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

#891

Post by imtringued » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 12:21 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #632

bee_rider wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also, the fact that it was impractical is itself a metaphor -- it turns out many of the things they thought would be cool and futuristic were actually impractical when you get to the details.

Sure, but that's besides the point. It's sort of like that meme about "The World If " (example: https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/394/070/7f2... ). It features over the top flying cars and infrastructure because it's trying to make a point. When one says "we could have had flying cars, but instead we got X", that's the underlying concept. Whether or not the flying car is "practical" is kind of besides…

>"The World If ">"The World If "

http://eduard-heindl.de/energy-storage/energy-storage-system...

Well, we would get cheap energy storage and cheap energy. No promises of a superior future, just a cheaper future.

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

#892

Post by wtf_is_up » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 12:44 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #416

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 work in defense and the approach to software development is hell. Imagine package managers and Git being newfangled scary technologies and not unit testing anything. Now slap tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on there and you've got a defense program. I'm actually quite tired of it and I'm looking elsewhere.

Yes, and the user community and PMs on the gov't side are terrible at defining requirements. Even moreso as the number of stakeholders increases.

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

#893

Post by manquer » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 12:51 PM UTC

themacguffinman wrote: post #790

jboog wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~1.7 Trillion dollars so we can have a bleeding-edge Ferrari while our "enemies" in the PRC and Russia are still driving around in Yugo 45s So many people seem to still buy into the Cold War mindset that we just need the latest bleeding edge platforms or the Soviets are going to invade and we'll all be reading Trotsky. The US and NATO militaries are so far ahead of the Russians and China it's comical to claim another…

Well you certainly don't stay ahead of your adversaries by resting on your laurels.

You don't stay ahead by spending way over yours means.

it is a key reason the Soviet union collapsed. They were trying match US spending in many sectors and capitalism can outspend communist economies any day.

Diverting spending from say infrastructure to miltary does not help a country in the long term.

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

#894

Post by Traster » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #323

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 shi…

The problem isn't that we don't think about requirements. The problem is that there are no requirements. The Bomb and the SR71 had two very clear things in common - they were built to address existential threats. The bomb was designed for one reason - to fight Nazis we knew they were building the bomb and we needed our own. We knew exactly what to build and we went and figured out how. The SR71 exactly the same issue - we knew exactly what we wanted, we wanted a super fast undetectable spy plane to spy on the Communists.

The problem today is that we've got no damn clue who we're meant to be fighting against and it's been 30 years since the US has engaged in a war where air superiority was even an issue. The level of development in the US right now isn't "We need to build a system that's better than North Korea's" it's more like "Hey guys, I totally think we could build a system that plucks NK's ICBMs out of the air before they even jettison their first shroud".

There's no reason clear and direct motivation for these systems. So the purpose gets lost and we build something with a thousand bells and whistles because we're desperately trying to find some reason for it to exist.

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

#895

Post by jki275 » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

vagrantJin wrote: post #881

jki275 wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of highly qualified people who have flown it say otherwise. https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/f-35-faces-mos... Chip Berke is an F22 and F35 test pilot, and the first F35 Squadron commander. He's probably the most qualified person on the planet to talk about fifth gen aircraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0&t=203s

Dubious. The man cannot criticize the project publicly. In fact, he and his squadron probably have real opinions that never leave their base locker rooms.

“Not criticize” is again, one thing. People who want to just “not criticize” would keep their opinions to themselves and move on.

What Colonel Berke did in that video is quite the opposite of “not criticize”.

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

#896

Post by manquer » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

hyko wrote: post #385

inglor_cz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quantity does have a quality all of its own... It’s obviously possible to imagine a scenario where you have a massive number of drones, the question would be whether you could channel that into tactics that would give you an advantage. Numeric superiority is sometimes useful, and sometimes a liability. The F-35 currently has a massive advantage over cutting edge drones - a MK I brain in control of the airframe that c…

Bruce lee would win a street fight easily. A boxing match ? Mike tyson will probably be better at.

It doesn't have to be theoretical at all. The air force can just easily have mock battles v drones to evaluate performance if they wanted to.

The speed of autonomous avaition navigation development is far exceeding the speed of innovation in traditional nth generation fighter planes. Inherently the human will always be slower. The drone will have higher manuverbilty has high g will not be a factor. Imprvoing the algorithms to match or improve human response will happen sooner or later (it is not hard AGI category of problem). The drones are cheaper and easier to manufacture then fighter planes or pilots trained for this kind of high end aircraft.

AFAIK the electronic warfare capabilities of f35 are not designed towards drones. Even then performance against cluster of drones is different matter altogether.

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

#897

Post by goatinaboat » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

digi59404 wrote: post #7

“The F-35 has failed” is a strong statement that depends on what your definition of success is. Did it fail because it couldn’t replace the F-16? Did it fail because it’s expensive and bloated? Do those things even matter? I’m not defending the F-35 but anyone deeply and intimately familiar with the platform knows and understands that it is a Ferrari. You don’t bring your Acura TSX to a Formula 1 race track to win a…

The F-35 may be a Ferrari; but the thing about Ferraris is that their technology trickles down.

Wait a second. The F35 was supposed to be the trickled-down thing from the F22.

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

#898

Post by Synaesthesia » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 1:11 PM UTC

ktln2 wrote: post #363

Synaesthesia wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Militarism is a colossal waste of taxpayer money.

For many countries they have no choice - you either spend the money on Military or you get invaded by Russia/China/North Korea.

Not really the case for the USA. Its military is way larger than needed for defensive purposes. Heck it isnt even threatened by invasion by any of those countries.

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

#899

Post by goatinaboat » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #649

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #464

Earlier 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…

It also sounds like they made a lot of thoroughly unreasonable requests for a completely modular platform that could outperform everything in all branches of military at once.

It also sounds like they made a lot of thoroughly unreasonable requests for a completely modular platform that could outperform everything in all branches of military at once.

The concept of modularity is a sound one. Imagine this: You buy an F35 and it comes with 2 sets of wings. It has a empty bay just behind the pilot, and it also comes with a lift engine and a spare fuel tank, and a tailhook that can be easily slotted into place if you want it. A trained ground crew, in a couple of hours, can swap parts around and turn it into an A, B or C variant, and then into another one for its next mission.

The problem is that the materials needed to create such a F35 kit don't exist and won't for the foreseeable future. So what you end up with is 3 similar looking aircraft that happen to share the same name and have a vague resemblance but have surprisingly little in common, for triple the price.

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

#900

Post by exabrial » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

Ah, the F-35 disinformation campaign continues. If you read the article you'll see that there is nothing substantiating the claim other than the author connecting yarn on pegboard.

My opinion here is the Air Force recognizes the cost overruns from the program mean they need to make sure the USA's "near peer rivals" (their words) are lulled into a false sense of security, As they won't be able to spend this money again for a good 20 years. China is 12-15 years behind, Russia maybe 3-5.

An incredible amount of risk was undertaken in the project. Hopefully the lessons learned make future development much cheaper, as nothing like the aircraft has ever taken to the skies.