Would the F-35 be a good example of The Swamp of Commitment? [0]
* [0] http://www.amazon.com/Sway-Irresistible-Pull-Irrational-Beha...
F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
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Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#42Starting to think it is time for defense contractors to be disrupted. How many multibillion dollar fuckups of public money have these guys had.
What idea do you have?
Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#43We could clear out all student debt in the United States and have a handful of change left over... ...or we could build a plane that doesn't fly.
... For an enemy that doesn't exist in a war that won't happen... PS - Before people yell "China," China's air power isn't even on par with what the US currently has. Their only remotely threatening aircraft is a bad clone of the F-35.
Hard to say, how bad the clone is. At least they avoided some "not so great" design decisions, that made Marines happy with F35.
Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#44I realize "mean time between failures" doesn't mean what I think it means, but holy moley. The engine can only go 25 hours between failures instead of the 120 they're aiming for? That's a pretty big gap in performance and I wouldn't want to be flying one of these things.
"As of late December, engines on the Marine Corps’ complex version of the F-35, designed for short takeoffs and vertical landings, flew about 47 hours between failures caused by engine design issues instead of the 90 hours planned for this point, according to GAO officials. Air Force and Navy model engines flew about 25 hours between failures instead of the 120 hours planned."
Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
... For an enemy that doesn't exist in a war that won't happen... PS - Before people yell "China," China's air power isn't even on par with what the US currently has. Their only remotely threatening aircraft is a bad clone of the F-35.
There is a very illuminating video on Youtube by designer of F-16 and A-10 about F-35. Please remember F-22 is a very expensive plane and great for Air superiority, but you need planes in other roles. The Airforce in their sexy trip are trying to replace the reliable A-10 with the F-35. F-35 for ground support, bad bad bad idea, but the guys in Airforce have careers and they will have to move the needle, if you think…
Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#4690 - 120 hours is the target MTBF for a jet engine? _mind blown_ glad I am not in aeronautics.
Why use the mean and not the median? I would think that the likelihood of something failing is much higher during the first few hours than once it has been flying for a 100 hours.
Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#47They are already planning on using more advanced adaptive engine technology from the ADVENT program for future F-35 engines, since the program is going to last for quite a long time.
This could be related to campaigning against the current F135 engine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Versatile_Engine_Tech...
Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#48We could clear out all student debt in the United States and have a handful of change left over... ...or we could build a plane that doesn't fly.
...consider that this is a great illustration of the government's actual rather than stated priorities.
Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#49It's kind of amusing that the one Air Force in the world that has the most means to have different super-specialized planes for every use case has decided to sink a historic amount of money into an all-purpose plane that's not particularly good at one task. You would understand if a place like Panama decided "We can only afford 6 fighter jets and one maintenance team/infrastructure, so let's get F-35s because they'll cover multiple needs", but these are absolutely not the constraints of the United States.
Re: F-35 Engines from United Technologies Called Unreliable by GAO
#50Is there anyone happy with the F35 program who does not have a fiscal/political stake in it?
Is there anyone unhappy with the F-35 program who does have a fiscal/political stake in it?
I mean, we're all paying for it, so sure.
From what I understand, the F-35 is trying to be a single airframe that functions as both an air superiority fighter and ground support. Designed around things like vertical landing and short takeoff, which are frequently unnecessary and add complexity and design compromises elsewhere. And as far as actually being ground support, it's not an A-10. It's behind schedule and over budget. And there's the debate over what war this plane would be useful in (having a stick to wave at Russia?), because it's certainly not the kind of war we've been seeing recently.
There are a lot of better things we could do with my tax dollars. Like having a slightly less enormous national debt, if nothing else. Or having slightly more solvent social security so I can retire before I croak.