Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 178 posts

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#111

Post by xvf22 »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #78
xvf22 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very much the norm. The JSF is the safest program that's ever been fielded -- the Osprey had multiple crashes and fatalities at this stage of its development. Is that per flight hour or some other metric? Care to provide a link?

The F-35 is at over 100,000 flight hours[1], and the Osprey is at around 400,000. The Osprey hit 100k hours in 2001[2], by which point it had 6 crashes and 34 deaths, most of which were in the United States [3]. The V-22 deaths have been mostly passengers, so technically it's not a fair comparison since the F-35 only seats one. However, this was the first F-35 crash and it has had zero deaths, making the number of pe…

While I very much acknowledge the Osprey program failures, the claim was that the JFS is the safest program ever fielded.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#112

Post by barrow-rider »

Buldak wrote: post #85
kibwen wrote: post #26

Over a trillion dollars over 28 years. There are about 250 million U.S. taxpayers. That's $150 out of the pocket of every single taxpayer, every year, just to cover the cost of this one monumentally embarrassing failure. If you're a U.S. citizen born after 1974, you've been setting fire to this money annually for your entire adult life. No value has been provided other than as a government subsidy to military contrac…

I'm kind of baffled by the number of people here defending this. I can only imagine that Americans have an emotional investment in their military that inclines them to overlook waste that they would never tolerate in any other area.

> I'm kind of baffled by the number of people here defending this

With literally trillions of dollars at stake, why wouldn't defense contractors set up "marketing" teams to defend it?

And the post above: "adversaries are posting about how bad it is to run support for it" -- a perfect dodge. If you're not supporting this gigantic fucking money pit then you're clearly in league with the enemy.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#113

Post by jacobolus »

3rdAccount wrote: post #21

Does anybody in the industry know why there was a push to move away from specific role planes that excel in one area to ones that can do any area decently? I know in theory that there would be savings having one platform, but making one jet modular for 3 different roles is seeming to be more difficult than just designing 3 different jets. It can't beat the EuroFighter in a dog fight and can't match the stealth bomber…

There was a movie Pentagon Wars about this type of scope creep.

See this 10m clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#115

Post by barrow-rider »

pwaivers wrote: post #39
kibwen wrote: post #26

Over a trillion dollars over 28 years. There are about 250 million U.S. taxpayers. That's $150 out of the pocket of every single taxpayer, every year, just to cover the cost of this one monumentally embarrassing failure. If you're a U.S. citizen born after 1974, you've been setting fire to this money annually for your entire adult life. No value has been provided other than as a government subsidy to military contrac…

> "No value has been provided..." There is value provided. These planes support the US world hegemony and are amazing centerpieces of the US military. If you argue that we could have done it for cheaper, that is fair. But there is value in them.

JDAMs, NATO, and the Petr-Dollar are doing more for US Hegemony than these overpriced drone-stop-gaps ever will.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#116

Post by pjc50 »

netcan wrote: post #97

At the turn of the century, the Wright brothers were building their bicycle planes. Within 10 years, by the start of WW1 there were triplanes fit for war use. By the end of the war, Germany had metal planes with a single wing... not all that different from a modern crop duster. Amazing what the competitive (and "save our nation") pressure of an industrial war can do. Immediately after the great war, helicopters and a…

Diminishing returns are definitely a thing. But the technology of mass destruction peaked in the 60s with the invention of the ICBM: finally we had the power to destroy everything. Where can you really go from there?

The cutting edges are missile interception (Iron Dome), drones for urban combat, and hybrid/deniable warfare.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#117

Post by dsfyu404ed »

tokai wrote: post #81
starpilot wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the theoretical cost savings, as you mention. The JSF was aggressively fashioned toward futuristic notions of distance warfare. Missiles today have phenomenal performance, versus Vietnam era seekers that would fly into the sun. This might have been premature with the unexpected turn into asymmetric warfare. Also, any internet discussion on the A-10 (or SR-71, or Concorde) devolves into uninformed fanboyism…

>premature with the unexpected turn into asymmetric warfare This boggles the mind. The US military have had trouble facing asymmetrical opponents close to continually since the Vietnam war. It's not like they haven't had time to see it coming. I think the embarrassment that was the Millennium Challenge war game[0] showed just how out of touch the top brass is. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_20…

It's not about actually figting the war. It's about maintaining the capability so that China doesn't push around Japan, Korea, etc in a way that is bad for US economic interests.

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#118

Post by JumpCrisscross »

iooi wrote: post #102
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a foreign disinformation campaign smearing the program Do we have any evidence of this? > Remember that time we bankrupted the USSR in an arms race? This time we're doing it to ourselves The Soviets spent 25% of their national income on their military in 1980 [1]. Most years, it was above 10%. In contrast, the United States spends low single digits of its GDP on its military [2]. [1] https://nintil.com/2016…

Wow, talk about cherry picking. > The Soviets spent 25% of their national income > United States spends low single digits of its GDP Why are you comparing income vs GDP? Apples and oranges, please.. "In FY 2017, the Congressional Budget Office reported spending of $590 billion for defense, about 15% of the federal budget." [1] [1] https://www.cbo.gov/system/files?file=115th-congress-2017-20...

> Why are you comparing income vs GDP?

GDP is a measure of national income, alongside GNP, GNI, NNI and NMP [1][2]. The article finds "one would say that military spending was around 10-20% of Soviet GDP, so perhaps a compromise figure of 15%, around twice USA spending."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measures_of_national_income_an...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_material_product

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#119

Post by mikestew »

saas_sam wrote: post #30
kibwen wrote: post #26

Over a trillion dollars over 28 years. There are about 250 million U.S. taxpayers. That's $150 out of the pocket of every single taxpayer, every year, just to cover the cost of this one monumentally embarrassing failure. If you're a U.S. citizen born after 1974, you've been setting fire to this money annually for your entire adult life. No value has been provided other than as a government subsidy to military contrac…

I mean it's not like the money just went into a hole. These things were built by U.S. factories. Not the best use of taxpayer money by any means, and we are right to be angry, I just want to point that out.

I mean it's not like the money just went into a hole.

It went into a big ol' hole that had a billboard next to it labelled "Opportunity Cost".

Re: US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

#120

Post by davemp »

kibwen wrote: post #26

Over a trillion dollars over 28 years. There are about 250 million U.S. taxpayers. That's $150 out of the pocket of every single taxpayer, every year, just to cover the cost of this one monumentally embarrassing failure. If you're a U.S. citizen born after 1974, you've been setting fire to this money annually for your entire adult life. No value has been provided other than as a government subsidy to military contrac…

This is an overreaction.

The F35 is a maturing platform. Issues are being ironed out and the result will be an incredible aircraft far beyond any other fighter currently flown. There is a product.

The run away price tag certainly shows inefficiencies of contracting at this scale. Accountability is not really there for companies that do not perform to the level required to honor their contracts. Patents, required expertise, and other logistical hurdles keep competitors few.

Building military systems is not software, there are so many considerations and potential roadblocks. Tests cost millions and take months to years. Think of how difficult and expensive it is to make an iPhone--iPhones don't have to perform deft aerial maneuvers at Mach speed, win the (complex as hell) radar/sensor game of cat&mouse, and hit things with missiles. $1 trillion sounds like a lot, but keep in mind our beloved iPhone company is worth about that much. My iPhone 8 certainly provides me more direct value as an individual, but the capability of an F35 is not a cheap thing.

Post reply on HN