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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

#321

Post by nradov »

grecy wrote: post #213
LegitShady wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries have far worse standards of care than the US. I live in Canada, and waited more than a year for a specialist. It took me 2 years to find a family doctor with decent reviews who was accepting patients . I needed an MRI once and the wait was measured in months. I waited four months for just a cortisone shot, before the pandemic. I'm not claiming one system is better than another. Certainly if you're weal…

> Many countries have far worse standards of care than the US. I'll need a citation for that. When a country has 29 million people without health insurance [1], and medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy, I think it's safe to say the average standard of care is way, way lower than Canada, Australia, Germany, etc. where literally every person gets care. [1] https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-f…

It depends how you look at standards of care. Despite medical coverage gaps the US still has the highest or among the highest 5 year survival rates for most forms of cancer.

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

#322

Post by cool_dude85 »

jksmith wrote: post #270
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…

Well your single customer is your paycheck and your deal with the devil. If you triple the price of what you really think it will take because the gov will be inflating dollar supply by double digits every year and you're working a 10 year project, then the gov may go for a different/multiple contractors. So you have to just milk the project for as long as you can beyond 10 years and hope you can dollar/cost over tim…

They have to rip the government off to stave off inflation? How's inflation been looking, oh, these past 40 years or so?

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

#323

Post by titzer »

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…

Clear requirements, small teams, small budgets, custom-built, no over-thinking, absolutely must work, chop a path through the jungle with a machete.

We do everything opposite these days: no thinking about requirements, huge teams, no budget, off-the-shelf everything, over-think everything, OK with failure (because golden parachutes, team churn, and "blameless" culture), and wait 5 months for the bulldozers to get shipped here.

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

#324

Post by drcode »

supernova87a wrote: post #63

I guess along the way, the activity of designing and building the plane became more important than the outcome / functionality of the plane itself. You see it all the time in projects. People look busy and seem like they're building things, so some progress must be happening. Or is it? Blink an eye, and in a couple years you unwittingly accumulated a platform that served to fulfill every random team's desire to load…

I have the same problem with my personal projects. I have one project I've been in a "groove" on for several months, and now that it is close to complete I'm having an existential crisis, wondering what the point of the project was in the first place.

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

#325

Post by elorant »

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…

Well we built two mRNA vaccines in less than a year. I'd call that pretty fucking awesome.

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

#326

Post by Dylan16807 »

sorokod wrote: post #36
digi59404 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Define many?

When your operational area is most of the planet, you obviously need more than one! I could describe 25 as "squadrons" but that wouldn't be too many.

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

#327

Post by colechristensen »

g9yuayon wrote: post #262
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…

I wonder if this has to do with the overall decline of manufacturing in the US. Supply chains have been moving out of the US so iteration will be slower and more costly. Fewer talents would like to go to manufacturing. Fewer university professors are researching traditional mechanics now, for example, but more on "cutting-edge" stuff like nanometer materials. We also get fewer and fewer highly trained workers on lath…

No, its the acquisition process and administrative overhead.

If you give smart people with a good idea a lot of resources to chase it while insulating them from people who want to measure/validate/manage/mandate, you often get good results and sometimes get complete failures.

It is a problem of middle management interfering with the development process, red tape, trying to do everything at once, and requirements that constantly change.

I read a headline and article like that and my immediate reaction is the military leader probably wants to make a name for himself spearheading a new plane – ambition on the part of customers in military acquisition is a real problem. (why are navy ships so big? because navy captains wouldn't feel as important with more, smaller ships)

The problems have little to do with the end-stage production manufacturing, and a lot to do with the engineering R&D.

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

#328

Post by trident5000 »

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…

[flagged]

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

#330

Post by KDJohnBrown »

dsr_ wrote: post #243
bun_at_work wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't entirely true. The US subsidizes military costs for all of our allies. It costs a lot, and a huge amount of funds go to that. There are parts that are like jobs programs, and the contractors intentionally drive up costs as part of their business model, but there are also real expenses to maintaining stability across the parts of the world where our military operates.

The foreign military aid is also a jobs program. It gives money to US manufacturers by giving money to other countries that they have to use to buy US products.

The justification for foreign aid to Israel is always pretty much “but it’s OK because most of it comes back to us via arms sales”. Essentially billions of dollars of American taxpayer wealth transferred to defense contractors laundered through the IDF.
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