
The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/magazine/f35-joint-strike-fighter-program.html
======
deanCommie
> One solution favored by Winter during his recent tenure was so-called agile
> software development. His vision for “continuous capability development and
> delivery” resembles DevOps, a popular method in the private sector for
> quickly testing and evaluating features for new products. Coders generate
> software upgrades or patches in a matter of days or weeks, pass them along
> to users to test and then push out the update more widely if the changes are
> successful.

Are the rest of the details of the article, about domains I don't personally
understand, equally subtly inaccurate and misleading?

~~~
mlb_hn
The current title I'm seeing is "Inside America’s Dysfunctional Trillion-
Dollar Fighter-Jet Program" which seems misleading as well; it's more of a
history of press releases. Doesn't look like they interviewed anyone actually
working on it aside from the fellow in charge if that.

~~~
bonestamp2
How does such a poorly researched article get published in the NYT? My
personal blog is better researched than this.

~~~
Arubis
If you hit Publish on your personal blog three days later than originally
planned, you’re unlikely to be fired over it.

~~~
bonestamp2
It's because they don't care enough about being accurate. Maybe you're right,
and that carelessness is a byproduct of speed. But, it's not like this was
breaking news. They had enough time for a technical editor to have a look.

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inamberclad
> There soon turned out to be an essential flaw in the grand plan for a single
> plane that could do everything. Design specifications demanded by one branch
> of the military would adversely impact the F-35’s performance in another
> area. “It turns out when you combine the requirements of the three services,
> what you end up with is the F-35, which is an aircraft that is in many ways
> suboptimal for what each of the services really want,” said Todd Harrison,
> an aerospace expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
> “It is much more expensive than originally envisioned, and the three
> versions of the plane actually don’t have that much in common.”

And nobody was surprised.

~~~
devNoise
I think the Navy and Air Force could have shared version with a lot in common.
The Marines want VTOL and I understand that feature is important to the
Marines. Unfortunately, the VTOL requirements have force compromises in the
design. Without VTOL, I believe the Navy and Air Force would have ended up
with a platform that was more acceptable then what they are getting.

~~~
CamperBob2
In other words, nobody learned anything from the Space Shuttle program.

~~~
Gibbon1
That and there was some other 1950's era fighter that they tried to make dual
use and eventually the Navy convinced congress to put a stop to it. Which they
could because during the cold war it wasn't just about funneling money to
congressional districts.

Me I think the F35 is the 21st century equivalent of a battle ship.

------
vikingcaffiene
I've been following the development of this plane for a while now. I remember
reading in a different article that the intention of this plane is to be a
sort of everything to everyone type of thing. It's meant to replace a lot of
other planes that are more fit to their specific purpose and has a ton of
bells and whistles. Pilots hate it. I find that striking and it further
validates some principles I've developed over the years. Namely, smaller units
fit to purpose that compose together to make a larger whole will defeat a
single unit designed to handle everything. It also validates that management
cannot force a project to be successful no matter the stakes. At best you get
a half assed final product delivered on time but untested and brittle.

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thebusby
Too many folks here are commenting on the F-35's design as an airplane,
instead of what it really is.

The F-35 is a beautifully designed trillion dollar uncuttable expenditure. If
you look at how the program was designed to consume money, instead of deliver
anything of value; it's a work of art!

~~~
ldoughty
The F-35 program could have sent every child under the age of 18 to a trade
school, professional training, or college. I'm not saying we _should_ do it
unconditionally.. just pointing out how we can fund an insurmountable project
by not wasting money on what the big government contractors want more than our
armed forces or the taxpayers

------
jpdus
An interesting angle which is underreported in my view is who is responsible
for extremely expensive new military aircrafts: (former) pilots, who are now
High-Ranking officers. No pilot has any interest in giving up flying and
switching to drones/remote aircraft which are clearly the future. My bet would
be that the first country which bets 100% on autonomous aircraft will probably
be China, where there will be less opposition to such a move. The western
countries will follow and the F35 will most likely be the last "big" non-
autonomous program (excluding aircraft for special roles).

On an unrelated note: I submitted this article 4 days ago without any
discussion [1], does anyone know what the time frame for resubmission on HN
nowadays is?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20758128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20758128)

~~~
bhouston
The future is drones and so many in the air force know it. Not sure why they
haven't bet fully on it. I guess there are no dog fighter drones yet but the
first time a supermanuverable <10m drone destroys a 100m manned fighter well
it is all over.

~~~
thunderbird120
Supermanuverable <10m autonomous aircraft that have destroyed modern fighters
already exist. They're called missiles.

Modern fighter aircraft are expensive because they are relatively large and
crammed with tones of expensive avionics and sensors. Increasingly, the
quality of your sensors and your ability to evade detection are more and more
important while maneuverability is less important because of said missiles.
Better sensors are larger and require more power to operate necessitating a
larger aircraft. Also, the number of Gs an aircraft can pull is limited by
both human survivability and airframe strength. This means as the size of the
aircraft increases the max number of Gs it can pull will decrease. Missiles
can pull 50 Gs. Even if you remove the human, no aircraft large enough to
carry the necessary sensors, fuel, and weapons to be combat effective will
reach even 1/3 of that because it would rip the wings off.

------
verisimilitudes
It's great to see this in the Fighter-Jet programmed mostly with C++, instead
of Ada. I've read of rather queer flaws, such as that one mentioned involving
the helmets. To its credit, C++ programmers are cheaper and more numerous, so
you get what you pay for.

People will mention every catastrophic flaw Ada programs have ever had, but
how many people will remember this as an example of how C++ fails at being a
real language for real projects?

~~~
nexuist
A thousand parts, suppliers, personnel, sensors, design sheets, and technical
documents, and you first instinct is to blame the programming language?

They're building a plane, not Microsoft Excel.

------
jazzyjackson
A trillion is a big number. Space station big.

Personally, my expectation is that the F35 is America's $30,000 toilet seat --
financial cover for our secret UFO program of much higher performance
vehicles. Building parts in 50 states is, of course, good congress fodder, but
it's also a good way to make sure no one knows what they're building.

It is this lie I tell myself to continue believing in America's technological
superiority :)

~~~
mikhailfranco
Yes, I had the same idea. It is so insane, overpriced and ineffective, that it
must be a fake budget, used to hide a _black_ program that will deliver the
real technological advantage.

------
itcheeze
A really interesting biography which shows this is far from a new problem is
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot who Changed the Art of War.

I read it a few months ago. Highly recommended.

~~~
selimthegrim
I think Steve Blank is a big fan of this book

------
jokoon
It seems 3 new separate aircraft would have been much better and cheaper.

It's true that the F35 seems a little beefy, compared to other aircrafts.

A single engine is quite bad for survivability.

While I can admit that vertical liftoff can be an asset if you want to respond
quickly to an attack without building airstrips every 50km, it's hard to
really justify building so many aircrafts with a airframe shape that allows
VTOL. VTOL is a tough compromise on aircraft.

Having an aircraft that can play several roles is not a good idea. Regrouping
roles is a good idea, but regrouping them all into only one is really not a
good engineering decision.

That's like deciding to design a pen-lighter-laser-pointer-usb-drive-knife-
screwdriver into a single device. It sounds cool, but in the end, it's better
to see what can go together and what should not.

Unless the F35 has a next gen radar which allows it to see enemy aircrafts
from farther, it will be bad at dogfights.

~~~
Buttons840
> A single engine is quite bad for survivability.

Are you sure about this?

[https://www.quora.com/Do-twin-engine-fighter-jets-provide-
hi...](https://www.quora.com/Do-twin-engine-fighter-jets-provide-higher-
safety-Are-they-anyway-better-than-one-with-a-single-engine-jet)

From my research it looks like the same is true in civilian aviation.
Statistically twin engines are more dangerous.

[https://www.flyingmag.com/wrong-worry-twins-versus-
singles/](https://www.flyingmag.com/wrong-worry-twins-versus-singles/)

~~~
redis_mlc
Single-engine fighters are ok for the Air Force, who fly high over land. Twins
are preferred by the Navy and Marines, who either fly over water, or down low
and get shot at, or both.

The civil link you provided refers to "light twins" (ie. underpowered and used
in GA) used in training and EMS. Not applicable to airliners, which can safely
take off on one engine.

Something to think about: all of my former twin instructors have been killed
flying light twins.

Four-engine airliners are actually preferred for oceanic routes for safety,
but regulators now allow twins (ETOPS), for cost reasons.

Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.

------
briantakita
Perhaps some of this budget is part of the >$21 trillion unaccounted for &
unauditable funds in classified budgets.

[https://hudmissingmoney.solari.com/the-real-game-of-
missing-...](https://hudmissingmoney.solari.com/the-real-game-of-missing-
money-i-introduction/)

------
tony
I wonder if there's a system where the contractors apart of the program, which
according to the news reports are so above budget / behind schedule, could
submit post mortems to whichever agency audits this program. What hurdles they
wish they knew going in.

Similar to this: [https://mozyrko.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/77-failed-
startu...](https://mozyrko.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/77-failed-startup-post-
mortems.pdf)

------
run414
This is a not a new problem. There is a classic comedy scene of the Bradley
fighting vehicle's problematic design process here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA)

------
iamleppert
Will there even be pilots in dogfights in 20 years? Won’t it be mostly
autonomous by then?

It stands to reason removing the human component would be a far better
engineering choice than this monstrosity.

I’m reminded of the quote, “A flying car is equally bad at being a car and an
aircraft.”

~~~
0xffff2
I think you're badly overestimating the speed of development in defense tech.
The F-35, a comparatively conventional aircraft, started development 20 years
ago and look where it's at. We'd be incredibly lucky to have an even slightly
functional one-off prototype of an unmanned fighter 20 years from now.

~~~
alkonaut
All the “sixth gen” or “next gen” programs recently started claim to be
optionally manned. E.g the British/Swedish Tempest (introduction planned 2035)
and the Dassault/Airbus NGF (also 2035-2040).

It’s not inconceivable that one or both of those programs will have an
optionally manned fighter in active service in 20 years (2039).

~~~
0xffff2
It's equally conceivable that the "optionally" will be dropped as problems
develop and they need to try to control costs.

~~~
alkonaut
I’m not very familiar with the details of what’s needed tecnically for
”optionally manned”. Maybe it’s extremely complex and expensive. My guess
would be that it’s not extremely complex or expensive. UAVs have been in
active duty for years so the remote piloting/link tech is already mature.
Converting a _current_ fighter to unmanned is done routinely at under $1M per
hull, to create target drones. And those fighters were never designed
initially to be unmanned, that’s just a hack.

------
spenrose
Pairs well with today's discussion of multi-stakeholder coordination on
managing forest fires:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20783166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20783166)

------
dehrmann
Reminds me of the Bradley Tank in Pentagon Wars:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA)

------
Havoc
It still blows my mind that a trillion dollars later no american has the
courage to say "so our trillion dollar plane...it doesn't fly.

US is miles ahead...someone have the courage to level.

~~~
ghostDancer
On another level I present you the new Spanish submarine, first too heavy and
now too long and obviously too late and too expensive :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-80_Plus-
class_submarine#Hist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-80_Plus-
class_submarine#History)

