The F-35's $400k helmet • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by trhway » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:33 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #45

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).

EU won't lose Russia as energy source. Russia would do it already if it could, but half of its budget comes from gas and oil sales (huge majority - to EU). And EU as a whole gets most of energy from outside Russia. It would hurt Russia a lot more than EU. And nuclear war is right off. On the other hand behaving like it's 1939 in modern Europe must be punished, or we will get more wars eventually, so Russia brought it…

>On the other hand behaving like it's 1939 in modern Europe must be punished,

and that exactly what Russia did when Western Ukraine nationalist forces grabbed the power in Kiev through the military coup and threatened to do to ethnic Russians what the same nationalist forces did to ethnic Poles in Western Ukraine during WWII http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army#Ethnic... . Their WWII leader - Bandera - is openly revered as national hero by the current powers in Kiev.

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

#102

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #45

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).

EU won't lose Russia as energy source. Russia would do it already if it could, but half of its budget comes from gas and oil sales (huge majority - to EU). And EU as a whole gets most of energy from outside Russia. It would hurt Russia a lot more than EU. And nuclear war is right off. On the other hand behaving like it's 1939 in modern Europe must be punished, or we will get more wars eventually, so Russia brought it…

[deleted]

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

#103

Post by ckib16 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

Htsthbjig wrote: post #19

klodolph wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuitively, the view already doesn't correspond to what you see, even if you're only a commercial pilot. That's why planes have attitude indicators.

It actually does most of the time, when the weather is fine. Planes have attitude indicators for when you can't see anything,e.g when you fly inside a cloud. But you don't need attitude indicators when you can see the horizon.

Nice explanation. It can be hard to describe how pilots may or may not use certain cockpit displays depending on the situation. People tend to assume you are always using every indicator.

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

#104

Post by rayiner » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:42 PM UTC

monknomo wrote: post #96

makmanalp wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Most government agencies that do 'research' funnel grant and contract money to private entities. Having scientists or building things directly is 'communism' and we're against that. After all, a government employee manages to be both expensive and incompetent, so why not save money by hiring contractors to do their work? /s I think going all in on the F-35 has to do with the some kind of power struggle between the ai…

At least with DARPA it's not about communism but wanting to avoid bureaucracy. They don't even own their own building and program managers are kicked out after four years. Basically they don't want to become NASA.

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

#105

Post by ckib16 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:47 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #67

skeuomorf wrote: post #49

While the technology in this helmet may turn out to be pretty great, I still can't view the project as a whole (The F-35) as more than a failure. It's taken them a lot of time and money to develop a mediocre aircraft, here's Pierre Sprey's opinion on it (Designer of the F-16) "The F-35 was born of an exceptionally dumb piece of airforce PR spin" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw

Former pilots, and aircraft engineers are typically very proud of their machines, relish a more simple time when the pilot mattered more, and won't hesitate to bash modern technology.

There's some truth to this. But, after you dig through this "bar talk", most every pilot would take the best technology has to offer when going into a fight. I'll gladly take a JDAM over a Mk-84 (dumb bomb). And I'll take any modern fighter over an F-4, etc.

Pilots do complain about technology (which always amuses me), but in the end we want the technology that helps us win.

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

#106

Post by ckib16 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

encoderer wrote: post #87

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?

Nobody knows. We usually cannot predict future conflicts very well.

A number of people think Stealth increases the chance for WVR engagements (WVR = Within Visual Range, or dog fighting). I'm one of them. The U.S. has a bad history of predicting the end of WVR engagements (see Vietnam and the F-4 produced without internal guns). Air superiority is definitely not a thing that can be taken for granted. But many people do because the West has dominated the skies for many decades now.

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

#107

Post by ckib16 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

rurounijones wrote: post #32

tdicola wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pilot. I doubt fighter pilots make $400k/year. Maybe they need to ask for a raise...

Training a US fighter pilot costs 7 figures last I heard so they cost that to purchase, never mind maintenance fees :p

Correct. The U.S. has many retention programs to try to keep pilots serving past their initial military commitments. There is a lot of money invested into them.

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

#108

Post by dgudkov » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 6:14 PM UTC

Even if F-35 fails it won't really be a failure, because all the R&D investment paved a way for a new generation of fighter jets. It's not a faster horse, it's a car.

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

#109

Post by discardorama » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 6:48 PM UTC

njharman wrote: post #98

discardorama wrote: post #93

So each helmet is custom-made. If you lose the helment (or spill coffee on it or something), then you can't fly the plane anymore? A small thing like the helmet will ground a $200M airplane?

There's this awesome thing called spare parts and backups. custom made != only works with one aircraft

But custom-made means that the pilot can't fly, period. And without the pilot, the aircraft might as well be grounded?

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

#110

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 7:03 PM UTC

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…

Research and contracts are the same thing when it comes to new weapons development (which is what the F-35 is). That's why the Pentagon OKs cost-plus contracts. They know from the outset that what they want might not be possible.