Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by enraged_camel » Tue, May 03, 2016, 3:44 AM UTC

jwatte wrote: post #159

enraged_camel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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…

It is an extremely inefficient jobs program, an extremely inefficient research program, and an extremely inefficient aircraft. As he said: do one thing, and do it well. It /is/ a pretty good wealth distribution program, though. If you count dollars distributed, not number of recipients.

>>It is an extremely inefficient jobs program, an extremely inefficient research program, and an extremely inefficient aircraft.

Yep. Just like the aircraft: tries to do too many things, ends up sucking at all of them.

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

#162

Post by rhizome » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:26 AM UTC

hga wrote: post #155

tomohawk wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad was a fighter pilot in the USAF at the time the F-111 was supposed to come out. It was late, so he ended up flying the F-100. McNamara was the genius pushing the F-111. Also the genius behind the Ford Edsel. When he came to visit the base one time, one of the NCOs who was near retirement had an Edsel painted in the camo pattern specified for the F-111. It was parked within clear view so that McNamara could see…

From my reading of the excellent book Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965-1972 ( http://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972... ) that would imply your father was fighting over South Vietnam (or perhaps to the west), but, hmmm, it didn't mention F-111 missions at all. For the big operations up north, the Air Force used up its F-105 inventory, and had to switch to their own version of the Nav…

I haven't read anything, but certainly killing the Edsel could have been his predecessor's idea, but it was too late and the task was saved to give some shine to McNamara. That happens (or seems to) in exec pushouts all the time.

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

#163

Post by tanderson92 » Tue, May 03, 2016, 7:27 AM UTC

popmystack wrote: post #138

enraged_camel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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…

The thing you have to understand is that your initial statement has literally no foundation to it. There isn't any solid proof that program failures like this are direct means to keeping workers employed (where it is implied that they otherwise wouldn't be). I am also not really sure how some crazy guy (I am being hyperbolic) betting hundreds of millions of dollars (some of it his own funds) somehow becomes analogous…

It's hard to say with any certainty, to be sure. But I wouldn't be so skeptical -- Nixon did after all announce the Space Shuttle program in part to help secure his re-election. That too in California in a naked attempt to win SoCal.

Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=kje_BAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA12&ots=...

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

#164

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Tue, May 03, 2016, 8:49 AM UTC

hga wrote: post #155

tomohawk wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad was a fighter pilot in the USAF at the time the F-111 was supposed to come out. It was late, so he ended up flying the F-100. McNamara was the genius pushing the F-111. Also the genius behind the Ford Edsel. When he came to visit the base one time, one of the NCOs who was near retirement had an Edsel painted in the camo pattern specified for the F-111. It was parked within clear view so that McNamara could see…

From my reading of the excellent book Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965-1972 ( http://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972... ) that would imply your father was fighting over South Vietnam (or perhaps to the west), but, hmmm, it didn't mention F-111 missions at all. For the big operations up north, the Air Force used up its F-105 inventory, and had to switch to their own version of the Nav…

"It was late, so he ended up flying the F-100."

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

#165

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Tue, May 03, 2016, 8:51 AM 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…

Decades ago there was the Boeing/Airbus fight over government spending in the aerospace industry.

Boeing was angry that Airbus got cheap credi backed by or from the government, Airbus was angry because Boeing got all the military money from the government.

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

#166

Post by gaius » Tue, May 03, 2016, 9:10 AM UTC

setra wrote: post #119

gaius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-35 could splash any harrier derivative from afar And an X-wing could take out an F-35, I mean, if we're talking complete hypotheticals. The Harrier is battle-proven everywhere from the Falklands to Afghanistan. Marry it up with modern radar and air-to-air missiles and you will have a very capable platform - one that the F-35 - if it ever flies in combat - which it won't because no-one will risk those mind-bogglingl…

I am not convinced than an X-wing would beat an F-35. Do you notice that the cannons on the X-wing have a slow rate of fire, and the beams move slowly through the air. Not to mention the limited missile capabilities.

There's that but the X-wing's repulsorlift gives it superior V/STOL capability to the F-35 remember.

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

#167

Post by hga » Tue, May 03, 2016, 10:34 AM UTC

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #164

hga wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my reading of the excellent book Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965-1972 ( http://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972... ) that would imply your father was fighting over South Vietnam (or perhaps to the west), but, hmmm, it didn't mention F-111 missions at all. For the big operations up north, the Air Force used up its F-105 inventory, and had to switch to their own version of the Nav…

"It was late, so he ended up flying the F-100."

From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-100_Super_Sab...):

Adapted as a fighter bomber, the F-100 was supplanted by the Mach two class F-105 Thunderchief for strike missions over North Vietnam. The F-100 flew extensively over South Vietnam as the air force's primary close air support jet until being replaced by the more efficient subsonic LTV A-7 Corsair II.

And this was mentioned in passing in Clashes.

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

#168

Post by hga » Tue, May 03, 2016, 10:39 AM UTC

tanderson92 wrote: post #163

popmystack wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you have to understand is that your initial statement has literally no foundation to it. There isn't any solid proof that program failures like this are direct means to keeping workers employed (where it is implied that they otherwise wouldn't be). I am also not really sure how some crazy guy (I am being hyperbolic) betting hundreds of millions of dollars (some of it his own funds) somehow becomes analogous…

It's hard to say with any certainty, to be sure. But I wouldn't be so skeptical -- Nixon did after all announce the Space Shuttle program in part to help secure his re-election. That too in California in a naked attempt to win SoCal. Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=kje_BAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA12&ots=...

NASA was always a jobs program as well as what it ostensibly was for, it was officially tasked with industrially uplifting the South, which became an even bigger thing when LBJ became president. The area to the immediate northeast of MIT was still mostly a wasteland when I showed up in 1979 because NASA all of a sudden decided that Houston was the ideal place to put the Mission Control Center....

After Apollo, that became many times more what it was for.

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

#169

Post by GVIrish » Tue, May 03, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

engi_nerd wrote: post #104

GVIrish wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, to a degree, several modern fighter aircraft have run into significant cost and schedule overruns due to the additional complexity born of new advanced capabilities. However, the F-35's woes are particularly bad because of some disastrous decisions made early on with the project. First, the government decided not to start out with drafting detailed requirements for the JSF like they have for previous aircraft (a…

Your substance is right and I have no major disagreements with any of your points. I do have some comments and a few very minor corrections which do not substantially change your argument, but which you may find useful. I'm going to assume that someone who wrote such a reasoned response would find these minor corrections of interest. On requirements: as an engineer I know how disastrous it is to write bad requirement…

> But, also, the government has, by and large, shifted its engineering focus away from systems design and more towards systems engineering and integration. Also, in general, the government cannot pay the same kinds of salaries that contractors do. So, even if the government had wanted to take a more active role in systems design, it would have found itself lacking the right people to do so effectively. This doesn't excuse the lack of requirements, but it does offer an explanation as to why the government didn't take a more active role in design.

Unfortunately this is a trend that's happening all over government. There's this pervasive idea that contractors can do it better so over time the government has less and less full-time employees with the technical expertise they need. Glad you brought up this point because this is a prime example of how this philosophy can be very costly.

It does seem like the program has been running better under Bogdan but at the same time you still have many staunch defenders who refuse to acknowledge reality (like the USMC). Maybe it'll all work itself out but I feel like realistically we'll probably need to produce more legacy aircraft (Superhornets, F16E's) as a stopgap at the least. At worst they may have to short cycle the F-35 and bring the replacement(s) sooner than anticipated.

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

#170

Post by Gravityloss » Tue, May 03, 2016, 4:47 PM UTC

neurotech1 wrote: post #115

Gravityloss wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution should be relatively straightforward. Purpose built different airframes, with relatively conservative technology. Share components where it makes sense. Manufacture lots of airframes and spares. Update components later. The next US fighter / attack program is going to be like that. It aims a lot lower and should be more predictable. I've lost track if it's called F-X or F/A-XX or what now, and what are t…

There is 3 different models of super Hornets. 1) F/A-18E Strike Fighter 2) F/A-18F FAC(A) CAS/Strike Fighter 3) EA-18G Growler Commonality is ~80% between all 3 aircraft. They could probably make a F/A-XX based on F/A-18E/F with similar avionics, and engines based on the F135 in a larger airframe, but they could make it happen relatively economically if that was the priority.

It's not a good design in the stealth and supercruise departments.

Back in the sixties and seventies when the Hornet was designed, modern stealth shaping was not really known.

Modern airframes could be a lot more capable.