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US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

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

#91

Post by Analemma_ »

agumonkey wrote: post #58
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…

Is it that embarassing ? I couldn't find a good summary about the state of F-35s. I don't think 150usd per year is a huge amount of money (12.5 per month). (Sure for some it's vital, I'm not saying this). Military..

It amounts to about $100 million every single day, if that helps make the absurdity more clear.

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

#92

Post by greeneggs »

saas_sam wrote: post #30
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…

I mean it's not like the money just went into a hole. These things were built by U.S. factories. Not the best use of taxpayer money by any means, and we are right to be angry, I just want to point that out.

Misallocating labor is worse than throwing the money into a hole. The money itself doesn't matter, it's just an accounting tool.

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

#93

Post by jfk13 »

3rdAccount wrote: post #21

Does anybody in the industry know why there was a push to move away from specific role planes that excel in one area to ones that can do any area decently? I know in theory that there would be savings having one platform, but making one jet modular for 3 different roles is seeming to be more difficult than just designing 3 different jets. It can't beat the EuroFighter in a dog fight and can't match the stealth bomber…

> can't match the stealth bomber for ordinance carried

It's "ordnance", not "ordinance". Different words.

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

#94

Post by HillaryBriss »

mr_overalls wrote: post #60
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,…

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 citi…

nice quotation.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

Here's an attempt to update that comparison:

The lowest estimate I could find for one F35 is about $110 million. One bushel of wheat has ranged from $5 to $6 recently. I'll use $6 here.

At these prices an F35 would buy more than 18 million bushels of wheat, or 36 times as much as Eisenhower's 500,000 estimate.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21776/f-3...

https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/wheat.aspx

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

#95

Post by mr_overalls »

wpdev_63 wrote: post #84
mr_overalls wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 citi…

Thank you for sharing this beautiful quote.

No problem. I've always found it fascinating that a military general turned President warned us so strongly against the dangers of the military-industrial complex.

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

#96

Post by kibwen »

arcbyte wrote: post #62
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those skilled workers could have been building something useful I wouldn't say the F-35 is useless . It contains a breathtaking integration of advanced technologies. There are benefits to that R&D. It's also an incredibly capable platform–the principle complaint is it's too capable, that we could have gotten more bang for our bucks with more less-capable planes.

> I wouldn't say the F-35 is useless. You're right. After 28 years and $1 trillion it FINALLY delivered a single bomb in Afghanistan two weeks ago. Not totally useless.

Made all the more impressive by the fact that the Smithsonian Museum could very well deliver a bomb in Afghanistan, if only they would dust off a P-51 Mustang, or, say, the Wright Flyer. The Taliban (or whatever today's antagonist is that we're using to excuse this pointless war) aren't exactly known for their extensive^W existent air force.

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

#97

Post by netcan »

At the turn of the century, the Wright brothers were building their bicycle planes.

Within 10 years, by the start of WW1 there were triplanes fit for war use. By the end of the war, Germany had metal planes with a single wing... not all that different from a modern crop duster.

Amazing what the competitive (and "save our nation") pressure of an industrial war can do.

Immediately after the great war, helicopters and all sorts of new planes were invented. By the time WW2 rolled around 20 years later, there were Spitfires & heavy bombers. Japan had floating airports. The sky became the place where land, naval and air battles were won or lost.

The pace kept up in the generation after the war. Jet engines. 3 generations of jet fighters, each outclassing the last. Airliners more or less like modern ones. The f-15 is still The Cavalary. 747s are not out of place in a modern airport. 1967 & 1977 respectively.

50 years of peace, 50 years of stagnation.

This is a lesson about people and a lesson about progress.

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

#98

Post by dragontamer »

maxxxxx wrote: post #88
dragontamer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Anyway, the point of power-projection is that these bases are mobile. As we finish up our job in Afghanistan / Iraq, we can move these super-carriers elsewhere for support. Puerto Rico was serviced by a super-carrier Abraham Lincoln for instance (hospitals on board, + Helicopters delivered supplies), while the Super-Carrier Ronald Regan helped Japan clean-up the Fukashima Nuclear disaster." I know that's reality but…

I'm unsure if any other sea-bearing vessel has a ton of helicopters that can deliver supplies to and from a remote area (ie: Puerto Rico once all the roads were wiped out by Hurricane Maria).

Helicopters need an area to land and refuel. The pilots need an area to sleep. Carriers seem like the ideal service vehicle.

And sure, the Nimitz class carrier, with two nuclear reactors and outfitted with enough weaponry to take on entire countries... is a bit overkill. But there are benefits to a mobile super sea-base.

The alternative is to build a ton of smaller carriers... but smaller carriers can't launch airplanes. You need a large area so that planes can land. Airplanes like Airborne early Warning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_con...) can be launched from super-carriers.

Once you have radar-dishes in the air however, you now need to think about how to defend those radar-dishes from enemy fighters. And then we get the F35.

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

#99

Post by 1024core »

> The crash in South Carolina involved an F-35B, which is able to land vertically and costs around $100m

And earlier it mentions a total cost of the program of 1 trillion dollars. So we'd have to sell at least 10000 planes to have any hope of recouping the costs??

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

#100

Post by sololipsist »

cryoshon wrote: post #74
sololipsist wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Air superiority is important for power projection. Edit: So I'm getting a comments here that are much lower-quality than I expect from this place. Geopolitics is not like interpersonal relationships. There is nobody governing governments. It's a free-for-all, literally the state of nature. In societies it seems like "Might makes right" is a dated concept, but you have to remember that's within the frame of a gov…

yeah, that's the kissinger line of thought. "realism". except it doesn't hold up to reality, at least not in the modern or even the premodern era. iceland has no military, and no real political or economic significance in the world. it has no genuine allies to whom it is worthwhile. why doesn't anyone/everyone invade them? nobody would risk a major war over them. they're what could amount to a strategically useful po…

> iceland has no military, and no real political or economic significance in the world. it has no genuine allies to whom it is worthwhile. why doesn't anyone/everyone invade them? nobody would risk a major war over them. they're what could amount to a strategically useful port. they might have some minerals or something. it wouldn't even be hard.

> the answer is that nobody cares to.

This is an over-simplification of truly mind-boggling caliber.

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