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Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

thedrive.com

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Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#131

Post by waiseristy »

tpmx wrote: post #108
waiseristy wrote: post #8

After seeing what happened in Armenia & Azerbaijan, I'm wondering if the US's customers are pushing for these cheaper drone options instead of the F35. The F35 has been in development so long, that it's seeing its own combat role supplanted

> After seeing what happened in Armenia & Azerbaijan I don't think I was the only one to miss how that conflict related to the F35. Do tell?

I think the rest of the sentence answers that

> I'm wondering if the US's customers are pushing for these cheaper drone options

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#132

Post by SkyMarshal »

guscost wrote: post #11

Weird theory of mine: The DoD ultimately picks these winning planes based on which one “looks cooler” or basically has better aesthetics. I think the F-35 has better aesthetics than the Boeing X-32, just like the F-22 has better aesthetics than the YF-23. You could say I’m used to seeing the winning designs as “normal”, but I distinctly remember having this reaction before the JSF competition was over.

The F-35 definitely looks nicer than the Boeing X-32 did, but F-22 vs YF-23 is more of a tossup, "eye-of-the-beholder" thing. Back during that competition I actually liked the looks of the YF-23 better, but the F-22 won because it was just a better air superiority fighter (YF-23 had no thrust vectoring, not as maneuverable). F-22 has since grown on me aesthetically.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#133

Post by GVIrish »

onepointsixC wrote: post #124
jolux wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-35 has been plagued with near-continuous setbacks for its entire life, and reporting on them is notable because it puts a spotlight on our colossal failure to execute on something we consider important (defense technology). It's not just The Drive.

So just like any real engineering project? Or am I to really believe that the software engineers here are of some other worldly caliber who build flawless products? The "near-continuous setbacks" are reminiscent of same exact comments on the F-16[1] and the F-18[2] during their development and acquisition cycles. Building things is hard. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkrtxDdaWuM [2]: https://www.youtube.com/wa…

The F-35 program is more like the F-111 than the F-16 or F/A-18, except in the case of the F-35 the DoD doubled down instead cutting their losses early.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#134

Post by dragonwriter »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #113
mrtksn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones should be inherently better anyway since they don’t have to carry 80KG of meat that needs to be kept alive.

The F-35 is intended to be in service for decades longer than the Air Force is expecting to have human pilots in combat roles. One of the reasons the F-35 has had such a complex production history is that it's designed to be both the last fighter platform flown by humans and the first flown by AI.

> The F-35 is intended to be in service for decades longer than the Air Force is expecting to have human pilots in combat roles. One of the reasons the F-35 has had such a complex production history is that it's designed to be both the last fighter platform flown by humans and the first flown by AI.

One of many, many ways that the F-35s cost and development timeline has been blown up by trying to do too many different and incompatible, or at least non-complementary, things with one platform.

As lots of critics were pointing out as a problem with the project from the beginning.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#135

Post by mrtksn »

jariel wrote: post #126
mrtksn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones should be inherently better anyway since they don’t have to carry 80KG of meat that needs to be kept alive.

They are not comparable. Drones are 'slow moving sitting ducks' that can be easily destroyed by an enemy with basic capabilities. You need 'some degree of air superiority' to use drones. That could mean extensive electronic warfare or whatever. But drones, in the way they are used as we see them today ... are easy targets for anyone with capability. So they are different things. Now, that said, it still may make more…

> slow moving sitting ducks

I don’t think this needs to be the case. Jets don’t fly fast because they have human inside.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#136

Post by doovd »

Animats wrote: post #92
WJW wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damen shipyards is on record for stating that they regularly tweak warship designs to "look sleeker and meaner" because it both makes the admirals happy and also reaffirms the beliefs of the public of how warships are "supposed" to look. I'd be very surprised if military aircraft designers did not do something similar. In any case it's also good military thinking. Sun Tzu already said that the pinnacle of warfare is…

That was an issue with US guided missile cruisers when vertical launch came in. The launchers just show as little hatches in the deck. There's usually a modest gun turret, the only visible weapon. There are some Close In Weapons System units, but they just look like machine guns. The USSR built ships with much more visible armament on deck, facing outward. Partly because it looked fierce, and partly because they didn…

> they didn't quite trust their missiles not to launch straight up and come back down on the ship.

This sounds like some ridiculous cold war propaganda, source?

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#137

Post by sandworm101 »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #119
ardit33 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. The F-35 as a bomb delivery platform might be already obsolete, as drones are far cheaper. You still need air defense/air superiority fighter though.

The F-35/s future role is as a sensor platform and networking hub for a group of lighter-weight, cheaper, and more expendable drones. Eventually the F-35 will also be unmanned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratos_XQ-58_Valkyrie

That thing should be called Valkryie II. The Valkyrie was a much more impressive aircraft, an almost legend that is too often forgotten.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#138

Post by jolux »

onepointsixC wrote: post #124
jolux wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-35 has been plagued with near-continuous setbacks for its entire life, and reporting on them is notable because it puts a spotlight on our colossal failure to execute on something we consider important (defense technology). It's not just The Drive.

So just like any real engineering project? Or am I to really believe that the software engineers here are of some other worldly caliber who build flawless products? The "near-continuous setbacks" are reminiscent of same exact comments on the F-16[1] and the F-18[2] during their development and acquisition cycles. Building things is hard. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkrtxDdaWuM [2]: https://www.youtube.com/wa…

I'd say the same thing about a software project that had been in development for 30 years like this. My opinion of GNU Hurd would be considerably more negative if it cost half a trillion dollars to develop.

Don't take it from me though, the Wiki article has an extensive section on the problems with the F-35's performance and its cost overruns and delays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning.... Or try Kelsey D. Atherton talking about the pitfalls of using it as a humorous unit of cost and explaining how it was used as a jobs program in addition to a defense program: https://twitter.com/AthertonKD/status/1331294614209392640?s=...

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#139

Post by waiseristy »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #119
ardit33 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. The F-35 as a bomb delivery platform might be already obsolete, as drones are far cheaper. You still need air defense/air superiority fighter though.

The F-35/s future role is as a sensor platform and networking hub for a group of lighter-weight, cheaper, and more expendable drones. Eventually the F-35 will also be unmanned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratos_XQ-58_Valkyrie

That's what Lockheed-Martin has been saying, but I'm pretty sure the F-35 is still deployed along-side an AWACS. And with more and better satellite imagery & communication. I just don't see why we need this extremely capable and expensive flying network router.

Re: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold

#140

Post by dragonwriter »

asdff wrote: post #88
stretchcat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The enemies of America are presumably meant to see American stealth aircraft in movies and TV shows, not over their capitols. However, I think these airplanes are indeed designed foremost for function. The similar appearances of the B-1 and Tu-160 suggest that when two planes are designed using similar technology with similar mission requirements, they tend to have a lot of similarities. (In the years since they were…

How many decades will it be before we see an F35 used in film?

> How many decades will it be before we see an F35 used in film?

Rounded to the closest whole decade, -1; the first movie to use actual, not CGI/model/etc., F-35s on film was Man of Steel (2013).

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