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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

#121

Post by pas »

mkr-hn wrote: post #31
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

The F-35 is the Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) player of war machines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnpX8d8zRIA Perfect for the era development started in, but useless for the era when it was finally shippable.

We've seen this argument many times, but is this true? Where's the data? Etc.

I'm not saying it's a bad argument, but since the hypothesis space is vast (what kind of future conflicts the US/NATO will engage in, what intensity, what kind of economics, what kind of arms race will those bring, etc), and data is sparse, it seems like HN/pundits are not great at really reducing the uncertainty.

Sure, it's still a fuckload of money, and probably it could be better spent on providing new skill training to unemployed/at-risk-workers in those states where the F35 money goes right now, but that's a hard sell, and doesn't really move the needle with regards to air-force capacity.

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

#123

Post by xoa »

nickff wrote: post #105
ReptileMan wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually around 30% of the aircraft weight is for keeping the wetware alive. And a lot of the flight envelope limitations are just to not squish it too hard.

That 30% is very much on the high side, and would only be true on something like a single-engine fighter. Initial flight envelope requirements are often drafted to be the maximum a pilot can take, but there are other considerations. Designing an airframe that can handle a 20G turn will actually make it less maneuverable overall, as it requires a heavier structure. Fighter design is a delicate balancing act.

>That 30% is very much on the high side, and would only be true on something like a single-engine fighter.

...like the F-35? I mean, I don't have any idea at all what the exact percentage is, but that is the apropos isn't it?

>but there are other considerations. Designing an airframe that can handle a 20G turn will actually make it less maneuverable overall, as it requires a heavier structure.

Sure, but 30% heavier? Because if not seems like it would indeed be a win. I don't disagree at all that fighter design is a balancing act, that comes up in quite a few industries that push the edge particularly in aerospace. But fundamentally at least from other industries I am more familiar with there can often be disruptive gains when some single factor changes in a major way since changes so often are compounding. We seem to be on the verge of a big example of that in space with SpaceX and Starship. Far more mass and cadence for radically less money changes design considerations up and down the stack. When every single gram is expensive, it makes sense to use the most expensive materials and components, and as the overall price goes up it makes sense to try to pack in more and more functionality etc etc. When that changes all those effects go into reverse.

We're seeing that directly in fact with Starship development itself. They've got more margin to work with, so they could switch to steel, which is far cheaper and easier to work with, which helps with rapid cadence, which helps with mass manufacturing which further brings down costs, which all helps develop faster and better without bad decisions baked in, which further will help with cadence and ultimate cost, and on and on. The resulting contrast with the SLS program is just staggering. Costs and gains compound on either side for literal orders of magnitude divergence.

I don't know if drones will do the same thing for air superiority, but the potential shouldn't be ignored. And probably won't be indefinitely, because the specter of actual competitive level hostile forces seems likely to focus minds despite lobbying by incumbents. Real world results that grow big enough ultimately can't be papered over.

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

#124

Post by onepointsixC »

jolux wrote: post #95
strictnein wrote: post #9

The Drive back again with another one of its anti-F35 articles. It would seem that this administration is just punting to the next one, which is probably a good idea. I would take anything they post about the plane with a grain of salt. They take any setback as if it's the first time a large technical project has ever experienced issues.

The F-35 has been plagued with near-continuous setbacks for its entire life, and reporting on them is notable because it puts a spotlight on our colossal failure to execute on something we consider important (defense technology). It's not just The Drive.

So just like any real engineering project? Or am I to really believe that the software engineers here are of some other worldly caliber who build flawless products? The "near-continuous setbacks" are reminiscent of same exact comments on the F-16[1] and the F-18[2] during their development and acquisition cycles. Building things is hard.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkrtxDdaWuM [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xJBvKJht78

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

#125

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #118

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?

>"We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined."

I'll translate this to defense speak: We get ripped off more than the next eight nations combined.

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

#126

Post by jariel »

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.

They are not comparable.

Drones are 'slow moving sitting ducks' that can be easily destroyed by an enemy with basic capabilities.

You need 'some degree of air superiority' to use drones.

That could mean extensive electronic warfare or whatever.

But drones, in the way they are used as we see them today ... are easy targets for anyone with capability.

So they are different things.

Now, that said, it still may make more sense for country ABC to buy drones in a lot of cases.

"Shooting down an MQ-1 Predator or an MQ-9 Reaper, the propeller-driven drones most commonly used to kill terrorists in Pakistan, would be child’s play for a Pakistani Air Force pilot. They’re easy to detect on radar, and they fly at about 100 mph—about the speed of a World War I-era bomber. (The Dassault Mirage 5, one of the most common jets in Pakistan’s military fleet, cruises at just under 600 mph and tops out at nearly 1,500 mph.) They don’t normally carry any weapons that could be used in a dogfight, and their lack of maneuverability makes them vulnerable to missiles fired from the ground. " [1]

[1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/06/cia-drone-progra...

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

#127

Post by NickNameNick »

strictnein wrote: post #70
bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buggy? It barely works. Short flight time. Crap wing loading. Not good at any of it's multi-roles. We could build 5-10 F-16s for each F-35, and many more A-10s, and they'd be better despite being ancient designs. They're so expensive we can't even do proper flight training in them, it'd cost too much if we break one.

> "Crap wing loading" Yes, why does this super stealthy plane not have support for lots of reflecting metal things hanging from its wings?

'Wing loading' is the ratio of overall weight to lifting area, which directly affects the aircrafts ability to turn.

It has nothing to do with hanging stuff from the wings.

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

#128

Post by GVIrish »

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.

No, the X-32 lost the competition because it didn't perform as well on several objective measures as the X-35. To the point that very late in the game Boeing tried to switch to a four post tail design and dramatically redesign the wings. But the redesign came too late to be incorporated into their demonstrator aircraft.

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

#129

Post by waiseristy »

nickff wrote: post #110
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

As a close follower of F-35 development, and of the A&A conflict, I am not exactly sure what you mean. The F-35 would have been very useful to either side willing to use it for the SEAD/wild weasel role.

In a land of infinite wealth I would want an army of 10,000 F-35's. In a poor backwater just outside of Turkey, I would want an army of 10,000 suicide drones

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

#130

Post by dodobirdlord »

rch wrote: post #107
strictnein wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which plane, exactly, is superior to the F-35?

An unmanned combat aerial vehicle would probably win in a dogfight, but that's irrelevant given the anti-access/area denial strategy evolving in e.g. Crimea and the South China Sea.

> An unmanned combat aerial vehicle would probably win in a dogfight

If by "unmanned combat aerial vehicle" you mean a missile, maybe. Up to a point fighter planes get faster as they get larger. Any "drone" that could go toe-to-toe with the F-35 is going to be around the same size and look roughly the same. But more significantly, the F-35 is a stealth fighter that serves primarily as a sensor platform for long-range weaponry. The premise that it would find itself in a dogfight is not realistic.

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