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The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

forbes.com

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Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#741

Post by wespiser_2018 »

cgearhart wrote: post #200
supernova87a wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe someone with more industry knowledge or interesting sources can corroborate -- But I believe that one of the things that happened to the military aviation industrial complex was that in the WW2, early Cold War era, planes and military development programs were very much driven by individuals or very small teams responsible for designing the requirements, overseeing the planning, and the outcome of new aircraft.…

At least three things happened: - congressional oversight increased, with the result that the purchasing authority is no longer generally the end user. We aren’t just buying a ship (plane, gun, etc.), we’re maintaining a logistics and manufacturing industrial base to produce that type of item (and maintain jobs in congressional districts). So maybe we should buy a few more tanks/ships/bombs than we need so that we do…

On risk tolerance, in WW2, the accident rate for a single seat fighter, the P-51, was 274 per 100,000 flight hours[1], for the last 10 years, that rate for f-16's is below 10, and for fatal accidents it's 0.76[2]. Although I'm not sure it's fair to make a 1-1 comparison as the modern accident rating system includes a few scenarios, the orders of magnitude difference is a great illustration of your point!

[1] http://pippaettore.com/Horrific_WWII_Statistics.html [2] https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Aviation/Airc...

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#742

Post by georgeecollins »

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #725

Putting aside the good-plane/bad-plane discussion, this program is the poster child for one of my pet wishes: that the costs of government programs would be expressed in $/tax-payer. There are about 100M tax payers in the US; this program is expected to cost about $1,500,000M; so the F35 program is expected to cost about $15,000 per tax payer. True: that's over 50 years; still, un-discounted, that's $300/year/tax-pay…

I think the stats for COVID site are very misleading, particularly when you compare them to defense spending. The majority of "COVID bailout" according to that website is "Federal Reserve Actions"-- just the vagueness of that statement should give you pause.

I am not saying Federal Reserve actions don't have a cost, but comparing that to defense spending is apples to oranges. The federal reserve buys securities and created SPVs. You could say that is a cost but by some measures the money the Federal Reserve "spent" made money in the 2009 crises. If that were true this time your cost per tax payer is way, way off.

Or to put it in more plain language, you are comparing the cost to tax payers if the US government bought $60,000 of Lockheed martin stock as opposed to paying Lockheed Martin $15,000 for a fighter that doesn't seem to work well. It's more complicated than that even, but still it is a terrible and biased comparison that you are making.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#744

Post by cgearhart »

TylerE wrote: post #702
cgearhart wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least three things happened: - congressional oversight increased, with the result that the purchasing authority is no longer generally the end user. We aren’t just buying a ship (plane, gun, etc.), we’re maintaining a logistics and manufacturing industrial base to produce that type of item (and maintain jobs in congressional districts). So maybe we should buy a few more tanks/ships/bombs than we need so that we do…

> So maybe we should buy a few more tanks/ships/bombs than we need so that we don’t forget Ironically most modern weapons programs do the exact opposite. Costs increase. So they cut orders. Which just makes the per unit costs increase even more. So they cut orders again. Repeat until program fails.

Right, the death spiral. But I’m actually talking about the infuriatingly counter-intuitive headlines about buying tanks that the army says we don’t need, or ships that we know will never work as planned. There are only so many places that can build such things, and if we let them go to mothballs then we lose all the manufacturing experience to do it at all—which is a risk for national defense. So the Navy says “I need $40m for planes!” but Congress takes $100M from the plane budget line to keep open the shipyard in Sen. So-and-so’s district. Seems terrible, but that might be the only place on earth that employs the folks who can build such a ship and that keeps it alive. I’m not saying it’s worth it…just that it’s worth considering.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#745

Post by irjustin »

F-35 had the same fundamental problems as the Space Shuttle.

High level requirements: Dog fighting, close in air support, stealth, long range, automatic weapon systems, VTOL variant.

It was said many times over the decade but this plane has no specialization, so it sucks at everything. F-16's can beat it in a dogfight, A-10's are better close support, etc etc.

The Space Shuttle was rightfully cancelled (Still, I was sad) because it was a bucket of requirements that had huge reliability and cost problems.

Don't worry, this will repeat itself. A bunch of specialized tools exist and then someone says "I can build you a swiss army knife" and someone high up gets sold the dream of the multi-function tool. "It's gonna solve all our problems, you'll see..."

The multi-function tool looks f'ing fantastic on paper. It does everything! Until you put it up against actual specialized hardware and then decision makers say "ohhhhh yeah that's why we did it like that..."

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#746

Post by ars »

jonny_eh wrote: post #189
misiti3780 wrote: post #86

The saddest thing about all of this IMO is they have been working on this for 14 years, and how much money was spent/wasted? Now, read about Skunkworks - they were able to build the SR71 (without supercomputers) in less than half that time and for a fraction of the cost. This isn't just planes, this seems to be everything nowadays. Fission was discovered in 1938/1939 and we dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945. No chan…

I thought the Singularity is near because innovation is accelerating. I'm perpetually confused.

It's not accelerating, IMO innovation has stalled quite a bit.

If you compare the speed of innovation between now and 30 years ago, the change is quite dramatic.

There will not ever be a Singularity.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#747

Post by cgearhart »

neaanopri wrote: post #720
cgearhart wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least three things happened: - congressional oversight increased, with the result that the purchasing authority is no longer generally the end user. We aren’t just buying a ship (plane, gun, etc.), we’re maintaining a logistics and manufacturing industrial base to produce that type of item (and maintain jobs in congressional districts). So maybe we should buy a few more tanks/ships/bombs than we need so that we do…

Risk tolerance is not just engineering, but also how comfortable we are risking human lives. In a "good war" like WW2 we should recognize that fighting that war is worth the risk and that casualties are going to happen. We don't need our own aircraft to compromise their performance to be 99.9% reliable instead of 99%, because we strongly believe we need to e.g. beat Hitler.

That’s true, but the uniform service folks are much more willing to take risk than they’re allowed to by the oversight process. That’s a big part of why it takes so long to develop and field new stuff. I understand why we do it, but I’m not convinced that we have the balance right.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#748

Post by protomyth »

greedo wrote: post #740
protomyth wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1981: Used by Israel to blow up Iraq nuclear reactor Oddly, they used F-15s to provide escort. This attack took place after two Phantom F-4-E of Iran missed.

Why "Oddly?" The F-15 was the best air supremacy fighter of that era; perfect for escorting bomb-laden F-16s that would have had a difficult time protecting themselves.

There F-15s were better attack planes at the time. They hadn't really had the F-16 that long.

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#749

Post by NewJazz »

paulmd wrote: post #704
CameronNemo wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a race to Godwin's law?

seeing as how nobody mentioned nazis, no.

The Holocaust also quickly went from theory to implementation. Those were the days, right? /s

Re: The U.S. Air Force just admitted the F-35 stealth fighter has failed

#750

Post by maxerickson »

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #725

Putting aside the good-plane/bad-plane discussion, this program is the poster child for one of my pet wishes: that the costs of government programs would be expressed in $/tax-payer. There are about 100M tax payers in the US; this program is expected to cost about $1,500,000M; so the F35 program is expected to cost about $15,000 per tax payer. True: that's over 50 years; still, un-discounted, that's $300/year/tax-pay…

Where did the other 40 million people go?

Also, the Federal Reserve spending is not backed by taxes.

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