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Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

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Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#111

Post by larrywright »

systemvoltage wrote: post #22
guscost wrote: post #11

Weird theory of mine: The DoD ultimately picks these winning planes based on which one “looks cooler” or basically has better aesthetics. I think the F-35 has better aesthetics than the Boeing X-32, just like the F-22 has better aesthetics than the YF-23. You could say I’m used to seeing the winning designs as “normal”, but I distinctly remember having this reaction before the JSF competition was over.

This is not your weird theory. There is some truth to it. Look up Kelly Johnson’s account on several books about military airplanes. In case if anyone doesn’t know he is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer) Basically his philosophy, at some corner of his brains was "If it cools beautiful, it will fly well." The way I think of it is - streamlined shapes are generally more pleasing to human vision…

Kelly absolutely hated the design of the stealth fighter, which I believe was the first plane the skunkworks built after he retired.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#112

Post by imtringued »

fishnchips wrote: post #50
bodhiandphysics wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones are dependent on an active satellite link to function. What happens if the enemy jams the satellite?

Wouldn’t jamming the satellite affect F-35, too?

If you jam a drone it is just a machine gun volley away from destruction. A human pilot can avoid anti air or even do the first strike against the enemy.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#113

Post by dodobirdlord »

mrtksn wrote: post #87
waiseristy wrote: post #8

After seeing what happened in Armenia & Azerbaijan, I'm wondering if the US's customers are pushing for these cheaper drone options instead of the F35. The F35 has been in development so long, that it's seeing its own combat role supplanted

Drones should be inherently better anyway since they don’t have to carry 80KG of meat that needs to be kept alive.

The F-35 is intended to be in service for decades longer than the Air Force is expecting to have human pilots in combat roles. One of the reasons the F-35 has had such a complex production history is that it's designed to be both the last fighter platform flown by humans and the first flown by AI.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#114

Post by landryraccoon »

Judgmentality wrote: post #47
WJW wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damen shipyards is on record for stating that they regularly tweak warship designs to "look sleeker and meaner" because it both makes the admirals happy and also reaffirms the beliefs of the public of how warships are "supposed" to look. I'd be very surprised if military aircraft designers did not do something similar. In any case it's also good military thinking. Sun Tzu already said that the pinnacle of warfare is…

> In any case it's also good military thinking. Or more likely enemies see it as posturing and strike full force, thinking they can pierce the superficial veil of technological supremacy. Come on, security theater is bullshit. How many people actually think the TSA does anything useful? If anything it lulls people into a false sense of safety, making us weaker. If our enemies are so easily deterred that our appearanc…

One angle you're missing is the effect appearances have on your own soldiers, not the enemy.

Battles and wars can be lost because of poor morale. Maintaining high morale and combat readiness in your very-human fighting force is critical to achieving victory.

If soldiers feel happier and more ready to fight with cool looking equipment rather than shoddy looking gear, then it's easily a good investment.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#115

Post by Der_Einzige »

chrisseaton wrote: post #10
claydavisss wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

600 have already been delivered. Covid caused a disruption in final certification, that's it. The F35 isn't being cancelled, although I predict most comments here will devolve into a debate of the plane's merits. The US and many allies are committed, the US will eventually own thousands.

If you didn't know, you've been hell-banned (silently hidden from the HN that almost everyone else sees) for two years. That's why you get so few replies to your comments.

This kind of policy is so hostile to it's users that I cannot believe that people like HN moderation patterns.

Sometimes I consider writing a bot to automatically upvote ALL downvoted comments because maybe half of downvoted comments are incorrectly downvoted by people who got emotionally upset rather than downvoting because the content is of low quality.

Hopefully, I could also write a system to automatically vouch for flagged comments that are from hell banned accounts. Truly a terrible system and I'd leave this place tomorrow if there was any community with as much good content as HN to replace HN with (and no, slashdot does not count)

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#116

Post by imtringued »

lumost wrote: post #69
ardit33 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not good. Like it or not, this is the only alternative NATO has for the forceable future. The British Tempest and the French/German stealth fighter won’t be operational until 2035-2040 The only alternative are modernizes 4gen fighters which are very vulnerable to modern air defenses. A ‘buggy’ F-35 might still be a better alternative. Also the British are counting for the F-35 to equip its carriers.

I keep hearing concerns that modern radars may be able to defeat the F-35's stealth, or will be able to defeat it in the near future. I can't help but think that it will be hard to keep a plane flying at mach 1 hidden in the face of fast scanning and networked phased array radars with modern deep learning based detection algorithms. My understanding is that if you take away the stealth aspect the F-35 is a sluggish f…

The solution to that problem is to have conventional non stealth aircraft or cruise missiles in your fleet. Detecting the F-35 might be possible with enough attention but if you detect a conventional fleet you are going to focus your attention on the low hanging fruit first.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#117

Post by sandworm101 »

landryraccoon wrote: post #109
sandworm101 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. There are penty of aerodynamic limitations outside of the pilot. Aircraft might be able to pull a few more gs in some very contrived circumstances, but a pilotless fighter would not be an aerodynamic superman. for instance: Stall/flow separation speeds at paticular wing loadings are often well below the pilot's physical G limitations.

How much of that is because engineers designed with those limitations in mind? Nobody has attempted to push what is possible with material science and aerodynamics because there is no point if the pilot wouldn't be able to handle the forces involved. With automation, those limitations no longer apply. For an example of what I'm thinking of, look at air to air missiles. Sidewinder air-to-air missiles achieve an accele…

I mean to say that such limits exist without regard to the pilot, that there is no way around them. Pulling 9+ Gs, trying to sustain that for more than a second or two, isnt really possible in the vast majority of situations. The air is only so thick at a given altitude. The wings can only be so big before structural issues dominate.

And remember too that the whole dogfighting concept, the getting behind the other guy for a tail shot, means less and less in a world of all-aspect missiles that can fire in almost any direction.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#118

Post by chiefalchemist »

As I read this latest update on the F-35 I can't stop thinking about the $741 billion the US Congress just approved. Bipartisan. And overrode a POTUS veto.

In the 2016 State of the Union Obama said, "We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined." The budget then was significantly less. And the F-35 is just now finally being snuffed?

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#119

Post by dodobirdlord »

ardit33 wrote: post #36
waiseristy wrote: post #8

After seeing what happened in Armenia & Azerbaijan, I'm wondering if the US's customers are pushing for these cheaper drone options instead of the F35. The F35 has been in development so long, that it's seeing its own combat role supplanted

Bingo. The F-35 as a bomb delivery platform might be already obsolete, as drones are far cheaper. You still need air defense/air superiority fighter though.

The F-35/s future role is as a sensor platform and networking hub for a group of lighter-weight, cheaper, and more expendable drones. Eventually the F-35 will also be unmanned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratos_XQ-58_Valkyrie

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#120

Post by notional »

guscost wrote: post #11

Weird theory of mine: The DoD ultimately picks these winning planes based on which one “looks cooler” or basically has better aesthetics. I think the F-35 has better aesthetics than the Boeing X-32, just like the F-22 has better aesthetics than the YF-23. You could say I’m used to seeing the winning designs as “normal”, but I distinctly remember having this reaction before the JSF competition was over.

I think a lot of weight is placed on the strength of which senate district the plane will be made in. HN tends to argue in a political vacuum but it's hard to ignore that 2 very popular and vocal senators are home to the LM plant in Fort Worth where these planes are constructed.

Their influences on DoD budgets/plans in not insignificant.

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