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

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

#771

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:58 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #767

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…

> How much of your $60,000 did you see? For that, you need to calculate the cost of every US govt program and calculate usage costs. Very complicated. However, this statement is confusing to me. Do you agree to a bailout, as a society, to eventually get all of it back? And, I also take issue with 100M tax payers. Are these Individual Income Tax payers? If so, what about all the non income tax payers and companiss tha…

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

#772

Post by greedo » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:59 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #748

greedo wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The F-15As were not better attack planes in 1981; the Israelis used them exclusively in air supremacy roles until 1985 when they bombed the PLO headquarters in Tunis. Israel had just received their F16As, but were well trained at Holloman AFB.

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

#773

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 2:59 AM UTC

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #379

misiti3780 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, I don't mean killing hundreds of thousands of people was good, but it did end WWII, and presumably saved lives that would have been lost via a land invasion (US + USSR)

This is far from how I learned it. I am not saying either of us is right, just noticing how interesting it is that historical facts taught differently completely change a person's perception. We will probably never learn the truth as none of us were there. I have always been told that Japan was already ready to surrender and that dropping the bombs was simply the first step into the cold war -- a bombing to show stre…

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

#774

Post by austhrow743 » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

caoilte wrote: post #680

rsj_hn wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is if you are going to order a million toilets, then moving all the risk to the contractor is fine. If you are asking for innovation and R&D, then the contractor already has a ton of risk. Add in requirements to make a fighter suitable for all branches of the military, and the risk is gigantic. In that environment, you need to remove risk from the contractor. This is why R&D projects can't be treate…

So don't do it fixed price but do cap allowable profits to 3-5% or so. That was how Apollo program was run.

You’re creating a situation where the only way they can increase profit is to increase total spend.

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

#775

Post by mlindner » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:06 AM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #584

the_af wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is far from how I learned it I'm also not from the US, and I was similarly surprised when I found their position on this piece of history differs with how it's learned in pretty much the rest of the world. Speak to someone outside the US about the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: most, if not all, will say it was a terrible thing, almost a war crime. In some (Western!) countries the consensus is that it was a…

Americans are finally accepting the truth around Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Especially now that so many documents around the war on declassified. But from the American perspective: it's easy to buy into the false narrative that the nuclear bombs "saved lives." We've all been raised with this notion that American is Inherently Good and that anything Bad America did was for the Greater Good. The Post-911 world has made it…

> Americans are finally accepting the truth around Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Especially now that so many documents around the war on declassified.

I think portraying it as the "truth" isn't very accurate. There's many versions of history and none is the "truth".

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

#776

Post by atommclain » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:10 AM UTC

jnwatson wrote: post #294

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…

They've been at this for more than 14 years. I was accidentally part of both the Boeing and Lockheed F-35 teams, and that was 23 years ago. For a humorous take on the U.S. military platform problem, look for a movie called The Pentagon Wars [1] starring Kelsey Grammar and Cary Elwes. It came out in 1998, and very little has changed since then. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144550/

I think this is the quintessential scene from that movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

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

#777

Post by brutusborn » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

sebmellen wrote: post #737

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've always wished for (and wanted to develop) a calculator which would take in your taxes paid, and calculate exactly how many dollars and cents of your tax bill went to which programs. I'm sure the results would shock most Americans.

I beleive this is part of the tax systems of a few nordic countries at least.

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

#778

Post by misiti3780 » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

Supermancho wrote: post #431

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is far from how I learned it. I am not saying either of us is right, just noticing how interesting it is that historical facts taught differently completely change a person's perception. We will probably never learn the truth as none of us were there. I have always been told that Japan was already ready to surrender and that dropping the bombs was simply the first step into the cold war -- a bombing to show stre…

> The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment ... It was a mistake to ever drop it ... [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it. That is a shockingly flippant quote that shows a lack of critical analysis. Disappointing. There was a political message in bombing Japan that communicated to Russia (and supported China). There was utility for the US. The Japanese were both di…

Yes, I have to disagree with that quote. Erico Fermi and Leo Szilard explicitly tried many times to prevent the bomb from being used. They were key scientists who were responsible for the bomb (Fermi discovered beta decay i think), and they knew what it mean once it was dropped.

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

#779

Post by misiti3780 » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:23 AM UTC

greens wrote: post #645

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 can't believe that you're talking about the mass-murder of civilians like it's some sort of triumph, especially since you could have made the exact same point citing the trinity test. And it's so weird that you use the term "toxic environment" right after that. IMO AI progress in the last 10 years has drastically exceeded reasonable expectations. You can buy a helicopter any time you want.

I dont think the "mass-murder of civilians like it's some sort of triumph", although I can see the way I wrote it sounds like that is what I mean (and I cannot edit it because of HN). Quit assuming bad faith in my comment. Why on earth would I think that ?

I meant that we discovered fission and then we built a bomb in under 6 years. Even if you disagree with the outcome of what happen in Japan, the Manhattan Project was an amazing scientific accomplishment, and there is no way the US could do something of that scale, scientifically in 2021.

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

#780

Post by rawgabbit » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 3:25 AM UTC

I find the Forbes article completely misreads the source article it quotes from: https://www.airforcemag.com/brown-launching-major-tacair-stu....

Unless the Forbes author has inside information, the airforcemag article in no shape or fashion says the F35 is a failure. The airforcemag article quoted Gen Brown saying the combat commanders are using the F35 too much. And wearing out the available ENGINES. With a limited budget and the mission he he has to fulfill he wants a cheaper alternative that he can sends into low threat theaters. And preserve the F35 if and when the US must fight near peer enemies. Eg Russia and China.