less, or not at all

* Reduce pilot workload by filtering information presented in an intelligent way

* Reduce STOVL cognitive errors created by differing control schemes between STOVL flight and conventional flight

This sounds an awful lot like an F-35B.

My point is, saying you want a "modern Harrier" isn't enough. Because in many important ways the F-35B is a "modern Harrier". You have to figure out how whatever it is you're going to build will be different, if you hope to avoid the same problems.

Re: Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

#100

Post by adventured »

sickbeard wrote: post #56
adventured wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The money is on them re-starting F-22 production. "The bill would also require a study of the budgetary implications of restarting Lockheed Martin’s F-22 fighter jet line." http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2016/04/28/house-pa... http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/04/20/D-j-Vu-F-22-Why-Air...

funny because just 3-4 years ago everyone was saying how expensive the f-22 was and couldn't even win in a dogfight. Now we want more? http://www.businessinsider.com/f-22-wont-win-a-dogfight-thru... 5 years later will there be comments saying how awesome the f-35 is and that we should build more?

That article you linked to says absolutely nothing about the F22 not winning in a dogfight. The F22 is still vastly superior to its competition.
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