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The F-35's $400k helmet

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Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#81

Post by makmanalp »

rayiner wrote: post #72
furyg3 wrote: post #25

It's a very 'agile' project. When will it be done? Don't ask! How much will it cost? Who knows! It's going to be awesome, though! But... you don't have to wait to see how powerful this weapons system is. The F-35 completely took out the Dutch government before one even rolled off the assembly line! Note to governments: when ordering your weapons systems it may be a good idea to get a cost-per-unit quote before signin…

Defense systems go over-budget for the same reason software projects do--it's all custom and custom development is unpredictable. It's not like these companies can sell the U.S. stuff they had lying around having developed it for another customer. I used to do development for a DOD project. At the outset of the project, it's often not clear what you're trying to do will even work. It might not even be clear what you…

> I used to do development for a DOD project. At the outset of the project, it's often not clear what you're trying to do will even work. It might not even be clear what you should be trying to do.

Doesn't this just sound like the contractor promising things it can't deliver? This seems like one of the major endemic problems, especially with ridiculously advanced projects like this.

R&D is R&D. Contracts are contracts. Research, by nature, fails often. Contracts, by nature, are expected to succeed. You can't (or rather shouldn't) sign a contract for something that you don't know you can do, let alone whether you can do it within the time / money limits. To me, that seems borderline fraudulent, and is a form of lock-in. The clients don't know they're getting screwed, but when they finally do know, it's too expensive for them to switch contractors and they're stuck with you.

Obviously it's partially an incentives issue - it's economically rational for companies to do that. It's also probably a rational career move for officers to pitch a super-mega-awesome device that doesn't exist yet but sounds awesome. So that needs to change.

What happened to trying before buying? I have a sense that this used to be the case pre-WW2 but I don't really have any proof to back that up.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#83

Post by rayiner »

makmanalp wrote: post #81
rayiner wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defense systems go over-budget for the same reason software projects do--it's all custom and custom development is unpredictable. It's not like these companies can sell the U.S. stuff they had lying around having developed it for another customer. I used to do development for a DOD project. At the outset of the project, it's often not clear what you're trying to do will even work. It might not even be clear what you…

> I used to do development for a DOD project. At the outset of the project, it's often not clear what you're trying to do will even work. It might not even be clear what you should be trying to do. Doesn't this just sound like the contractor promising things it can't deliver? This seems like one of the major endemic problems, especially with ridiculously advanced projects like this. R&D is R&D. Contracts are contract…

The issue is that the U.S.G. is the only buyer for most of this stuff, or tightly controls who else buys it through export restrictions. So if the government wants technology that does X, Y, and Z, it has to pay someone to develop it. Who is going to sit around building this technology in advance of its only customer wanting to buy it? And everyone knows that. A DOD contract isn't a purchase order for 10,000 iPhones. It's a joint-venture where the government foots the R&D risk to get a product that doesn't exist yet.

It's actually a lot like when Apple gets Foxconn to build iPhones. For stuff like its aluminum manufacturing process, Apple takes the R&D risk, because there aren't a bunch of other customers wanting to buy these products to Apple's spec.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#84

Post by harryh »

enraged_camel wrote: post #80
rayiner wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defense systems go over-budget for the same reason software projects do--it's all custom and custom development is unpredictable. It's not like these companies can sell the U.S. stuff they had lying around having developed it for another customer. I used to do development for a DOD project. At the outset of the project, it's often not clear what you're trying to do will even work. It might not even be clear what you…

>>I used to do development for a DOD project. At the outset of the project, it's often not clear what you're trying to do will even work. It might not even be clear what you should be trying to do. That's interesting, and also scary. I work in IT consulting where it's extremely rare for customers to pay for a professional services project before seeing a proof of concept demonstration of what will be delivered. In fa…

It doesn't sound scary to me. It just sounds like the fundamental nature of trying to do something truly new. It's just less predictable and there is no way around that.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#85

Post by makmanalp »

rayiner wrote: post #83
makmanalp wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to do development for a DOD project. At the outset of the project, it's often not clear what you're trying to do will even work. It might not even be clear what you should be trying to do. Doesn't this just sound like the contractor promising things it can't deliver? This seems like one of the major endemic problems, especially with ridiculously advanced projects like this. R&D is R&D. Contracts are contract…

The issue is that the U.S.G. is the only buyer for most of this stuff, or tightly controls who else buys it through export restrictions. So if the government wants technology that does X, Y, and Z, it has to pay someone to develop it. Who is going to sit around building this technology in advance of its only customer wanting to buy it? And everyone knows that. A DOD contract isn't a purchase order for 10,000 iPhones.…

> Who is going to sit around building this technology in advance of its only customer wanting to buy it?

Ok, so that's a fair point, but we don't really owe these companies a viable business model.

What happened to funding DARPA and NRL and Lincoln Labs and other places instead of private companies for the research portion? What happened to funding real research instead of funding an amorphous combination of research and delivery?

Those two things could still be separate. We could have a ton of competing research designs, and when some of them yield working prototypes, /then/ we can decide whether to pour hundreds of billions into building them.

> It's a joint-venture where the government foots the R&D risk to get a product that doesn't exist yet.

You're suggesting this is more kickstarter than amazon, basically. Which is fine. But if the government was 100% aware that there was risk, why aren't they hedging their bets like any sane investor should? It sure looks like they went all-in on the F-35, for example.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#86

Post by rayiner »

makmanalp wrote: post #85
rayiner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that the U.S.G. is the only buyer for most of this stuff, or tightly controls who else buys it through export restrictions. So if the government wants technology that does X, Y, and Z, it has to pay someone to develop it. Who is going to sit around building this technology in advance of its only customer wanting to buy it? And everyone knows that. A DOD contract isn't a purchase order for 10,000 iPhones.…

> Who is going to sit around building this technology in advance of its only customer wanting to buy it? Ok, so that's a fair point, but we don't really owe these companies a viable business model. What happened to funding DARPA and NRL and Lincoln Labs and other places instead of private companies for the research portion? What happened to funding real research instead of funding an amorphous combination of research…

> Ok, so that's a fair point, but we don't really owe these companies a viable business model.

The U.S.G. doesn't owe them anything, but if it wants these weapons, it needs to offer its contractors a viable business model.

> What happened to funding DARPA and NRL and Lincoln Labs and other places instead of private companies for the research portion?

DARPA doesn't really do research. It manages R&D grants to private companies. Lincoln Labs is also a private entity. And in any case, they do more blue-sky stuff, not applied development.

> We could have a ton of competing research designs, and when some of them yield working prototypes

One of the early steps of the F-35 project was to issue contracts for two competing designs, one from Boeing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-32) and one from Lockheed-Martin (which ultimately became the JSF). Each one cost $750 million.

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#87

Post by encoderer »

What i see here is an old cold-warrior concerned that this fighter jet is not going to be good at "dog fighting".

Who, exactly, are we supposed to be dog fighting with in next 20 years?

Re: The F-35's $400k helmet

#89

Post by gear54rus »

rimantas wrote: post #37
Htsthbjig wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the US go home instead of seeding war anywhere they go. I visited Ukraine last month and one of the best things I saw was that war there was contained and "light" using mostly light weapons. Russia probably has not the tech the US has, but Europe does, and Europe does not need a heavy nuclear war or loosing their main energy supplier(Russia).

Europe needs the bully who feels free to do whatever comes to mind (like grabbing territory of the another country) even less.

> Europe needs the bully who feels free to do whatever comes to mind

I can see how NATO came to be then...

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