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

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

#761

Post by ClumsyPilot » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:45 AM UTC

yrgulation wrote: post #516

sayhar wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Are they?

"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence'

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

#762

Post by greedo » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

sam_goody wrote: post #496

On the other hand (also posted today): https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/02/24/israeli... So, Israel flies lots of pilot hours and seems to think that the plane is a good deal. The F-35 failed in its original goal of being lightweight, but is perhaps fine in the new goal of being a modern fancy fighter that dominate the sky. In which case, it has pivoted to become a success. To extend their analogy, if y…

It's hard to use Israel's purchase of the F-35 as proof that it's an excellent plant. I think it probably is, but FMS sales are hard to decipher; we give military aid to countries via FMS, but require that money to be spent on US produced equipment. We decided not to export the F-22 (which Israel would have definitely purchased), and the F-16 is a bit long in the tooth. So for their specific needs (stealth fighter-bomber) it might have been the best choice. And Israel negotiated a wide latitude of privileges that allows them to extensively modify the Adir.

Plus I don't think being "lightweight" was a goal of the JSF (or its predecessor JAST) program. Being more affordable than the F-22? Definitely.

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

#763

Post by greedo » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

draklor40 wrote: post #603

Hmm, If I were the Indian govt. I'd atleast attempt to sell the Tejas to the US. Engine is American anyway (GE-404), Israeli radar and avionics compatible with a lot of Western block missiles. Would be an interesting reversal of fortunes. It's sad that the F-35 is in this state. The whole "sensor fusion" (no doubt, overhyped) sounded interesting. I am curious as to how well implemented the same system is on the SAAB…

The Tejas is terrible. There's a reason why India is trying to buy better aircraft.

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

#764

Post by cgearhart » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:47 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #755

cgearhart wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the death spiral. But I’m actually talking about the infuriatingly counter-intuitive headlines about buying tanks that the army says we don’t need, or ships that we know will never work as planned. There are only so many places that can build such things, and if we let them go to mothballs then we lose all the manufacturing experience to do it at all—which is a risk for national defense. So the Navy says “I ne…

If you just want make-work, why not build schools, parks, and public hospitals instead? Or useful infrastructure, at least.

It’s not about make-work. It’s about the intersection of what the military says it needs, what congress folks can get away with, and what contractors lobby for to “maintain the industrial base”.

Building parks & hospitals doesn’t contribute to national defense, and it doesn’t develop or maintain the skills of welders who can join absurdly thick plates in the hull of a ship, or folks who can work with composites and thin aluminum, etc.

I’m not arguing that the system is working or that we have the right balance. But it’s not a simple “don’t build bombs, build hospitals” dichotomy.

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

#765

Post by myself248 » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

HelloMcFly wrote: post #614

bumby wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This is quite similar to one of my favorite saying that comes from my background in psychology: "When the mouse presses the lever, don't blame the mouse."

Oooo, that's profound.

I ran across an interesting one earlier, understanding Maslow's Needs by negative example: We usually say that, when someone has food and shelter and safety, when they have friends and feel a sense of belonging, they can pursue higher stuff. And we know at some level that if someone is starving, they will do anything to find food -- civilized behavior goes out the window in that mode. But we forget that if someone has no friends and doesn't feel a sense of belonging, they will also stop at nothing to rectify THAT.

Suddenly so much conspiracy stuff makes sense.

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

#766

Post by WTFisthat » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

cgearhart wrote: post #200

supernova87a wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe someone with more industry knowledge or interesting sources can corroborate -- But I believe that one of the things that happened to the military aviation industrial complex was that in the WW2, early Cold War era, planes and military development programs were very much driven by individuals or very small teams responsible for designing the requirements, overseeing the planning, and the outcome of new aircraft.…

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…

COTS = Commercial off-the-shelf

CAS = Close air support

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

#767

Post by kumarvvr » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #725

Putting aside the good-plane/bad-plane discussion, this program is the poster child for one of my pet wishes: that the costs of government programs would be expressed in $/tax-payer. There are about 100M tax payers in the US; this program is expected to cost about $1,500,000M; so the F35 program is expected to cost about $15,000 per tax payer. True: that's over 50 years; still, un-discounted, that's $300/year/tax-pay…

> How much of your $60,000 did you see?

For that, you need to calculate the cost of every US govt program and calculate usage costs. Very complicated.

However, this statement is confusing to me. Do you agree to a bailout, as a society, to eventually get all of it back?

And, I also take issue with 100M tax payers. Are these Individual Income Tax payers? If so, what about all the non income tax payers and companiss that pay taxes? For every item you buy, some amount goes to the government in the form of sales tax.

And ultimately, what does the govt spend money on? You and your fellow citizens. Sure, now you are in a position to say you pay more taxes than the govt provides services, but if your kid turns out to be poor and homeless, the govt ought to take care of them, and they pay no taxes while enjoying govt services. So if you compute what you get back, would it be fair to say you have to take multi generational values?

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

#768

Post by TylerE » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:53 AM UTC

cgearhart wrote: post #764

TylerE wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just want make-work, why not build schools, parks, and public hospitals instead? Or useful infrastructure, at least.

It’s not about make-work. It’s about the intersection of what the military says it needs, what congress folks can get away with, and what contractors lobby for to “maintain the industrial base”. Building parks & hospitals doesn’t contribute to national defense, and it doesn’t develop or maintain the skills of welders who can join absurdly thick plates in the hull of a ship, or folks who can work with composites and t…

> Building parks & hospitals doesn’t contribute to national defense

Neither does spending astronomical sums on a system that never reaches operational readiness.

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

#769

Post by ddddq » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:53 AM UTC

onepointsixC wrote: post #414

woeirua wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to replace 10 excellent pilots with 10 good pilots to win a war of attrition. You just need 10 pilots that can fly, lock a missile and fire. Because if you're losing 10 planes to every 1 that you're killing the life expectancy of any pilot is going to be really low period. Counterpoints: 1 - Most critical infrastructure is located far inland away from areas that are vulnerable to cruise missiles and th…

>You don't need to replace 10 excellent pilots with 10 good pilots to win a war of attrition. You just need 10 pilots that can fly, lock a missile and fire. That's not how it works. The F35 will detect those pilots far sooner than they will detect it and shoot them down before they even see them. Combine a battle space with dozens of MALD decoys flying around drawing shots, those poor pilots would have never had a ch…

There is a presentation, given by a Ukraine-Russia war observer to new officers at a US academy. The guy had talks with Ukraine generals and was analyzing the war.

He said that the ukraine air force was broken and destroyed by the russian system. The same thing happend to Israel, where at the time they had one of the best air force.

Any planes and helicopters werr forced to fly really, really low because of the S300 and S400. The information of a incoming object was given to a mobile squad who where anticipating and waiting for the plane. Then they simply shoot the plane down from atleast two sites with their portable and advanced SAMs.

He also said, that the US is not ready for that kind of war and is not trained for it. The US had always had the assumption of a given air superiority in any conflict. But air superiority is not given, if fighting close to Russia or China. And the russian system showed how easy it would be to contest it. For that reason, the US would lose air superiority in a conflict close to russian border and because you can't always count on stealth fighters, they are too unreliable, specially if fighting far away without a secured air base close to the conflict.

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

#770

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:56 AM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #659

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's been quite explicit about it in his talks for years. He sees monopolies as necessary to concentrate enough capital under one person's control to enable them to be an innovator. To be rather blunt about it, much of his rhetoric is ultimately just about saying indirect forms of "let John Galt do whatever he wants and be grateful peasant." This is why he's financially supported Yarvin, who quite literally wants to…

Ehhh, I've read his book (which is really just a rehash of Michael Porter) and I've seen some of his talks and while I see where you're coming, I wouldn't be quite as harsh, although Thiel might be sailing a bit close to "real monopolism has never been tried." With regard to Yarvin I have no idea what Yarvin wants because he takes 10,000 words to explain himself and I can never find the energy to finish reading anyth…

No, Yarvin's thinking does not have merit, and his entire approach is to exploit attempts at good faith debate with his own bad faith behavior. It's similar to the approach a lot of creationists use. There's no reason to indulge it. Here's a piece that's mostly about the Star Slate Codex drama, but covers the issue well: https://modelcitizen.substack.com/p/climbing-the-bell-curve-...