Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

Post by coredog64 » Mon, May 02, 2016, 9:22 PM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #61

coredog64 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, the F-22 has the equivalent of a Harris Night Hawk computer onboard. That was a big deal 20 years ago , but computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today. My memory, faulty as it may be, seems to recall a two page ad in AW&ST touting the Night Hawk "supercomputer" that would be in each F-22.

There are very few functional requirements on that kind of a system that are linearly improved by a faster computer - it's not like they're mining bitcoins in flight. "Doing X in real time" is usually the goal and any faster is superfluous. OTOH, "X percent more robust when pulling G's / subjected to EMP / hit by shockwave" is an excellent property to have, so you stick with simpler systems.

Post by cowardlydragon » Mon, May 02, 2016, 9:37 PM UTC

ChrisBland wrote: post #34

When viewing the F-35 through the lens of a defense project, it looks silly. You must also realize that this is also an indirect federal jobs program. When the F-35 would replace other aircraft and their roles, the bases, parts suppliers, and ...sub contractors those people had to be kept employed. No member of congress wanted to say don't add that or build that if it would hurt their district. So much backroom deali…

Post by stcredzero » Mon, May 02, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

neurotech1 wrote: post #87

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RAND published a writeup of joint acquisition programs recently: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/MG1200/... Spoiler: they're a bad idea.

RAND didn't mention the commonality between the F/A-18A and the F-117A aircraft. McDonnell-Douglas significantly upgraded the YF-17 mission systems and cockpit avionics for the F/A-18A/B and it was more advanced than the F-16A version at the time. The F-117A basically used the same mission avionics and engines as the F/A-18 which was a few years ahead in development. Having inter-service commonality in major systems…

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, May 02, 2016, 9:58 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #96

hga wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project Or an example of how we don't learn from history, for the same exact thing happened with the '60s TFX, except the F-35 substitutes S/VTOL for air superiority. 5 models of it were planned, two for the Navy, all but what ended up as the F-111 were canceled, and we resumed building focused planes like the F-14 through F-16, and the A-10 I…

>>Or an example of how we don't learn from history Of course we learn from history. The thing you have to understand is that everything is working as intended. F-35, and programs like it, are a way to use public money to create private sector jobs. They aren't meant to be efficient or even effective means to develop and manufacture military hardware. You can see a direct analogy of this in the space sector, where Spa…

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, May 02, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

engi_nerd wrote: post #89

dajohnson89 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time classifying the computational power of a smartphone as latest-and-greatest.

That's almost irrelevant. The point is, the computational power on even a 5th generation fighter is much less than a flagship smartphone. Which is fine, because defense acquisition is on a completely different timescale than a typical consumer electronic product.