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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

#51

Post by ghaff »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #47
mmmBacon wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think her comment is specifically around software that is critical for human life support. She is advocating for design in such cases. I posted it because I would consider the SW for the F-35 to be in this category. It’s worth questioning whether agile SW development that we do for websites, apps, etc... is good when human life hangs on the line.

Clearly, there was never going to be any way to patch the Apollo Guidance Computer in the middle of a mission. Even if that weren't true, the development cycle was so long that iterative development was never a realistic option. I suspect a project like the F-35 is a hybrid, with elements that are life-or-death mission critical and absolutely need to Just Work, and elements that allow for refinement - even refinement…

Absolutely. The techniques depend upon the circumstances and that's often not recognized. Or at least there's over-rotation in one direction or the other to a degree that may not be appropriate.

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

#52

Post by alkonaut »

0xffff2 wrote: post #45
iamleppert wrote: post #39

Will there even be pilots in dogfights in 20 years? Won’t it be mostly autonomous by then? It stands to reason removing the human component would be a far better engineering choice than this monstrosity. I’m reminded of the quote, “A flying car is equally bad at being a car and an aircraft.”

I think you're badly overestimating the speed of development in defense tech. The F-35, a comparatively conventional aircraft, started development 20 years ago and look where it's at. We'd be incredibly lucky to have an even slightly functional one-off prototype of an unmanned fighter 20 years from now.

All the “sixth gen” or “next gen” programs recently started claim to be optionally manned. E.g the British/Swedish Tempest (introduction planned 2035) and the Dassault/Airbus NGF (also 2035-2040).

It’s not inconceivable that one or both of those programs will have an optionally manned fighter in active service in 20 years (2039).

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

#53

Post by jpdus »

An interesting angle which is underreported in my view is who is responsible for extremely expensive new military aircrafts: (former) pilots, who are now High-Ranking officers. No pilot has any interest in giving up flying and switching to drones/remote aircraft which are clearly the future. My bet would be that the first country which bets 100% on autonomous aircraft will probably be China, where there will be less opposition to such a move. The western countries will follow and the F35 will most likely be the last "big" non-autonomous program (excluding aircraft for special roles).

On an unrelated note: I submitted this article 4 days ago without any discussion [1], does anyone know what the time frame for resubmission on HN nowadays is?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20758128

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

#54

Post by bhouston »

jpdus wrote: post #53

An interesting angle which is underreported in my view is who is responsible for extremely expensive new military aircrafts: (former) pilots, who are now High-Ranking officers. No pilot has any interest in giving up flying and switching to drones/remote aircraft which are clearly the future. My bet would be that the first country which bets 100% on autonomous aircraft will probably be China, where there will be less…

The future is drones and so many in the air force know it. Not sure why they haven't bet fully on it. I guess there are no dog fighter drones yet but the first time a supermanuverable <10m drone destroys a 100m manned fighter well it is all over.

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

#55

Post by thunderbird120 »

bhouston wrote: post #54
jpdus wrote: post #53

An interesting angle which is underreported in my view is who is responsible for extremely expensive new military aircrafts: (former) pilots, who are now High-Ranking officers. No pilot has any interest in giving up flying and switching to drones/remote aircraft which are clearly the future. My bet would be that the first country which bets 100% on autonomous aircraft will probably be China, where there will be less…

The future is drones and so many in the air force know it. Not sure why they haven't bet fully on it. I guess there are no dog fighter drones yet but the first time a supermanuverable <10m drone destroys a 100m manned fighter well it is all over.

Supermanuverable Modern fighter aircraft are expensive because they are relatively large and crammed with tones of expensive avionics and sensors. Increasingly, the quality of your sensors and your ability to evade detection are more and more important while maneuverability is less important because of said missiles. Better sensors are larger and require more power to operate necessitating a larger aircraft. Also, the number of Gs an aircraft can pull is limited by both human survivability and airframe strength. This means as the size of the aircraft increases the max number of Gs it can pull will decrease. Missiles can pull 50 Gs. Even if you remove the human, no aircraft large enough to carry the necessary sensors, fuel, and weapons to be combat effective will reach even 1/3 of that because it would rip the wings off.

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

#56

Post by 0xffff2 »

alkonaut wrote: post #52
0xffff2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're badly overestimating the speed of development in defense tech. The F-35, a comparatively conventional aircraft, started development 20 years ago and look where it's at. We'd be incredibly lucky to have an even slightly functional one-off prototype of an unmanned fighter 20 years from now.

All the “sixth gen” or “next gen” programs recently started claim to be optionally manned. E.g the British/Swedish Tempest (introduction planned 2035) and the Dassault/Airbus NGF (also 2035-2040). It’s not inconceivable that one or both of those programs will have an optionally manned fighter in active service in 20 years (2039).

It's equally conceivable that the "optionally" will be dropped as problems develop and they need to try to control costs.

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

#57

Post by inetsee »

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 worked on the Comanche Helicopter program for a while, many years ago. The program was based on the same fundamental idea: create a helicopter that that could perform the roles of advanced armed reconnaissance and attack. The idea has a great deal of appeal. You could save on training pilots and maintenance crew. You could save on supply chain, and the cost of spare parts.

Unfortunately, coming up with a design that could effectively fill those roles was more than they could accomplish. Fortunately, the program was cancelled after spending ONLY $6.9 billion.

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

#58

Post by FartyMcFarter »

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…

This is not that bad a quote.

Seems good enough for a general audience.

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

#59

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

thunderbird120 wrote: post #44
goatinaboat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It's really not. To put it mildly, the report that that article draws from has been subject to some criticism over the years. To put it less mildly, if you link it in any community that follows military aviation closely they will probably make fun of you[1]. Performance is generally better than F-16s in real wold scenarios due to the more powerful F135 engine and the internal weapons bay which means carried weapons d…

The enemy isn't a pilot flying something like an F-16, the enemy is a hypothetical low-cost high-maneuverability remotely controlled drone fighter which isn't limited by human tolerance for G-forces.

Or even a linked drone swarm.

On that basis, the F-35 will be obsolete against the other superpowers by around 2035 at the latest.

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

#60

Post by jefftk »

mmmBacon wrote: post #15
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 comment you point out reminds me of something Margaret Hamilton said: Also, what became apparent with Apollo – though it is not how it worked – is that it is better to define your system up front to minimise errors, rather than producing a bunch of code that then has to be corrected with patches on patches. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/13/margaret-...

Someone who did impressive things with method A saying they think a method B that they haven't tried is superior isn't much evidence in favor of B.
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