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Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

breakingdefense.com

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Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#51

Post by wmf »

modeless wrote: post #35
adastra22 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's how the government operates. Same with the initial COTS and Commercial Crew awards to SpaceX: it was paired with a similar contracts to Orbital and Boeing, to make sure that if the untested startup failed there would be a traditional contractor ready to take up the slack.

Hopefully this time the incumbent doesn't get paid twice as much for a worse outcome, as happened with Commercial Crew... NASA paid Boeing 4.5 billion and counting, SpaceX 2.6 billion. SpaceX launched astronauts to ISS 7 times, completely fulfilling the original contract, and continues to launch on new contracts with NASA. Meanwhile Boeing has yet to fly a single astronaut and required NASA to pay them extra for thei…

If those are the two lowest bids what else are you going to do?

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#52

Post by ranger_danger »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #9
geor9e wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That term isn't in the article, and it's Wikipedia page doesn't have anything about military. It just says it's a Linux distro. I'm out of the loop.

Some of the more leftwing NixOS contributors hate that Anduril is using their technology and are trying to keep them from contributing/sponsoring/etc. via code of conduct changes.

Honestly I think military is just a scapegoat for these people, their real mission (like many before them) seems to be using the lack of CoC acceptance as their own weapon to justify bullying them for having opinions they don't like. That has always been the MO.

They want the CoC to be able to silence undesired speech in the first place, and if they refuse, it becomes their strawman to allow them to keep arguing the same thing all over again.

To me this reeks of the "paradox of intolerance" e.g. "you cannot be inclusive without allowing people to say things you don't like".

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#53

Post by inemesitaffia »

throwup238 wrote: post #47
modeless wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because it's way better to make swarms of dirt cheap drones

No one makes swarms in any real sense of the word, either. These unmanned Wingman jets will be the first in the world to do that too.

Look up Rogozins comments about how Ukrainians operate drones for a Russian loyalist perspective

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#54

Post by vkou »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #50
vkou wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if their warhawk counterparts hold their next shindig somewhere in Gaza (So they can see first-hand what the consequences of their work and advocacy look like).

If you don’t want to build weapons because you don’t like the variety of ways they may be wielded, that’s a valid and reasonable ethical stance. If you don’t want to build anything that could ever potentially be used in the manufacture of those weapons, you probably shouldn’t be building open source software or contributing anything to do with any programming language at all.

I will point out that I am well aware of, and respect the stance that bad things done multiple-degrees-removed-from-you are not, like, entirely your responsibility. Or even necessarily your responsibility at all.

I did, however, have to expand on the concept that it's very easy to have strong opinions about war when you yourself are sheltered from the consequences of it.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#55

Post by dralley »

torginus wrote: post #46
anyfactor wrote: post #40

Is Anduril really that good? I am trying to figure out what is the potential of Anduril is. Their first phase product was in observability towers for border protection, then they made drone-ramming drones and now unmanned fighter jets. I am genuinely curious. I was in the whole retail investor space since early 2010s which saw the EV hype. Workhorse was supposed to supply vans for federal postal vans, Nikola had that…

The problem in the US defense industry is, that since the end of the cold war, defense companies have consolidated into just 5 huge conglomerates and the lack of competition wasn't great for the pace of innovation, affordability or timely development. And the Cold War ended more than three decades ago, about the time we went from piston aircraft to the teen series jets making up the bulk of US inventory even today. I…

There's definitely more than one problem with defense procurement, one of the biggest problems is simply having straightforward, acheivable goals in the first place and not fucking with them halfway through the process.

And honestly at this point the Air Force is handling this much better than the other branches. Despite all the delays and cost overruns on the F-22 and F-35 projects, at least we ended up with really fantastic and capable platforms. The B-21 is also basically on time and budget, which is nice.

Compare that to the Navy's LCS program, a massively expensive clusterfuck with very few redeeming qualities.

The Army is somewhere in the middle.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#56

Post by anyfactor »

torginus wrote: post #46
anyfactor wrote: post #40

Is Anduril really that good? I am trying to figure out what is the potential of Anduril is. Their first phase product was in observability towers for border protection, then they made drone-ramming drones and now unmanned fighter jets. I am genuinely curious. I was in the whole retail investor space since early 2010s which saw the EV hype. Workhorse was supposed to supply vans for federal postal vans, Nikola had that…

The problem in the US defense industry is, that since the end of the cold war, defense companies have consolidated into just 5 huge conglomerates and the lack of competition wasn't great for the pace of innovation, affordability or timely development. And the Cold War ended more than three decades ago, about the time we went from piston aircraft to the teen series jets making up the bulk of US inventory even today. I…

Thank you very much. I feel like engineering innovation has been concentrated on technology and not in defense engineering at all.

Immigrants have helped a lot in building the tech sector's innovation in the last half of the century. But the defense industry often requires naturalized citizens to work on these projects. I think there is a difference between immigrants coming to North America to work and eventually settling down, and offshoring work outside of North America. Immigrants cannot work in the defense sector while private companies are more than glad to have them work on their projects. The challenge is that the current framework for innovation may not qualify for the defense industry.

In the pre-Cold War era, the concept of American innovation was largely fueled by industrialization and academic participation in government sectors. Post-2000s, I feel like American innovation is rooted in the idea of diversity and America's ability to bring talent from across the world and concentrate it in major cities.

My thesis is that the US wants one or two American companies with monopolistic nature to build their future defense sector.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#57

Post by gantron »

Dalewyn wrote: post #25
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #13

Why General Atomics? They are also yet another defense incumbent that needs to be disrupted. They make the Predator and other current UAVs, which are all expensive and uninteresting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_Aeronautical_S... In general I think the government needs to move contracts away from older companies and fund young innovative ones. Partnerships between young and old simply sustain the inc…

>They are also yet another defense incumbent that needs to be disrupted. The first and arguably only mission of the Department of Defense is to win wars. Diversifying the economy is none of their concern beyond having a economy with which to fuel their war machines. If you want diversification of the economy, look towards the Department of Commerce. Or to put it another way: Thumping your diversity drum doesn't win y…

Optionality, even for a monopsony like the Defense industry, is good for the consumer (Pentagon). They still want suppliers to compete.

What incentive is there for a company to innovate if the DoD allows their competitors to die out? When it's time to buy a new fighter jet (or whatever else) those acquisitions chiefs want several options, same as any consumer.

The OUSD for Acquisition & Sustainment publishes lengthy analyses on competition within the industry and how to stoke it. [0]

[0] https://media.defense.gov/2022/Feb/15/2002939087/-1/-1/1/STA...

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#58

Post by ycombinete »

anyfactor wrote: post #40

Is Anduril really that good? I am trying to figure out what is the potential of Anduril is. Their first phase product was in observability towers for border protection, then they made drone-ramming drones and now unmanned fighter jets. I am genuinely curious. I was in the whole retail investor space since early 2010s which saw the EV hype. Workhorse was supposed to supply vans for federal postal vans, Nikola had that…

This FT long piece on Palmer Lucky, and Anduril has some good context: https://www.ft.com/content/ce6f96f8-6ab8-4089-b7db-f99db22c2...

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#59

Post by mrpippy »

throwup238 wrote: post #8
dralley wrote: post #7

It's nice to see a contract go to someone that isn't Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, or Boeing every now and then.

And to a new-ish company like Anduril, too! Palmer Lucky and Co founded it in 2017 which is baby years for a lead defense contractor on a major project like this. IIUC this is the Wingman program for the F22 and F35 so these aren't "slow" drones like predators, these are going to be high performance jets. This is a serious contract!

The Fury program being sold here was developed by Blue Force Technologies (founded in 2010), which Anduril purchased last year.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#60

Post by aprilthird2021 »

anyfactor wrote: post #56
torginus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in the US defense industry is, that since the end of the cold war, defense companies have consolidated into just 5 huge conglomerates and the lack of competition wasn't great for the pace of innovation, affordability or timely development. And the Cold War ended more than three decades ago, about the time we went from piston aircraft to the teen series jets making up the bulk of US inventory even today. I…

Thank you very much. I feel like engineering innovation has been concentrated on technology and not in defense engineering at all. Immigrants have helped a lot in building the tech sector's innovation in the last half of the century. But the defense industry often requires naturalized citizens to work on these projects. I think there is a difference between immigrants coming to North America to work and eventually se…

Innovation has not been in defense engineering lately because the US has lost A LOT of public trust when it comes to the defense industry in the wake of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The US is not the country, nor do they have the reputation in front of the public that led to the Manhattan project, where the greatest minds would willingly work on defense projects, not just willingly but eagerly.

The breakthroughs are also less than they used to be. We have the nuke. We have reached space. We've hit the peaks. Everything else is just automatic turrets and AI to choose who to kill.

I remember being in college. I went to a top CS school (perhaps the top CS school), and it was often considered a black mark if you went to work for a defense company (even Palantir). It was also a different time, when we had our pick of companies to work at, not like today. But that sentiment is hard to shake off. I'm not convinced it is not still large in academia and the CS world today

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