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The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

forbes.com

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Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#311

Post by antattack »

evgen wrote: post #173
antattack wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fail because we are moving into unmanned fighting vehicles. Something that F-35 program has failed to foresee. Basically F-35 is the fighter of tomorrow fighting threats of yesterday.

The F-35 program did not fail to foresee the rise of unmanned vehicles, they built and adapted the aircraft and avionics around this concept. The F-35 cockpit, avionics, and helmet are designed to allow an F-35 pilot to command a fleet of drones performing roles ranging from scouting and EW to SEAD and direct attack.

Human flying and directing drones to do some tasks is such a 20th century thinking. For one, human pilot in F-35 directing drones would be the weakest link.

Why would you want to send a human pilot to face drone(s) that does not care for it's survival, can pull more Gs, calculate trajectory and make decisions faster?

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#313

Post by hef19898 »

jnwatson wrote: post #294
misiti3780 wrote: post #86

The saddest thing about all of this IMO is they have been working on this for 14 years, and how much money was spent/wasted? Now, read about Skunkworks - they were able to build the SR71 (without supercomputers) in less than half that time and for a fraction of the cost. This isn't just planes, this seems to be everything nowadays. Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chan…

They've been at this for more than 14 years. I was accidentally part of both the Boeing and Lockheed F-35 teams, and that was 23 years ago. For a humorous take on the U.S. military platform problem, look for a movie called The Pentagon Wars [1] starring Kelsey Grammar and Cary Elwes. It came out in 1998, and very little has changed since then. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144550/

Back the day an engineer cold be there at the start of program, see the maiden flight and even go on to see a second program. Today, the same engineer probalby enters years after the concept phase and retires before the first prototype takes of.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#315

Post by captain_price7 »

Thorentis wrote: post #283
misiti3780 wrote: post #86

The saddest thing about all of this IMO is they have been working on this for 14 years, and how much money was spent/wasted? Now, read about Skunkworks - they were able to build the SR71 (without supercomputers) in less than half that time and for a fraction of the cost. This isn't just planes, this seems to be everything nowadays. Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chan…

> we just cant build cool shit anymore I sadly agree. Unis spend so much time teaching CAD software, processes, etc, you wonder how much understanding engineering grads actually have. I just think we've stagnated as a technological society. We rely so much on computers to do everything, that we can't innovate in the same way anymore. Unless our new x has an onboard super-computer, we just can't get it to do anything.

> Unis spend so much time teaching CAD software, processes, etc, you wonder how much understanding engineering grads actually have

That's interesting. The popular sentiment in programming world seem to be Unis don't tech practical stuff enough, or interviews for (junior) developers don't test their practical knowledge enough- a point I always found a bit strange.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#316

Post by notional »

medium_burrito wrote: post #100
misiti3780 wrote: post #86

The saddest thing about all of this IMO is they have been working on this for 14 years, and how much money was spent/wasted? Now, read about Skunkworks - they were able to build the SR71 (without supercomputers) in less than half that time and for a fraction of the cost. This isn't just planes, this seems to be everything nowadays. Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chan…

You misunderstand the purpose the F35- it is a jobs and pork program first and foremost, like SLS. It has the side benefit of keeping people trained to build this sort of thing, so SpaceX can hire them. We can build cool shit, but our government and most companies don't optimize for that.

It's more than just a jobs program too. It's a reelection plan for senators/house members.

Look at what states and districts get these big DoD contracts and then look at what committees the congressmen/women are sitting on.

They approve plans that benefit them then direct the funds right into their districts so they can campaign on it.

I mean it's not the worst form of corruption but it's pretty shitty when you realize how our infrastructure and defense is designed around congressional districts instead of what is best for our country.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#317

Post by StanislavPetrov »

knolax wrote: post #154
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #5

I wonder if that also means that they are going to cut funding to the astroturfers who show up in every thread in every forum on every post singing the praises of the F-35 now.

This has got to be my favorite astroturfing conspiracy. Imagine the US government paying people to convince the oh so important programmers at HackerNews that their jet fighter is effective.

If that's you're favorite astroturfing conspiracy, what's your favorite astroturfing reality? Was it Microsoft astroturfing blogs in 2014?

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2365060/microsoft-caught-ast...

Or perhaps it was astroturfing of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America?

https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2016/02/new-patient-...

Or perhaps the energy industry?

https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/energy-utility...

But certainly its an unhinged conspiracy that government and the military would push their own narratives via astroturfing. Everyone knows they have far too much respect for how they spend our taxpayer dollars and they have far too much integrity to be so devious. Certainly all of the stalwart defenders of the F-35 that pop up on every internet forum and message board to sing the praises of that boondoggle must be sincere.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#318

Post by morei »

wycy wrote: post #246
cgearhart wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least three things happened: - congressional oversight increased, with the result that the purchasing authority is no longer generally the end user. We aren’t just buying a ship (plane, gun, etc.), we’re maintaining a logistics and manufacturing industrial base to produce that type of item (and maintain jobs in congressional districts). So maybe we should buy a few more tanks/ships/bombs than we need so that we do…

> - risk tolerance shrank. There's a lot of truth here and it plays out in even more ways than that. I look back through documentation of legacy systems and see so many things designed based on "engineering judgement". Sizing for that bearing? Engineering judgement. Thickness of other minor structure? Engineering judgement. Now, the load on every little thing requires a 50 page engineering calculation report with fig…

There's a lot of things changed since the era of 'engineering judgement'.

In the 50s and 60s when 'engineering judgement' was common, it was a signal to a skilled machinist that "You have more experience with the material, so use your best guess because I don't know what the right answer is".

Things have changed a lot!

1. Material quality is much higher. Which is to say that batch-to-batch variance is vastly reduced. This means that it's worth investing the effort in detailed understanding of the material because that material is more predictable. Which led to ...

2. We understand a _LOT_ more about material science. Our knowledge of materials is vastly higher, so things that used to be 'best guess' are now 'do this because it will reliably work'. e.g. Spallation and galling used to be poorly understood issues that were worked around based on personal experience and guesswork. Now we understand them very well, and any competent manufacturer will clearly explain exactly how to (eg) install their bearing in a way that prevents such issues.

3. Expertise shifted. The 'machinist' is no longer a 20-year experienced highly trained person, but a CNC operator, who probably won't be within eye-sight of the running machine. So the practice of 'increase the RPM until it chatters slightly then back off' doesn't cut it any more. The answer needs to be known up-front to go into the G-code, not 'feel'. This has led to the obvious cycle where more responsibility moved to the engineering end, which increased the demand for exact knowledge, which reduced the requirements on machinists, which led to lower skill, which further moved responsibility to engineering.

So I totally get pining for the era of 'engineering judgement', but it died for a reason and it's not really likely to come back!

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#319

Post by onepointsixC »

hef19898 wrote: post #286
onepointsixC wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has it failed to replace the F-16? It is objectively superior to the F-16 in just about every performance parameter. It costs less than 4.5 Gen peers like the Eurofighter and Rafale, while having more build at a total of 600 thus far with over 100 more built per year now. As for losing them, yes it would be bad, but it's the most survivable jet being produced today. Recent conflicts have shown just how lopsided a…

Survivability is not a given. They successfully tagged F-35s at various occossions with ground based radar. There are also account sof F-22s loosing dog fights against Rafales and Eurofghters. And the F-22 is the better dog fighter compared to the F-35. And there are still thousands of F-16s to be retired for F-35s, seemingly not going to happen if the Air Force is axing F-35 procurement.

Air Force isn't axing procurement. Just because it has been tagged under ideal conditions on various occasions doesn't mean that it's survivability isn't vastly better than it's non stealthy alternatives.

Yes F-22's have lost dog fights, that's why their K:D's ratios aren't infinite. I really don't understand what your point is though, because the F-22 has lost a dog fight it's overwhelming win rate no longer is relevant?

And sure the F-22 is a better dog fighter but it doesn't have active production line and the costs of restarting production are exorbitantly expensive.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#320

Post by mellavora »

jboog wrote: post #169
heymijo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) [0]. You might have missed this news. It’s a modern remix to the Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich days of developing legendary aircraft at Lockheed’s Skunkworks that you lamented the loss of. People in the know confirm it’s legit and shocking, in a good way. Especially compared to the failures of the F-35 and even the F-22’s development. [0] https://www.airforcemag.com/article/ropers-ng…

Big if true but I'm super skeptical. First of all how many years have we been hearing about how we'll have fully autonomous vehicles just around the corner? At least a decade. How many years have we been hearing that human-like AI is just around the corner? At least since the 60's. I'm skeptical (although optimistic) about massive tech breakthroughs in general. Even more so when it comes to military tech since so man…

not even drones?
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