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US military grounds entire fleet of F-35 jets

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

#121

Post by pohl »

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…

Don't let anybody give you a hard time for saying "at the turn of the century." I keep writing 1999 on my checks, too.

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

#122

Post by kibwen »

melling wrote: post #53
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…

We spent $1 trillion on the war in Iraq in 10 years. Another trillion in Afghanistan. Our budget deficit starting next year will be $1 trillion a year for the next decade. While I think the F35 project was a mess, there are even bigger problems in comparison. The interest on the debt is going to grow to an incredible amount: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-skyrocketing-interest-payme...

There's no reason to suspect that my opposition to the F-35 implies support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, I'll be explicit: the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were and are shameful, deplorable wastes of human life and resources.

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

#123

Post by mrguyorama »

chris72205 wrote: post #43
robotrout wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a very educational tweet steam. I hadn't heard of 2/3rds of the issues he raised.

I'd take some of it with a grain of salt. He brought up one point about peeling paint and requiring special hangars. But outside of the RT article he linked to, I can't find mention of that elsewhere. I didn't look into all of his points, but that one struck as me a little ridiculous even for this flying bucket of crap... which makes me question some of his other tweets in that stream.

>Every time they're flown, they have to be repainted. And because the F-35's fuel is heat sensitive, EVERY TRUCK THAT CARRIES IT ALSO has to be painted with a special heat-resistant paint.

I would be INCREDIBLY surprised if the F-35 were to use a different fuel than standard.

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

#124

Post by barrow-rider »

smacktoward wrote: post #73
nkantar wrote: post #5

I haven't been paying any specific attention to F-35 news, but I can only ever recall reading negative press. I know this particular project has been extra troubled, but is that the norm for new military vessels/vehicles?

Yes it is, for American weapons systems at least. And it has been so for many decades now. It's extremely common for the first version of a new weapons system to have major (or even disastrous) flaws that only get ironed out in later revisions at great expense. Here's one example. Today's median American soldier's primary weapon is the M4 carbine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine ), which by all accounts is…

> And when it finally rolled out, it came not only with a set of cleaning tools, but with a comic book-style manual by the famous comic artist Will Eisner explaining exactly how to use them (which you can read here: http://www.astrotx.com/M-16A1%20Rifle.pdf).

That's an amazing piece of technical writing. The chick with the camel toe is probably a little much and wouldn't fly these days, but I'd love to have something like this to issue to Jr. Network Engineers.

"Spiderman explains how Spanning Tree works"

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

#125

Post by kibwen »

mrbonner wrote: post #64
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…

How do you ratify the hidden benefits of advanced researches going along with the aircraft? Have you seen the flight helmet with integrated HUD? I think it is out of this world. And it is just one of the many advanced technologies created in the process. Saying this is a waste of money is akin to say NASA mission is a waste of money.

I hate the argument that we should tolerate wasteful military spending because it sometimes creates accidentally results in useful applications. For $1 trillion dollars, how many millions of worthwhile discoveries could have been devised by directly investing in scientific research?

Saying that military spending is a worthwhile vehicle for useful research is akin to saying that a worthwhile way to power a car is to use gasoline to heat a water boiler to drive a steam turbine. The inefficiency is astounding.

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

#126

Post by pavelrub »

kibwen wrote: post #106
ChuckMcM wrote: post #50

Most people reading will recognize that it is a standard procedure to ground everything until you understand the risk. In this case the risk is a faulty fuel line, and apparently there is a test that will let you know in the field if you have it or not so you can return the plane to service immediately if the test comes up negative. There is a remarkable amount of disinformation that is spread around about this plane…

> assumes it is because it is so far beyond what "opposing" forces can field they will do anything to delay its operation This doesn't hold water; nation-state propaganda doesn't have any effect on the funding this program receives. Nobody should have any trouble believing that an overly-ambitious pie-in-the-sky kitchen-sink project that has been in development for 30 years might be having a hard time meeting its lof…

What a bizzare comparison. The shuttle isn't a fighter jet and and has nothing to do with this. The question is what military value does the F-35 provide, and will provide, during its operational years. Nothing about the history of the shuttle program can possibly give us an answer to this question, and the entire comparison is absurd.

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

#127

Post by dragontamer »

dragonwriter wrote: post #105
dragontamer wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure if any other sea-bearing vessel has a ton of helicopters that can deliver supplies to and from a remote area (ie: Puerto Rico once all the roads were wiped out by Hurricane Maria). Helicopters need an area to land and refuel. The pilots need an area to sleep. Carriers seem like the ideal service vehicle. And sure, the Nimitz class carrier, with two nuclear reactors and outfitted with enough weaponry to tak…

> The alternative is to build a ton of smaller carriers... but smaller carriers can't launch airplanes. Outside of the US supercarriers, all other carriers are smaller, and many launch planes (often V/STOL aircraft, particularly commonly Harriers.)

Fair. But still, the point stands. The shorter the runway, the fewer planes you can launch.

And yes, there's a catapult to help launch the planes, but the longer the runway, the less stress you put on the planes, and the more kinds of airplanes can land on your carrier.

US Supercarriers have more than just fighter-jets, they also have larger cargo aircraft like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_C-2_Greyhound. Capable of delivering 5-tons of cargo over 1300 miles.

I don't believe Britain (which does have fleets of smaller carriers) have any support for such a large cargo-aircraft. They're limited to helicopter delivery. Long-range delivery is most efficient with wing-aircraft.

I'm not an expert on the HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier. Are you aware of any cargo-aircraft ability of the smaller carrier? (And mind you: The Queen Elizabeth is the 2nd largest carrier-class in the world. So even if it can do it, the fact remains that you need to build BIG carriers if you wish to support remote delivery of cargo through aircrafts)

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

#128

Post by kibwen »

barrow-rider wrote: post #112
Buldak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Considering that this has been flagged off the front page after receiving 92 upvotes in one hour, I'd say you may be on to something.

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

#129

Post by throwaway0255 »

sololipsist wrote: post #6
DJBunnies wrote: post #2

If only it were permanent.

Why? Air superiority is important for power projection. Edit: So I'm getting a comments here that are much lower-quality than I expect from this place. Geopolitics is not like interpersonal relationships. There is nobody governing governments. It's a free-for-all, literally the state of nature. In societies it seems like "Might makes right" is a dated concept, but you have to remember that's within the frame of a gov…

Your comment post-edit is pretty much the reason I read HN.

This model of geopolitics as an ungoverned society of nations is something I’ve never considered.

Then, the natural tendency of people within governed societies to analyze geopolitics as if governed social dynamics applied to it could clearly lead to some disastrous conclusions.

It also illuminates the tension between people who greatly value our military, and people who are just frustrated with it and casually declare from their bedrooms and TV studios that we should cut spending in half because it’s all such a waste. As if nations are nice people, and as if a weapon provides no value unless it is used.

Both groups mostly want the same things: a safe place to live, explore, work, have friends and family, and enjoy their lives. They just have a different model for how they understand geopolitics and the state that it’s in.

Lately I’ve noticed an increase in politically-motivated downvotes on HN. I think that’s really unfortunate. This was probably comment of the year for me.

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

#130

Post by standerman »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #50

Most people reading will recognize that it is a standard procedure to ground everything until you understand the risk. In this case the risk is a faulty fuel line, and apparently there is a test that will let you know in the field if you have it or not so you can return the plane to service immediately if the test comes up negative. There is a remarkable amount of disinformation that is spread around about this plane…

Maybe it's from the project running over budget by hundreds of Billions of dollars and being a decade late?
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