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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

#351

Post by jvanderbot »

zdragnar wrote: post #133
medium_burrito wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More than that, thr SR-71 was purpose-built. That means fewer hands on thr steering wheel, and fewer compromises to achieve multiple missions. The F-35, by comparison, was a platform vehicle, with the base suited to adapting to a variety of capabilities and missions. That means more voices demanding priority of features, more expensive engineering to get a variety of polygon pegs into the same round hole, and many fi…

AND, the problem with F-35, as stated directly in the article, was not that we CANNOT build cool things, its that we didn't need something too fancy, and it became too fancy through add-ins that were not slated as requirements.

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

#352

Post by spiritplumber »

inglor_cz wrote: post #117
hyko wrote: post #47

The test of a combat aircraft is in combat. Nobody will give a fuck what the programme cost or that it couldn’t do X if it gives you a decisive advantage in war. It’s fashionable to hate on the F-35, but let’s face it: if the allies have to establish air superiority somewhere in the world, they will be using F-35s to do so, and I’m not aware that anyone has the platform to stop them.

My question would be: if you buy N drones for price of one F-35, do you get better military value for your money or not? At the very least, N drones can't be destroyed at once (unless stored really carelessly) and can be individually specialized in a way that provides wider spectrum of capabilities. A massive bonus: pilotless aircraft can perform manoeuvres unsurvivable for humans, and the ability to maneuver was alw…

General Zevo was right...

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

#353

Post by Karawebnetwork »

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…

> Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chance we could do something like that in this toxic environment of today.

I think that I am misunderstanding this paragraph. You mean the speed at which a new inventions was put into production, right?

It could be my English failing me but putting it through a translator did not help.

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

#354

Post by wycy »

morei wrote: post #318
wycy wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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.…

I would've thought your first 2 items there would help increase the use of engineering judgement by reducing pitfalls previous generations encountered. Your third item is definitely a significant factor.

It's not so much that I yearn for the era of engineering judgement so much as I yearn for refocusing on work that's important. Not every little decision needs to written up in professional report, circulated around through multiple drafts, signed off by 4-5 people, briefed out in slide deck form, then never read again.

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

#355

Post by mikece »

ktln2 wrote: post #185

F-35 is not expensive if you consider the alternatives: Brazil bought 36 JAS-39E for $5.8 billion. [1] Taiwan ordered 66 F-16V for $8.1 billion. [2] Korea is going to get 20 F-35A for $3.3 billion. [3] [1] https://www.flightglobal.com/saab-brazil-finalise-gripen-ng-... [2] https://nationalinterest.org/feature/taiwans-f-16v-fighter-j... [3] https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2019/10/10/s...

Someone else mentioned a few of the costs not taken into account, such as the Navy needing to spend money they didn't initially plan on spending so the heat of the F-35B doesn't damage the flight deck of the amphib ships. Those had been built to expect the heat of the A/V-8B which is significantly less than what comes out of the tailpipe of the F-35.

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

#356

Post by robotresearcher »

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…

The phone in my hand is a miracle of cool shit technology. And a large fraction of the population of the world owns one.

We take the miraculous for granted when it’s frequent, sigh about the things we don’t have, and declare its all terrible.

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

#357

Post by gnu8 »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #253

> The 17-ton, non-stealthy F-16 is too difficult to upgrade with the latest software, Brown explained. Instead of ordering fresh F-16s, he said, the Air Force should initiate a “clean-sheet design” for a new low-end fighter. It's more difficult to upgrade the F-16 systems than to design a whole new aircraft? I mean, maybe there are other reasons to design a new aircraft, but this doesn't sound like the whole story.

They could upgrade the systems all day long, but the fact remains that the F-16 is a pre-stealth airframe and it is simply the wrong shape. What the Air Force wants in a low end fighter is F-16 level systems in a new stealthy airframe.

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

#358

Post by misiti3780 »

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/

Wikipedia said it was started in 2006

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...

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

#359

Post by nickik »

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…

Thiel is wrong. What is happening in batteries is insane. SpaceX is doing amazing things in space and many smaller companies are doing great things too. Starlink itself is revolutionary, Starship is arguably even more so.

And btw the advancements in batteries and EV is exactly what is needed actually do flying cars, if that is even a good idea in the first place.

Government programs are often massively badly managed, politically captured, this is not new. But it doesn't mean nobody is inventing anything new anymore.

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

#360

Post by misiti3780 »

heymijo wrote: post #140
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…

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…

I had not seen this, thanks.
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