Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by stillsut » Mon, May 02, 2016, 8:15 PM UTC

Here are some new rules of warfare that the F35 is designed for:

"Blackhawk Down" If you lose even one aircraft crew as we did in Somalia, you may be forced to retreat from the entire war. So it makes sense to spend 10x to go from 99.9% -> 99.99% safety.

"Battle of the Civs, Proxy war edition": Fighter planes are less relevant to hugely asymmetric warfare the U.S. is engaged in, and expects to engage in the near future. These fights consists of the most advanced military technology against insurgents with machine guns and RPG's. Clearly drones are better in this area, and Missiles of all classes bring more destruction and accuracy to the traditional fighter role of deterring the threats of advanced weapon systems against your ships/bases.

However in the smaller proxy wars of e.g. Syria, Ukraine a traditional fighter jet still makes sense, and in fact could be a crucial deciding factor. So what the F35 program is doing is building a machine that can give a strong advantage in a regional war. And by controlling the access to the machine, the U.S. gets a say in the conflict without entering it.

"Terrorist hideout or hospital?" - collateral damage has always been a part of aerial combat but bad PR seems to do be especially discouraging to today's democracies. So weapon systems have to be even smarter and more precise.

"Software is eating the world" - As others have mentioned this is at least an order of magnitude increase in software functionality over the F22. And yes, an autonomous vehicle will probably be the main aircraft in the fleet in 20-30 years. So the F35 is this kind of avant-guarde experiment in how to structure contracts, maintain and deploy weapons which are primarily based on software.

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

#112

Post by johngalt » Mon, May 02, 2016, 8:21 PM UTC

mozumder wrote: post #58

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…

Isn't the F-35's high price due to it already being 3 very different attack aircraft? 1. CAS with STOVL capability (Marine) 2. Light attack fighter (Air Force) 3. Carrier attack plane with bigger wings (Navy) Creating 3 separate programs isn't going to change that. And, if not that, then the software they want is going raise the prices of the 3 different aircraft anyways. The Marines are probably going to want to dev…

Max, Amy, and Ned are driving old cars and want new ones. Rather than buying three cars, they decide to go in together and buy one car to share.

Max wants to replace his offroading jeep, Amy wants to replace her fast sports car, and Ned drives an amphicar because he lives on an island.

So Max Amy and Ned go to GM and say "Design us a floating, offroading, sports car please we are trying to save money."

By the end of the day GM has to convince them to take three variants of the same car, but the cost, time and design tradeoffs needed to reach that point were never worth it. When you could have designed three (possibly four) vehicles separately that each excel in their focus area.

Saying that 'well all three would need gauges and windshields anyway' isn't a compelling reason to combine them.

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

#113

Post by nealrs » Mon, May 02, 2016, 8:29 PM UTC

we found, designed a plan to, and (nearly) recovered an entire nuclear submarine from the ocean floor -in secret- using a giant grappling hook in under than 8 years and for $3.8 billion ($800 million in '74) dollars.

but we can't design a marginally improved fighter jet for less than a trillion or under 20 years?

ref: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Project_Azorian

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

#114

Post by sharpy » Mon, May 02, 2016, 8:40 PM UTC

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.

I always felt that F-35B at least should have been its own design. As for A & C, there have been successful examples of naval aircraft being used by air forces too - such as F-4, and F/A-18. But trying to have a design that is also STOVL capable?

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

#115

Post by neurotech1 » Mon, May 02, 2016, 8:42 PM UTC

Gravityloss wrote: post #19

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…

The solution should be relatively straightforward. Purpose built different airframes, with relatively conservative technology. Share components where it makes sense. Manufacture lots of airframes and spares. Update components later. The next US fighter / attack program is going to be like that. It aims a lot lower and should be more predictable. I've lost track if it's called F-X or F/A-XX or what now, and what are t…

There is 3 different models of super Hornets.

1) F/A-18E Strike Fighter

2) F/A-18F FAC(A) CAS/Strike Fighter

3) EA-18G Growler

Commonality is ~80% between all 3 aircraft. They could probably make a F/A-XX based on F/A-18E/F with similar avionics, and engines based on the F135 in a larger airframe, but they could make it happen relatively economically if that was the priority.

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

#116

Post by secfirstmd » Mon, May 02, 2016, 8:45 PM UTC

ino wrote: post #73

vanattab wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-22 is not for export because we want to make sure we can shoot down the f35s we do export.

a software kill switch could be a solution to that problem

The French are known for doing that. I'm sure most militaries do in some way

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-hunt-for-...

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

#117

Post by levemi » Mon, May 02, 2016, 8:47 PM UTC

jgeada wrote: post #76

sickbeard wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Army: We need 3 different planes Government: Why not build one plane that can do 3 things? it will be cheaper. ... it turns out it isn't.

LMFTFY: Government/Army: We need 3 different planes for these 3 different requirements Private corporations @ public trough: you could "save" money by building a single plane meeting all those requirements, and we'd also bring extra jobs to your geographical area. Oh, and plus there is this extra "lobbying" money you can have you if support this project. Politician: Sounds like a good idea...

That's not how the F-35 was conceived or designed, not at all. It was a highly competitive contract with the requirements given to a few companies and they were given some amount of money to compete for the best design[1].

Your comment is nonsense.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program

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

#118

Post by coredog64 » Mon, May 02, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

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…

F-117 commonality was due to the "Skunk Works" model. Lockheed didn't have the time to pursue a custom set of avionics. IIRC, Lockheed also used existing forgings for landing gear for a similar reason.

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

#119

Post by setra » Mon, May 02, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #79

icegreentea wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harrier design concept is limited by the massive frontal cross section that Pegasus type engines imposes on the craft - this limits aero efficiency, and especially the ability to go supersonic. Harrier design is also completely not low observable. An F-35 could splash any harrier derivative from afar, and could probably beat out an Harrier in anything but the lowest altitude, lowest speed confrontations. F-35 is full…

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 am not convinced than an X-wing would beat an F-35. Do you notice that the cannons on the X-wing have a slow rate of fire, and the beams move slowly through the air. Not to mention the limited missile capabilities.

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

#120

Post by coredog64 » Mon, May 02, 2016, 9:18 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #37

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…

It is also worth considering that the reason given for merging three aircrafts into one was to save money. I know the F-35 has a lot of defenders, but even they have to admit it is unlikely that the F-35 will ever be seen as a cost saving measure.

I'd defend that statement even though I'm not an F-35 fan. For cost savings, think of what it would have cost to field two different designs (F-35 as F-16 replacement and F-XX as Harrier replacement). VTOL has added cost to F-35, but it's unlikely that it has been so much that you could fund an entirely different airframe as well.

Then you get into the situation where the second aircraft is delayed by one FY because nobody wants to put two of these programs into one budget. Then there's pressure to diverge on engines, avionics, etc. which winds up adding to the cost of the second program.