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The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

nytimes.com

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Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#21

Post by danso »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #7
mlb_hn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current title I'm seeing is "Inside America’s Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar Fighter-Jet Program" which seems misleading as well; it's more of a history of press releases. Doesn't look like they interviewed anyone actually working on it aside from the fellow in charge if that.

How does such a poorly researched article get published in the NYT? My personal blog is better researched than this.

The author reported an extensive story about the F-35's flaws based on exclusive documents in June. This submitted story revisits that work (and writes it in the style of the NYT Mag):

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/06/12/the-pentagon-is-b...

Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#22

Post by inamberclad »

> There soon turned out to be an essential flaw in the grand plan for a single plane that could do everything. Design specifications demanded by one branch of the military would adversely impact the F-35’s performance in another area. “It turns out when you combine the requirements of the three services, what you end up with is the F-35, which is an aircraft that is in many ways suboptimal for what each of the services really want,” said Todd Harrison, an aerospace expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It is much more expensive than originally envisioned, and the three versions of the plane actually don’t have that much in common.”

And nobody was surprised.

Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#23

Post by protomyth »

jokoon wrote: post #19

It seems 3 new separate aircraft would have been much better and cheaper. It's true that the F35 seems a little beefy, compared to other aircrafts. A single engine is quite bad for survivability. While I can admit that vertical liftoff can be an asset if you want to respond quickly to an attack without building airstrips every 50km, it's hard to really justify building so many aircrafts with a airframe shape that all…

> A single engine is quite bad for survivability.

True (not as bad as it once was), but is a lot cheaper over the life of the program. They were trying to get a next generation F-16 to go with the next generation F-15 (the F-22), and that didn't happen.

Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#24

Post by krilly »

deanCommie wrote: post #2

> One solution favored by Winter during his recent tenure was so-called agile software development. His vision for “continuous capability development and delivery” resembles DevOps, a popular method in the private sector for quickly testing and evaluating features for new products. Coders generate software upgrades or patches in a matter of days or weeks, pass them along to users to test and then push out the update…

The author is an expert in defense, specifically warplanes. She's not an expert in software engineering.

Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#26

Post by mlb_hn »

danso wrote: post #20
mlb_hn wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current title I'm seeing is "Inside America’s Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar Fighter-Jet Program" which seems misleading as well; it's more of a history of press releases. Doesn't look like they interviewed anyone actually working on it aside from the fellow in charge if that.

The article describes at length the thoughts of Lt. General Christopher Bogdan, who was in charge in 2014; Vice Admiral Mat Winter, who was in charge until this past July. The reporter for this article actually works for Defense News, and the NYT article cites material from, and links to her June 12 article, which refers to "documents exclusively obtained by Defense News" which describe 13 "category 1 deficiencies":…

I think we agree on the sourcing, just we disagree on the definition of "inside".

Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#27

Post by devNoise »

inamberclad wrote: post #22

> There soon turned out to be an essential flaw in the grand plan for a single plane that could do everything. Design specifications demanded by one branch of the military would adversely impact the F-35’s performance in another area. “It turns out when you combine the requirements of the three services, what you end up with is the F-35, which is an aircraft that is in many ways suboptimal for what each of the servic…

I think the Navy and Air Force could have shared version with a lot in common. The Marines want VTOL and I understand that feature is important to the Marines. Unfortunately, the VTOL requirements have force compromises in the design. Without VTOL, I believe the Navy and Air Force would have ended up with a platform that was more acceptable then what they are getting.

Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#28

Post by goatinaboat »

jokoon wrote: post #19

It seems 3 new separate aircraft would have been much better and cheaper. It's true that the F35 seems a little beefy, compared to other aircrafts. A single engine is quite bad for survivability. While I can admit that vertical liftoff can be an asset if you want to respond quickly to an attack without building airstrips every 50km, it's hard to really justify building so many aircrafts with a airframe shape that all…

Unless the F35 has a next gen radar which allows it to see enemy aircrafts from farther, it will be bad at dogfights.

The point of seeing your enemy from afar is that you launch a missile and avoid the dogfight.

It is bad at dogfights http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/07/14/pentagons-b...

Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#29

Post by hencq »

jokoon wrote: post #19

It seems 3 new separate aircraft would have been much better and cheaper. It's true that the F35 seems a little beefy, compared to other aircrafts. A single engine is quite bad for survivability. While I can admit that vertical liftoff can be an asset if you want to respond quickly to an attack without building airstrips every 50km, it's hard to really justify building so many aircrafts with a airframe shape that all…

I liked this quote from the article in that regard:

> “This is going to be the first fighter jet produced in the thousands for a very long time,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with the Teal Group. “None of this is stoppable. It will be remembered, as the smoke clears, as something that worked far better than critics thought it would, but something you’d never, ever want to do again.”

Re: The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program

#30

Post by ghaff »

danso wrote: post #16
ghaff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that bad for a general readership? I'd like to see automated testing in there. And maybe incrementally improving products. But to someone who doesn't know and doesn't care about the details of software development, it seems to capture the basic gist.

Putting aside the accuracy of the NYT's definition, what's confusing to me is...why even mention "DevOps" in the first place, as if it were relevant elsewhere in the story, or as if it were something the general readership would know enough about to use as a point of reference (which I'm assuming they don't)? Remove the reference to "DevOps", and you have a concise enough explanation of "so-called agile software deve…

Good point. As you suggest, the definition may or may not be "OK" but it certainly doesn't get into anything around how DevOps might be different from or go beyond agile. For a NYT audience, that's a pretty decent quick definition.
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