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US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

bbc.com

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Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#41

Post by RHSeeger »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #24
nkantar wrote: post #5

I haven't been paying any specific attention to F-35 news, but I can only ever recall reading negative press. I know this particular project has been extra troubled, but is that the norm for new military vessels/vehicles?

There's a film called The Pentagon Wars that seems to describe the exact same issues in regards to the Bradley fighting vehicle, so while I can't say if it's the norm, it certainly isn't unique.

That film pretty much sense the lens through which I view all government spending. It's a fantastic watch, and I highly recommend it.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#42

Post by spaceribs »

maxander wrote: post #37
bradfa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, some of the money has gone to a small number of rich people, but there's quite a large number of working class people designing and assembling these planes. To say that the money has been set on fire or that no value has been provided seems a bit harsh, much of the money is employing a large number of skilled people in the USA and in other countries. And it's not just the USA taxpayers who are paying for this,…

All of those skilled workers could have been building something useful , however. The waste of their time and skill is indeed burning resources, in an even more concrete sense than setting money on fire.

But then they would have time to be politically active enough to demand better living conditions and social safety.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#43

Post by chris72205 »

robotrout wrote: post #20
raverbashing wrote: post #4

https://twitter.com/MikeRoach3/status/1015212921071329281

That was a very educational tweet steam. I hadn't heard of 2/3rds of the issues he raised.

I'd take some of it with a grain of salt. He brought up one point about peeling paint and requiring special hangars. But outside of the RT article he linked to, I can't find mention of that elsewhere. I didn't look into all of his points, but that one struck as me a little ridiculous even for this flying bucket of crap... which makes me question some of his other tweets in that stream.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#44

Post by vkou »

maxander wrote: post #37
bradfa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, some of the money has gone to a small number of rich people, but there's quite a large number of working class people designing and assembling these planes. To say that the money has been set on fire or that no value has been provided seems a bit harsh, much of the money is employing a large number of skilled people in the USA and in other countries. And it's not just the USA taxpayers who are paying for this,…

All of those skilled workers could have been building something useful , however. The waste of their time and skill is indeed burning resources, in an even more concrete sense than setting money on fire.

They could be, but if the program didn't exist, our economic system would not have allocated their labour to productive ends.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#45

Post by flylikeabanana »

bradfa wrote: post #33
kibwen wrote: post #26

Over a trillion dollars over 28 years. There are about 250 million U.S. taxpayers. That's $150 out of the pocket of every single taxpayer, every year, just to cover the cost of this one monumentally embarrassing failure. If you're a U.S. citizen born after 1974, you've been setting fire to this money annually for your entire adult life. No value has been provided other than as a government subsidy to military contrac…

Sure, some of the money has gone to a small number of rich people, but there's quite a large number of working class people designing and assembling these planes. To say that the money has been set on fire or that no value has been provided seems a bit harsh, much of the money is employing a large number of skilled people in the USA and in other countries. And it's not just the USA taxpayers who are paying for this,…

What if those skilled workers' productivity had been applied toward something that people actually wanted? Even if 900 billion of that went back into the economy, then those skilled laborers have been spending this time outputting far less than their value.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#46

Post by rbanffy »

kibwen wrote: post #26

Over a trillion dollars over 28 years. There are about 250 million U.S. taxpayers. That's $150 out of the pocket of every single taxpayer, every year, just to cover the cost of this one monumentally embarrassing failure. If you're a U.S. citizen born after 1974, you've been setting fire to this money annually for your entire adult life. No value has been provided other than as a government subsidy to military contrac…

> No value has been provided

Well... The US, and every country that's paying attention learned how not to build a military plane.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#47

Post by sololipsist »

dragontamer wrote: post #29
Faaak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think that someone would attack the USA if they hadn't air superiority ?

Power-projection is about using our resources to most effectively influence others. Its not about defense, but about offense. IIRC, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were supported by two Super-Carrier strike-groups stationed in the Indian ocean. Super-carriers, by themselves, can take on multiple foreign army bases. Super-carriers however, are very weak defensively. If any war were to seriously start vs the US, the supe…

People forget that gunboat diplomacy is literally a violence deterrent. There is no better solution to geopolitcal mass-murder than to be so god-damn scary we can resolve things without death.

Sure, you can do a lot of bad shit with gunboat diplomacy - but giving up dominance doesn't eliminate bad shit, it just creates a power vacuum - which will be filled either by another geopolitical entity with the capability to do that bad shit or geopolitical violence on a massive scale.

Getting rid of our army does not lead to peace. I can't understand how any adult thinks it will, or is willing to act like it will.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#49

Post by dragontamer »

666lumberjack wrote: post #17
nkantar wrote: post #5

I haven't been paying any specific attention to F-35 news, but I can only ever recall reading negative press. I know this particular project has been extra troubled, but is that the norm for new military vessels/vehicles?

I'm not an expert by any means, but as far as I know a lot of the issues are partially attributable to the fact the F-35 is trying to do everything for everyone. If that's true then I imagine planes that try to do one thing well have fewer issues on average.

When you realize that the point of the F35 is to be a realistic Iron-man suit for the pilot, then you realize what is really going on.

There are some issues of pork-spending as well. A lot of representatives who weren't on board with the project got jobs delivered to their districts instead. (IE: Build the engine in this state, so that the citizens you represent get a job-creator in their region). Sure, politics is a bit dirty, but that's how you get things done today.

It doesn't seem like the most efficient project, but it has to be a project that everyone supports monetarily. F35, for all of its faults, won't have any issues financially due to how politics were played. But a lot of people are uncomfortable with how politics works at all.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#50

Post by ChuckMcM »

Most people reading will recognize that it is a standard procedure to ground everything until you understand the risk. In this case the risk is a faulty fuel line, and apparently there is a test that will let you know in the field if you have it or not so you can return the plane to service immediately if the test comes up negative.

There is a remarkable amount of disinformation that is spread around about this plane. My father (who is ex-Air Force) assumes it is because it is so far beyond what "opposing" forces can field they will do anything to delay its operation. I don't know where it comes from but I do not that the relative transparency of the US procurement process makes it easy to talk about problems which are later addressed and never return. You can compare that to a more secretive system where all of the kinks are worked out behind the curtain and the end product is presented ready to fly. It "feels" better from a marketing sense but I haven't read anything that suggests the Russians or the Chinese have any fewer issues when they build a bunch of new technology into a plane, it just gets reported on less.

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