How much money has the UK wasted on these at the same time as implementing austerity ?
Uk is committed to buy 48 but likely to go for 70.
48 x 90 = 4320 mil.$
The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
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Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't comment from the perspective of the F16 specifically, but from experience working on upgrade efforts of military and IC ground processing systems, the challenge is the legacy systems are very tightly coupled to the hardware. They make strong assumptions about register size and number, bus bandwidth, filesystem block size, all kinds of things that software developers rarely think about any more, but things tha…
Worked around F16's and F22's when I was in and can attest that this is the source of the issue for upgrades. Everything in the software is so tightly coupled to the hardware that updating the F16's would be a monumental effort. The difference between a 4th and 5th generation air frame are night and day in terms of software capabilities. Hell, even the different between 5th generation jets can be massive on the softw…
Please forgive my ignorance of military processes involved.
Could that be addressed by old software trick of modularising components - software and hardware-alike - and rely on some extensive semi-open protocols to connect these? I think car manufacturers have faced that at some time in the past, even inside single manufacturer (not sure if they have solved it completely). Sounds like they need Ada-like project, but for hardware side.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#33Why order more F-16s and miss out on all the rich contracting and design deal flow? Plus because the length of development is longer than pharma's, nobody involved in kicking off the project will be around to deal with the deployment problems. Make hay while the sun shines.
The F-16 was introduced in 1978 and no new F-16s have been purchased since 2001. Are you suggesting that they don't want new F-16s in 2021 because ... they want to make money? Isn't the simpler explanation that maybe a 42-year old design is out of date?
B52 is even older, and still kicking (I think...)
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#34Interestingly enough Wikipedia says that the request for proposals for the F16 happened in January 1972 and the first completed fighter was accepted in January 1979. That’s 7 years, without the use of computers.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#35[flagged]
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if it is a Ferrari, are squadrons of Ferraris is what needed to fight wars?
Sometimes you need a Ferrari. Sometimes you need a bunch of hooligans with bullets in a converted tractor. But being caught without either, when you need one isn't a good place to be in.
Not one Ferrari but many. Sticking to the analogy, in what circumstances do you need many Ferraris?
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#37Probably the issue is that during wartime (and I think the Cold War counts) the object of a weapons program is to defend one’s country, whereas in the absence of any major foe the object of a weapons program is to spend money. From that standpoint the program was a spectacular success.
And the counterpoint is that spending money correctly is what prevents wartime with major foes.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's mis-categorizing my statement. There is no "might". The innovation that's occurred in the F-35 program has already produced fruit in many other airframes and the US Air Force has already "re-written the playbook" on what it means to have a new airframe and what revitalizing an old airframe is. It's not about whether it may or may not - It has, that's a definitive statement.
The US air force didnt need a new airframe
The old airframes were not survivable in a contested environment, and there was no practical way to make them survivable. That's still true today.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#39“The F-35 has failed” is a strong statement that depends on what your definition of success is. Did it fail because it couldn’t replace the F-16? Did it fail because it’s expensive and bloated? Do those things even matter? I’m not defending the F-35 but anyone deeply and intimately familiar with the platform knows and understands that it is a Ferrari. You don’t bring your Acura TSX to a Formula 1 race track to win a…
[upvote for reference to Ferrari tractors :-)]
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#40Interestingly enough Wikipedia says that the request for proposals for the F16 happened in January 1972 and the first completed fighter was accepted in January 1979. That’s 7 years, without the use of computers.
The F-16 is as very interesting case and it's worth reading about it. It was intentionally built to be a single role aircraft and the people who wanted an effective airplane in that role effectively bypassed most of the politics that would have diluted it. So, yes, the F-16 is one of the great success stories of fighter plane development.