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F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

defense.gov

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Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#31

Post by Kubuxu »

rgmerk wrote: post #7

The F-35 first flew in late 2006, and they've debugged it enough to get it into full production...17 years later. In the private sector, you'd no longer be able to buy the components it's built out of. Ridiculous.

The F-35 program was developed with the principle of concurrency in mind. The first aircraft rolled off the production line before the majority of the parts were finalized. Think of it as the first build from your CI/CD pipeline.

The benefits are similar to the reasoning behind setting up CI/CD in software. They are just more significant, as production takes a while to ramp up when it comes to complex hardware.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#32

Post by CobaltFire »

lijok wrote: post #15

Can someone explain what purpose a manned fighter jet serves in the age of UCAV? I understand with the F35 specifically it’s turned into a jobs programme, but why not turn it unmanned?

Part of the design brief for the F-35 is to be a battlefield C&C for drones in the future. So the pilot would be the controlling authority in the battle space for allowing weapons free, etc.

No idea if that will come true, but it was absolutely one capability briefed. I'm not a project participant, but I was peripheral both during development and early operational stages .

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#33

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lijok wrote: post #15

Can someone explain what purpose a manned fighter jet serves in the age of UCAV? I understand with the F35 specifically it’s turned into a jobs programme, but why not turn it unmanned?

> Can someone explain what purpose a manned fighter jet serves in the age of UCAV?

We’re not yet in the age of UCAVs that can match, tactic for tactic, a human pilot in a military context. We’re getting there. But not yet.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#34

Post by [deleted] »

carabiner wrote: post #23
zer00eyz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> jet that everybody wants. That was the f22. And we blocked international sales in favor of the f35. The death of the f22 should not be mourned, we will get 6th gen research to replace it. As for the everybody wants it bit, this is very true. Much to the ~~shargrin~~ chagrin of EU military industry. With one of our presidential candidates calling for us pulling out of nato, with us not backing Ukraine, I would expe…

shargrin?

[deleted]

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#35

Post by luxuryballs »

carabiner wrote: post #23
zer00eyz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> jet that everybody wants. That was the f22. And we blocked international sales in favor of the f35. The death of the f22 should not be mourned, we will get 6th gen research to replace it. As for the everybody wants it bit, this is very true. Much to the ~~shargrin~~ chagrin of EU military industry. With one of our presidential candidates calling for us pulling out of nato, with us not backing Ukraine, I would expe…

shargrin?

chagrin /shə-grĭn′/

noun A keen feeling of mental unease, as of annoyance or embarrassment, caused by failure, disappointment, or a disconcerting event. "To her chagrin, the party ended just as she arrived." Vexation; mortification.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#36

Post by AnimalMuppet »

lijok wrote: post #15

Can someone explain what purpose a manned fighter jet serves in the age of UCAV? I understand with the F35 specifically it’s turned into a jobs programme, but why not turn it unmanned?

AIs aren't good enough to fly it autonomously. That means it would have to be controlled, which means it would have to continuously transmit situational information back to the controller. So goodbye stealth.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#37

Post by Kubuxu »

lijok wrote: post #15

Can someone explain what purpose a manned fighter jet serves in the age of UCAV? I understand with the F35 specifically it’s turned into a jobs programme, but why not turn it unmanned?

1. Development started in 2000, and the first airframe (albeit with non-finalized parts) rolled off in 2006. 2. The pilot can make independent decisions even in the presence of overwhelming communication jamming.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#38

Post by luxuryballs »

zer00eyz wrote: post #21
bee_rider wrote: post #8

It is wild that they’ve turned this project around from the avatar of wasteful defense spending, to the jet that everybody wants.

>> jet that everybody wants. That was the f22. And we blocked international sales in favor of the f35. The death of the f22 should not be mourned, we will get 6th gen research to replace it. As for the everybody wants it bit, this is very true. Much to the ~~shargrin~~ chagrin of EU military industry. With one of our presidential candidates calling for us pulling out of nato, with us not backing Ukraine, I would expe…

I do hope we don’t end up wishing we had pulled out of NATO.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#39

Post by decafninja »

tragiclos wrote: post #14
bee_rider wrote: post #8

It is wild that they’ve turned this project around from the avatar of wasteful defense spending, to the jet that everybody wants.

Seems like victory through attrition. It might be the only modern fighter produced for export in the Western world.

Aren’t the 6th gen European fighters likely going to be exported too? Granted that is not here and now.

The Korean Boramae is also likely to be exported. But there, granted it’s more a 4.5gen plane unless/until they iterate further.

Re: F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production

#40

Post by rashkov »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #9

I love to admire war machines on "hacker" "news" it is such an important part of our site's culture. Technology is always morally neutral, of course, even (or especially?) if it is explicitly designed to cause death and misery.

if you look through the comments you'll see there's little discussion of the weaponry. The fascinating thing is how huge this project is and how it has become one of the most expensive things ever built.

See this from wikipedia, for example: The JSF program was expected to cost about $200 billion for acquisition in base-year 2002 dollars when SDD was awarded in 2001.[56][57] As early as 2005, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had identified major program risks in cost and schedule.[58] The costly delays strained the relationship between the Pentagon and contractors.[59] By 2017, delays and cost overruns had pushed the F-35 program's expected acquisition costs to $406.5 billion, with total lifetime cost (i.e., to 2070) to $1.5 trillion in then-year dollars which also includes operations and maintenance.[60][61][62] The F-35A's unit cost for LRIP Lot 13 was $79.2 million.[63] Delays in development and operational test and evaluation, including integration into the Joint Simulation Environment, pushed full-rate production decision to March 2024, although actual production rate had already approached the full rate by 2020; full rate at the Fort Worth plan is 156 aircraft annually.[64][65]

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