
What Went Wrong with the F-35, Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter? (2017) - bcaulfield
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-went-wrong-with-the-f-35-lockheed-martins-joint-strike-fighter/
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ben7799
The article is a year old and parrots some of the talking points from the F-16
vs F-35 exercises that definitely didn't reflect the full capabilities of the
two aircraft.

The F-35 at the time was flying with its flight envelope restricted by
software, and the test pilots involved were not really doing an all out
dogfight but were instead working on determining the F-35's flight envelope
and how it responded to different tactics.

In general the article just does the same thing as others, repeats stuff from
blogs and so called "experts", people who have probably never even touched and
F-35 much less flown one.

It does seem to be a fun topic for clickbait though.

~~~
dogma1138
And adding to that that the only nation to use it in combat so far is Israel
and they seem to like it (they are the only nation to increase their order
after using it in theater) and despite theirs being heavily modified I would
err on the side of caution swallowing these gloomy statements that seem to
have more problems with the politics and funding of the program than with the
jet itself.

The same things were said about the F16 in it’s early days. And in fact it was
the IAF that proved that it was suited for both long distance combat sorties
and old school bomb sights bombing runs when they used it to take out the
Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq which proved many F16 critics at the time
wrong.

The truth is that these days no replacement for a fighter jet would be that
much superior to what it’s replacing not because it’s poorly designed but
because what it’s replacing has had 40 years worth of improvements and
refinements.

Block 70 F16s have nearly nothing in common with the original fighting falcon
there likely isn’t a single part that is even interchangeable between them.

That said the F16 unlike the F35 doesn’t have another 40 years it’s air frame
has already been stretched (literarily) beyond its limits so we do need a new
platform regardless of its growing pains.

And for people criticizing the F35 over its low order numbers well they are
low compared to the F16 but the F16 has been in service for 40 years and
introduced during essentially the largest arms race the world has ever seen
aka the Cold War.

~~~
WalterGR
_The truth is that these days no replacement for a fighter jet would be that
much superior to what it’s replacing not because it’s poorly designed but
because what it’s replacing has had 40 years worth of improvements and
refinements._

What is the scope of the improvements and refinements?

I’m hard-pressed to think of something you could replace “fighter jet” with
and have the statement be true.

Computer? Automobile? Spacecraft? Telephone? Probably not. Dwelling or
building? Potentially...

Is this a Ship of Thesius situation where every part of the F-16 has been
redesigned and replaced over time, but it’s still called “the F-16”? Was
forward-compatibility a design goal? Was it just designed at a time where the
state-of-the-art was at a ‘sweet spot’ of sophistication such that the overall
structure had design longevity but the guts could be replaced?

~~~
dogma1138
>What is the scope of the improvements and refinements?

The current F16 has very little in common with the original one that entered
into service in 1978, even the air-frame was redesigned several times, new
engine, new avionics new everything, the modern F16 blocks (C 50/52 onward)
are like 6000 lbs heavier (naked) than the F16A naked while having a longer
range and larger carrying capacity.

>Computer? Automobile? Spacecraft? Telephone? Probably not. Dwelling or
building? Potentially...

Yes and no, in this analogy the F16 isn't a Laptop Model X123 but rather just
a "Laptop", in the desktop PC world just a "case" and on top of that if the
case could also be heavily modified.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon_variants)

And in space you can see it today take a look at Space X and the differences
implemented in Falcon 9 during it's development from block to block.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Launcher_versions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Launcher_versions)

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inetsee
I worked on the Boeing-Sikorsky Comanche helicopter. That aircraft was also
intended to be a multi-role aircraft, intended to provide stealthy armed
reconnaissance and attack roles. The project was canceled after investing
approximately $7 billion.

Multi-role aircraft are intended to save money, and it sounds like a good
idea. You save money training pilots and ground crew. You save money with
parts, support equipment and logistics. Unfortunately, the multi-role aircraft
don't do the individual roles as well as aircraft designed specifically for
the individual roles. I have yet to be convinced that the F-35 will be able to
do close air support as well as the A-10.

When you put together the Marine Corps, the Navy and the Air Force
requirements, it's really hard to come up with a multi-role aircraft that does
each role well.

~~~
Accipitriform
To be fair, each service has its own variant. That's increased cost, but each
service should have aircraft that'll work well for the individual service's
requirements.

The F-15, F-16, and F-18 are all multi-role aircraft, and are fairly
unarguably the world's best in their categories. There's no reason to think
the F-35 won't be in the same class.

As to the A-10, I believe the F-35's primary ground support approach will be
from pretty high altitude, using smart weapons. That kind of approach will
even work against first-tier opponents.

If you need "low and slow" close air support while shooting up the enemy with
cannon, the Apache seems a better fit. The AC-130 is somewhere in
between...note recent AC-130 variants have been getting longer and longer
range weapons to decrease vulnerability to MANPADS.

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yazr
Will the f35 still be stealthy in 10 years against improved DSP capabilities?

My understanding is that if slap a super computer on top of the current radar
systems, you can kinda of maybe possibly triangulate a F35. And DSP can be
scaled up horizontally with cores...

(I am not an expert on radars, planes, dsp, etc)

~~~
dogma1138
The F35 in 10 years won’t have much in common with the F35 today just like a
block 70 F-16 has nothing in common with the original F-16A, there is
literarily not a single part that is interchangeable even the entire airframe
is different between the F16s flying today and those which took off during the
Cold War.

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loukrazy
Is there some reason why there are so many F35 articles on HN recently? Is
there an anniversary coming up or an appropriations bill? Is someone shorting
Lockheed Martin?

~~~
smackfu
There was a long twitter thread that was very anti F-35 going around.

~~~
engi_nerd
Could you please provide a link?

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amriksohata
Can someone explain to be like a I'm a five year old why these planes cost
much more than say a commercial airliner and the differences apart from the
obvious speed, agility and missiles?

~~~
kazinator
Defense contract gravy train.

~~~
amriksohata
To be honest this is what I thought and had suscipions of most, I get the rnd
costs but there aren't many defense contractors so they can charge what they
like

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aurizon
It is turning out that remote piloted fighting planes, without the fragile
human cargo, can out-turn, out-brake, and out-accelerate the old line manned
fighters. In many ways you can add 'smarts' to any missile to make it a very
good one shot attacker. With no human on board the weapon load can be 5 or
more times larger. In addition, the cost declines. In addition, with modern
missiles, even a stealth fighter is an easy target now they use the newer
multi emitter radar. (multi emitter radar has many radar
transmitters/receivers at separate locations that exploit the specular aspects
of stealth planes. Every cell tower can be used as one of these sites with
data processing finding the shape of the plane in the sea of clutter). If the
US is smart, they will switch away from manned and to remotes, like Russia has
indicated they are doing.

~~~
mieseratte
It would be nice if you could back-up any of your claims with some supporting
information.

If that were the case, why wouldn't the world's premier warfighting nation
instead be creating such a project, graft and all, instead?

Perhaps the answer is that the F-35 still fulfills a very real, very important
role and that all of the FUD around it is just that. FUD.

~~~
dunpeal
I'm not the person you were responding to, nor do I claim any knowledge of jet
fighters, but at a top speed of Mach 1.6 (1,200 mph), it would seem to me that
relaying data back and forth from the jet would be a serious technical
challenge.

A pilot on board the jet receives input from the environment with effectively
0 latency, and responds with 0 latency as well. The only latency would be
human reaction latency, which the remote pilot would have to. Except that
remote pilot would also have to contend with network latency to a plane that's
thousands of miles away.

That's assuming the connection doesn't break, which with a plane moving away
at 1,200 mph in various arbitrary directions, seems likely.

~~~
394549
> A pilot on board the jet receives input from the environment with
> effectively 0 latency, and responds with 0 latency as well. The only latency
> would be human reaction latency, which the remote pilot would have to.
> Except that remote pilot would also have to contend with network latency to
> a plane that's thousands of miles away.

Also remotely operated planes can be disabled by disrupting the communications
link. A piloted plane is still able to operate in a degraded mode in an
environment where communications links are disrupted.

If the USAF went all-in on remotely operated planes, that could incentivize
adversaries to increase investment in technology to disrupt the links that
control them, since such technology could deliver air-superiority against an
all-remote air force in a single action.

~~~
aurizon
so true, and deep scrambling involves longer delays - delays you do not have.
You can have local pilots 10-15 miles out with fighting robots as the tip of
the spear.

Read about how the Air Force shrunk the coding procurement link - which was
3-4 years deep

