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

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

#991

Post by p_l »

hansthehorse wrote: post #505
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…

The time from project start to first flight of the SR 71 was 47 months - with slide rules and manual drafting.

With heavy use of computers, including one special that was built just for the project effectively - and it was critical for the project getting off the ground at all. And even then a lot of the calculation was done on specialised scientific calculators operated by low-status (human) "computers".

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

#992

Post by chipsa »

p_l wrote: post #987
chipsa wrote: post #986

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the UK had all of those 4 different aircraft. But the F-35 is primarily a US aircraft, designed primarily for US purposes, and only bought by other nations as fitting their purposes close enough. The F-35B fits UK RN FAA requirements close enough, so they're buying it. The UK RAF has requirements that are better met by the F-35A, so they're doing that. The F-35B is explicitly the replacement for the Harrier (Sea…

The only reason FAA ended up with F-35B is that they were too late with the idea of switching to F-35C, which meant that they couldn't rebuild their new carriers for CATOBAR on reasonable time/money budget. Meanwhile F-35B exists pretty much only due to USMC to the point that I would be doubtful of any praise for the F-35 if it came from USMC crew. Then it got pushed as option for export, often seemingly presenting F…

Yeah, the RN screwed up their requirements such that the new UK carriers aren't actually going to be built for CATOBAR, even though they're supposed to be equipped for, but not with, the facilities to do so.

The F-35B is obviously not going to be capable in the same way as the A. However it's significantly more capable than the Harrier, which is the important part for everyone buying it. There is no other current STOVL carrier fighter jet available. And the reduced capabilities may largely not matter to those users, in exchange for the increased capabilities for being able to launch them off ships/very limited area land strips. I think the only nation that is going to not be launching them off ships is Singapore, which is very restricted in land area.

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

#993

Post by p_l »

captain_price7 wrote: post #315
Thorentis wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we just cant build cool shit anymore I sadly agree. Unis spend so much time teaching CAD software, processes, etc, you wonder how much understanding engineering grads actually have. I just think we've stagnated as a technological society. We rely so much on computers to do everything, that we can't innovate in the same way anymore. Unless our new x has an onboard super-computer, we just can't get it to do anything.

> Unis spend so much time teaching CAD software, processes, etc, you wonder how much understanding engineering grads actually have That's interesting. The popular sentiment in programming world seem to be Unis don't tech practical stuff enough, or interviews for (junior) developers don't test their practical knowledge enough- a point I always found a bit strange.

I've seen theories that it's more related to how, at least aerospace graduates, appear to have much less practical experience at least passed as theoretical knowledge, and churn out designs that might be generally good when assembled, be possible to assemble... but totally impossible to maintain. Things like too small tolerances on pretty much everything, having to disassemble huge portions of an aircraft because there was no maintenance hatch of appropriate size, etc.

In a way, F-35 (but also recent F-16) suffer from related issues, where the complexity of maintenance is staggering, and the tools you're given to help manage that suck too much.

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

#994

Post by zie »

bumby wrote: post #646
garmaine wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a problem with fixed price contracts so much as selecting the lowest bidder. An agency which is allowed to pick the more expensive contract that is justifiably better usually won't succumb to these problems.

“Best value” can be very hard to get approved when lower bids exist. Circling back to the incentive theme, I have a feeling contracting officers are graded, in part, by how much they “save”. (In quotes because you can often pay much more in the long run by selecting the lowest bidder). I’ve found people are very risk adverse in this regard and would prefer to select the lowest bid instead of potentially defending the…

I think it all depends on your local purchasing department(every govt agency/department gets their own, pretty much). Our department's attitude can be summed up(by me) as:

select the best solution to meet your needs, mostly irregardless of cost, but be sure you can articulate why you are buying from A.

I.e. You can pick whatever vendor you want, provided you are happy to stand up, under oath, in court and talk about WHY you selected vendor A over vendors B, C and D.

So far so I have no experience in court defending our choices.

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

#995

Post by arwhatever »

arwhatever wrote: post #629
bumby wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it the “randomness” of terrorism that causes us to overweight the risk? It seems like we’re just really bad at thinking clearly about low probability / high severity risks

Bruce Schneider article claims people fear terrorism disproportionately to the risk because it is intentional and directed https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparati...

*schneier

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

#996

Post by toddh »

newsclues wrote: post #974
toddh wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did the work out for the british in WWI? They could have invested in tanks and used the Blitzkrieg one war early, but the officers loved their horses. Using horses was not a sign of health, it was sign of backward thinking and nearly cost them everything.

It was necessity for both sides, because of limited infrastructure, fuel supplies, and priorities in manufacturing. Most horses were used for logistics if I recall.

It was because that's how they had always done and the idea that real soldiering is on horse back. It was culture, not practicalities.

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

#997

Post by rfdave »

mekkkkkk wrote: post #939
blaser-waffle wrote: post #932

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the parent's comment is any contracting work, really. With DoD you have to add in various accountability steps, political footballs, public opinion, etc. If you've spent time around the DC area you'd be shocked at the number of adverts for things like the F-22 that you see. One time I took the metro from NoVA to MD, with a stop off downtown, and counted at least 6. They're not just bringing lawyers and playing co…

Having only been to the US a few times I'm floored by this. You mean to tell me that there are actual printed ads in public places for _fighter planes_? I can sort of understand the rationale in DC, but it just seems surreal to me. Those kinds of purchases being swayed by subway ads... I really hope it's a joke.

WTOP, which is the All News/Traffic station is filled with ads from contractors during the Drive time. Of course, I last listened to them a year ago, but I suspect that hasn't changed. Listen to them anytime between 7am and 9am EST.

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

#999

Post by tandr »

uncoder0 wrote: post #981
tandr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please forgive my ignorance of military processes involved. Could that be addressed by old software trick of modularising components - software and hardware-alike - and rely on some extensive semi-open protocols to connect these? I think car manufacturers have faced that at some time in the past, even inside single manufacturer (not sure if they have solved it completely). Sounds like they need Ada-like project, but…

The F22 and F35 are far more modular. No more soldering irons and oscilloscopes were needed in the shop after the upgrade. Just swap out the module and you're good to go. Can't go into too much more detail than that.

Good to hear! Hopefully they enforce it somehow, and the trend will continue.

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

#1000

Post by gher-shyu3i »

ldbooth wrote: post #124
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…

How much can we attribute to the financialization of capitalism? I think it's the driving force. Some historical societies have recognized paying interest on capital at every level of the value stack creates an anti-competitive costs of production. Maybe they just didn't like creditors.

Islam prohibits dealing with interest, yet that didn't stop the incredible progress and flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age. Interest is immoral and parasitic, there are other ways which aren't to achieve progress.
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