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

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

#931

Post by _wqdq »

wycy wrote: post #354
morei wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Ok, boomer.

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

#932

Post by blaser-waffle »

bumby wrote: post #678
SCAQTony wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not trying to be a smart ass but how about this for an human incentive: Build us plane that fulfills these outlined objectives, that meets are budget requirements, or we will shop somewhere else.

I get what you’re saying but I wish it were that easy. Take the requirements for example. If they aren’t airtight, you’ll get into a wordsmithing scenario where the contractor claims they met the requirement and it becomes a game where the team with the best lawyer wins. Write the requirements too explicitly and contractors will push back saying “tell us what you want, not how we’re supposed to do it.” A somewhat sil…

And the parent's comment is any contracting work, really.

With DoD you have to add in various accountability steps, political footballs, public opinion, etc.

If you've spent time around the DC area you'd be shocked at the number of adverts for things like the F-22 that you see. One time I took the metro from NoVA to MD, with a stop off downtown, and counted at least 6. They're not just bringing lawyers and playing contractor games, they're aggressively marketing to everyone.

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

#933

Post by xnyan »

greedo wrote: post #921
tored wrote: post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-35 is far from excellent and it had many engineering problems like massive software problems, fire hazards, structural weakness, engine problems, heating, high noise, low range, etc. It failed to replace existing fleet of fighters, like the F-16, and on ground support, like the A10. That is not excellence. All of the engineering problems of the F-35 have been well known from the early days of the project, I know be…

The only thing embarrassing about the F-22 was the decision to terminate production at 187 aircraft. The F-22 was and is an excellent aircraft, perhaps a bit ahead of its time in terms of need, but to call it an embarrassment doesn't have much accuracy.

> The F-22 was and is an excellent aircraft

I love jets and the F-22 is both my favorite fighter and likely the best air superiority fighter in the world, so I get where you are coming from, but it is not an excellent aircraft for the current USAF mission when you look at it as a whole.

Not only is the procurement cost of an F-22 extremely high, operationally it has been plagued by issues that hare only partially elevated by a maintenance program that even by fighter jet standards is considered expensive and frequent. The stealth coating in particular is very finnicky and has to be worked up constantly. Approximately half of F-22 are non-op at any given time, even getting training time is extremely difficult.

The F-22 is like an exotic sportscar. Nobody denies that if it's in the air and functional, it's a great performer, but we would never make the bugatti veyron the standard patrol car for all police - not only would it be mindbogglingly expensive, durability and high maintenance would make it impractical, not to mention overkill in most situations. To make another car analogy, it would be like buying a Ford F350 for picking up your groceries once a week.

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

#934

Post by onepointsixC »

woeirua wrote: post #823
onepointsixC wrote: post #414

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. 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…

> 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 chance because the F-35 pilots would never give their enemy the chance to shoot at them in the first place. It matters when we're talking about full scale wa…

> It's reasonable to say that the Chinese could produce 10,000+ 3rd or 4th gen fighters per year.

No it isn't, and it wouldn't most certainly would not maintain any of that capability within a few months of a conflict.

I'm sorry but this line of thinking is simply out of date. The proof is in the pudding: the Chinese themselves are not massing loads of cheap platforms, they're throwing everything into the J-20, putting an enormous amount of effort into fewer more expensive platforms. Just look at their navy. They have cheap catamarans by the dozens. Instead of building hundreds or thousands of those, they're putting serious investments into building large surface vessels which attempt to match America Burke class destroyers.

You seem to be under the impression that if, say China has 10,000 jets to 1,000 American jets where the American jets enjoy a 10:1 advantage that they would at a stalemate. That's just not true.

The CCP watched the first Gulf War with horror as they saw technologically superior American forces wipe out division after division of war veteran Iraqi troops. Their doctrine then was one similar to Iraq, relying on larger less sophisticated forces. The CCP's since trillions of dollars in investments in matching American capability is their assessment of that previous doctrine.

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

#935

Post by TomMasz »

It's hard enough to build something like the F-35 for one customer, let alone three. Especially when those three customers have wildly differing requirements. Not that it can't be done, but it can't be done they way they did it. Unless they rethink their approach, the next fighter is doomed to the same fate.

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

#936

Post by jki275 »

goatinaboat wrote: post #897
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.

The F35 is far more advanced than the F22 in everything except actual kinematics. The F22 is faster and more maneuverable, and that's the least interesting thing that separates the F22 and the F35.

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

#937

Post by onepointsixC »

ddddq wrote: post #769
onepointsixC wrote: post #414

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. 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…

>The same thing happend to Israel, where at the time they had one of the best air force.

When are we talking now? Because the Israeli's have destroyed numerous Syrian owned cutting edge Russian SAM's using non stealthy F-16's.

>He also said, that the US is not ready for that kind of war and is not trained for it.

The US own S300's which they have trained against. The F35 is practically purposefully designed to counter Russian SAM capability in order to fight in contested airspace. And it is exceedingly good at it. There is no country in the world which is better at SEAD than the US.

> 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.

This is quite difficult to take on face value as nothing more than laughable. Russian SAM capabilities have been utterly embarrassing in their performance in Syria.

The biggest problem the US has as far as fighting for air superiority would be fighting near China due to the range of China's A2AD capabilities which would likely flatten just about every runway within range. But that's what the USAF's tanker fleet is for. Ultimately NGAD will provide the range required to neutralize that problem.

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

#938

Post by bee_rider »

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…

I suggest "we could have had an all-nuclear grid."

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

#939

Post by mekkkkkk »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #932
bumby wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you’re saying but I wish it were that easy. Take the requirements for example. If they aren’t airtight, you’ll get into a wordsmithing scenario where the contractor claims they met the requirement and it becomes a game where the team with the best lawyer wins. Write the requirements too explicitly and contractors will push back saying “tell us what you want, not how we’re supposed to do it.” A somewhat sil…

And the parent's comment is any contracting work, really. With DoD you have to add in various accountability steps, political footballs, public opinion, etc. If you've spent time around the DC area you'd be shocked at the number of adverts for things like the F-22 that you see. One time I took the metro from NoVA to MD, with a stop off downtown, and counted at least 6. They're not just bringing lawyers and playing co…

Having only been to the US a few times I'm floored by this. You mean to tell me that there are actual printed ads in public places for _fighter planes_? I can sort of understand the rationale in DC, but it just seems surreal to me.

Those kinds of purchases being swayed by subway ads... I really hope it's a joke.

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

#940

Post by JamesBarney »

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."

For the other side "No, it’s not The Incentives—it’s you"

https://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-in...

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