Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Except you haven't had a socialist government so you can't really blame socialists for the problems you have.
Do you understand what a microcosm/example is? Or do you just like to be a pain in the ass?
The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
511–520 of 1001 posts
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#512The 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…
While the US does have a problem with building civil engineering projects today, that dynamic isn't really what happened with the F-35. The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun on cost and time table. Ash Carter fixed that by telling Lockheed if they didn't agree to his new contract he'd kill the entire thing. And oh hey what a surprise sudden…
>The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun
I’m fond of the saying “once you understand people’s incentives, you understand everything” as it applies to contracting.
I will add, however, that fixed price contracts have their own problems as it relates to cutting corners. E.g., it can put downward pressure on retaining talent and performing best practices because it incentivizes under-bidding and then cutting corners to make a profit. E.g., “you cobbled together some VBA in a spreadsheet once 20 years ago and will work for pennies? Congratulations, you’re our new head of software development!”
A lot of the problems can be attributed to poor contract/spec management and poor oversight. Part of the key is having good requirements and also the contractual teeth/intestinal fortitude to hold contractors feet to the fire
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#513Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want just to add that Peter Thiel is one of the reason why we cannot have / invent ‘cool stuff’. But he is also not wrong about what he saying: I’m just saying that it is not so simple.
How do you blame Thiel for bureaucratic bloat in the US government? NASA, the canonical example of a formerly productive organization becoming hopelessly turgid, was dysfunctional by the time he was a teenager.
You're giving NASA way, way, way too much credit. The organization was a clusterfuck from the very beginning. The only reason they managed to get anything done is because top brass quickly figured out that they are primarily a presidential vanity project.
There are some great interviews from the 70s on YouTube with some of the first high ranking officials within NASA speaking rather candidly about how terrible it was there. Everyone hated them: Congress, Military Brass, the American public.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#514The 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…
While the US does have a problem with building civil engineering projects today, that dynamic isn't really what happened with the F-35. The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun on cost and time table. Ash Carter fixed that by telling Lockheed if they didn't agree to his new contract he'd kill the entire thing. And oh hey what a surprise sudden…
[deleted]
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#515Where's the quote from the Air Force saying the F-35 failed? There is none. As far as I can tell this article is just misrepresenting a quote to push a narrative.
I took his quotes about how the F-35 is now a high end boutique plane instead of the replacement for everything. The Air Force changed the F-35's designation, which the author takes as a tacit admission of failure. How else would you read the Air Force's statement? "That plane that was supposed to replace all our planes will only replace a few of our planes. We need a new plane to replace all the rest."
Shocked that a project that started out in 1993 would change goals? That requirements would change as both the political/military environment as well as technology changed? It's like saying the B-1 bomber was a failure because we're sending them to the boneyard.
And this is not to mention that the Air Force ALWAYS wants something new and shiny.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#516Earlier quoted context omitted.
While the US does have a problem with building civil engineering projects today, that dynamic isn't really what happened with the F-35. The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun on cost and time table. Ash Carter fixed that by telling Lockheed if they didn't agree to his new contract he'd kill the entire thing. And oh hey what a surprise sudden…
Thank you for bringing a structural, informed approach to this. I'm getting a little tired of the tendency to handwave blame "cultural decline" rather than actual looking into the policies and details.
Aren't policy and details a product of culture? If a group of people, be it a team or nation, dont have have a solid culture then surely they cant achieve solid results. And indeed it would appear that gradually there is a decline in achieving great results from countries that have historically achieved such results. Dont get me wrong, the US is still doing great, but maybe when the rest of the world keeps raising red flags then criticism should be taken on board as not all is ill intentioned.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#517Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason you don't get flying cars, is the very same, you cant make a lot of other technology. People will want to invent the flying car parking house. And they kind of did - on the 11 of September 2001. You can not hand technology over a certain level to a infantile (nicer sound then retarded) species. Its that simple. Its already madness to allow wealthy citizens into space. Tesla and Amazon are one freight fligh…
I think you meant to say “tungsten rods”, rather than titanium. the composition of the drop weapons doesn’t change the gist though. Titanium is used in airframes for its strength to weight ratio (it’s not very dense). Tungsten is used in weapons for its high hardness and density.
I stand corrected.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#518Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Contested is the point. Contested by other jets, I'd say no. All other air forces with modern fighters are still using Gen 4 fighters at best. The true threat comes from anti-aircraft weapons. To the point developers of FCAS are worried about man-held missiles. These missiles can take down legacy as well as 5th gen fighters. That's also why saturation is a thing, overwhelming the enmy with numbers. At 100 mil a piece…
China has two Gen5 fighters in serial production right now. And show me a manpad that can take down a Gen 5 fighter at 30K feet. No manpad is energetic enough to do so.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#519I'm not a military expert, but just as a civilian tired of seeing my taxes wasted, doesn't the US military need to be completely reimagined anyway? Who is it built to defend against?
As an example - the flyover at Super Bowl 55. Terrifying air power that could wipe out a civilization, but those bombers don't stop some rogue idiots from storming the Capitol, or any number of foreign and domestic hacking threats.
Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed
#520The 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're just fat, lazy, entitled, and lacking all motivation at this point. In the 20th century we went from dropping grenades out of cloth covered biplanes to shooting radar guided nuclear missiles from supersonic jet fighters in 20 years because our survival was at stake. Global hegemony has a predictable way of softening societies that is empirically observable throughout human history. Compare the pace of change an…
Yep, is it Fahrenheit 451 or another Ray Bradbury story where the planes zip around the globe to start and end a war within a couple minutes, without anyone really realizing or caring?