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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

#131

Post by mattstreet »

bradfa wrote: post #33
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…

Sure, some of the money has gone to a small number of rich people, but there's quite a large number of working class people designing and assembling these planes. To say that the money has been set on fire or that no value has been provided seems a bit harsh, much of the money is employing a large number of skilled people in the USA and in other countries. And it's not just the USA taxpayers who are paying for this,…

Sure, that money actually paid people to do work and those people were then able to stimulate the economy, pay for their education, all that good stuff.

But that same money could have been spent to actually do something useful and it still would have had that economic impact.

*And now I see where everyone else already made this extremely obvious point.

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

#132

Post by nkantar »

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…

Thank you for the history lesson, that was thoroughly enjoyable! Bonus points for the comic book manual.

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

#133

Post by imtringued »

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…

When you consider that only 6 shuttles were ever built and the projected cost of the f35 program includes thousands of fighter jets and decades of maintenance then this will really open up your eyes how much of a failure the shuttles were.

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

#134

Post by netcan »

derefr wrote: post #109
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…

That's one way to explain the last 100 years, sure. Another way: militaries around the world stumbled upon a new source of low-hanging fruit (air supremacy), one that could win wars with just the slightest investment, as long as the enemy had invested less/none. Technological progress sped up in the space as everyone exploited the low-hanging fruit. Then, having picked all the low-hanging fruit, further advances in a…

OK. That's a possible antithesis.

It could be the ROI curve on the technology flattening out, the lack of competitive pressure or some combination.

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

#135

Post by belltaco »

sosborn wrote: post #31
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…

Out of curiosity, does the 250 million taxpayers include tax paying businesses?

Aren't the same tax payers paying for the business taxes as well through the increased price of goods?

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

#136

Post by dingaling »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59
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…

> Vietnam era seekers that would fly into the sun Hehe. Have a link?

It was first experienced by Taiwanese F-86 pilots during the Quemoy clashes with China in 1958. Their AIM-9B early-model Sidewinders had unfiltered seekers that considered the Sun as attractive a target as jet exhaust. Later models had bandpass filters to prevent that.

The contemporary AIM-4 Falcon missile had a much more sophisticated seeker but had to be cooled before firing and was useless once the coolant ran out, for example if the pilot took too long to get a lock.

Modern IR-guided missiles use imaging IR sensors and actually recognise target shapes.

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

#137

Post by Balgair »

derefr wrote: post #109
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…

That's one way to explain the last 100 years, sure. Another way: militaries around the world stumbled upon a new source of low-hanging fruit (air supremacy), one that could win wars with just the slightest investment, as long as the enemy had invested less/none. Technological progress sped up in the space as everyone exploited the low-hanging fruit. Then, having picked all the low-hanging fruit, further advances in a…

I worked with one of the BIG defense contractors for a while. There was this guy, Willy. Willy was a 'fellow' with the company, an engineer so advanced and critical to the company that they just let him do whatever he wanted. One of his PhDs was in chemistry, I think he was about 80 years old back then (~2010). He did not use email at all. I thought it was crazy at the time, but man, was WIlly right about that one. If you wanted to see him, you'd have to go over to him and talk or drop off the memo. He had a phone, but it was the bar down the street from the campus, as Willy was usually there, watching a game or working on something.

I remember WIlly telling us about a time, back in the Cold War, when he'd be given briefcases with empty aluminum bottles inside. They'd tell him to measure the air inside and tell them if he found anything strange about that air, chemically speaking. He didn't say if he had discovered anything strange, though.

WIlly's general expertise was ablative nose-cone chemistry, for re-entry. In fact, as he told it, his brain was the entire field of ablative nose-cone chemistry; at least in The West. He never wrote anything down about it, at least not much. It was all in his head.

This is what Willy had on the company and he had them over a barrel. I came to find out that 'fellows' were just guys that had retired, had never written anything down, and then HAD to be re-hired, at any cost. They were the only non-soviets that knew the engineering about so much of what the company did. That's why Willy could just not do email and have a bar as his phone number and be a general asshat about things. He was literally untouchable.

In fact, there were a lot of 'fellows' at the company. And it bled them dry [0].

In my view, that is why so much of the US's defense tech is going 'backwards'. There just isn't the work force. They called it the 'silver tsunami' [1]. Basically, the US hired for the Cold War and just really never hired again. That's why drones have been so big in the last few years: no humans on board means easier reqs to go through so that even undergrads can get the work done. The same is somewhat true in space and all the other aspects of warfighting.

So it's not just that the low-hanging fruit is already plucked, though I totally agree with you. It's that there just isn't the workforce anymore. It's a complicated issue, so it's going to have a lot of things that are 'wrong' with it and no one aspect is THE problem.

That said, the cyberwar has been going on for a while now. I'd look at CRISPR-CAS9 and optogenetics as the bleeding edge frontiers to get into.

[0] https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blog/real-estate/20...

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

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

#138

Post by sdinsn »

1024core wrote: post #99

> The crash in South Carolina involved an F-35B, which is able to land vertically and costs around $100m And earlier it mentions a total cost of the program of 1 trillion dollars. So we'd have to sell at least 10000 planes to have any hope of recouping the costs??

We aren't trying to recoup costs, The program also includes all service and support, repairs, etc.

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

#139

Post by melling »

kibwen wrote: post #122
melling wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Over the next decade, interest costs will total nearly $7 trillion, rising to become the third-largest 'program' in the federal budget."

If you thought a trillion dollars over thirty years for the most advanced jet in the world was a lot of money, how do you feel about getting absolutely nothing for $7 trillion?

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

#140

Post by jeffcore »

dragontamer wrote: post #98
maxxxxx wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Anyway, the point of power-projection is that these bases are mobile. As we finish up our job in Afghanistan / Iraq, we can move these super-carriers elsewhere for support. Puerto Rico was serviced by a super-carrier Abraham Lincoln for instance (hospitals on board, + Helicopters delivered supplies), while the Super-Carrier Ronald Regan helped Japan clean-up the Fukashima Nuclear disaster." I know that's reality but…

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…

While carriers are certainly used in this role, I've taken part in two such missions while deployed with the USS Ronald Reagan, there are ships that are more capable in handling humanitarian and disaster relief, and non-combatant evacuation efforts, such as LHDs -- which also have a larger complement of helicopters/V-22s and ground-troop support than a carrier.
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