
Is the F-35 a Trillion-Dollar Mistake? - JumpCrisscross
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-04/is-the-f-35-a-trillion-dollar-mistake?cmpid=BBD040417_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=170404&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily
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Stranger43
In a lot of ways yes.

It was likely a mistake to base a multi role fighter on a design aimed
primarily the first strike role that were the first of the airfoces roles to
be handed over to robots(cruise missiles), and it was most definitely a
mistake to pick the one role where manned planes are least likely to be
replaced by drones as the lowest priority roles.

The problem with the F-35 is that it's good at low level first strike missions
and bad at visual range fighting weather it's dogfighting or close air support
as it's what had to be sacrificed to make radar stealth possible, despite the
fact that those are the primary roles where you cannot replace the pilot with
a smart missile or drone.

And all of this in a plane that have the same crucial weakness that got the
F-22 canceled, in that it's too expensive to build in number and requires way
to much maintenance to fly as often as some of the less sophisticated
airframes that can be pressed into service and do as good a job as the F-35 in
the primary roles where you need to keep pilots in the battle space for
prolonged periods, at a far lower pr hour cost.

In a lot of ways the US air-force is setting itself off for the same kind of
failure as the luftwaffe had doing WWII where their advanced planes was bombed
out of existence without ever getting in the air because, cost and maintenance
issues prevented them from being in a constant state of in-air rotation.

~~~
Ras_
In a lot of ways no as well. Take for example F-35B. That would've never
happened on its own. Too few customers for a separate development project.
Whereas now combined with amphibious assault ships it will be a quantum leap
for USMC capabilities. Otherwise they'd have to retire Harrier for just V-22,
AH-1Z and CH-53K.

It already costs less than its contemporaries Rafale and Typhoon. Remotely
operated planes are not cheaper. Take for example MQ-4C Triton, which can only
be used for intelligence and recon. That costs around 190 million apiece.
Quite the sticker shock when you can get almost two F-35As for the same cost.
Basically even if you could get similar capabilities (there are no air to air
UCAVs atm), it will cost at least as much for quite some time.

According to pilots flying it, it's equal to clean F-16 within visual range.

F-35 program is also invaluable in utility. Nine countries became partners.
Eventually most Nato-members and even some affiliates will adopt it. That's
standardization of capability across the board on an unprecedented level.

Quick overview of test results:
[https://youtu.be/zgLjNsB_hyM?t=4m17s](https://youtu.be/zgLjNsB_hyM?t=4m17s)

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Gravityloss
The previous article linked had about 20,000 words. It spoke a lot about
various problems.

Let's look at the gun for example.

There's a small door that opens so the gun can fire. Apparently for stealth
reasons. The opening door creates an aerodynamic disturbance and the plane
yaws or does something else and the aim is off. So that has to be corrected in
the flight software - the plane must countersteer with the tail surfaces when
the door is opened. And for some reason it's been very slow to create these
rules.

Now, let's assume the F-35 program is canceled. There's a few scenarios after
that.

Maybe some non-stealthy aircraft can be created for ground support missions.
They don't need such pesky doors. On the other end of the spectrum, maybe some
stealthy pure air superiority fighters or strike craft can also be created
that don't need guns at all.

Or then you decide that you need a gun on a stealthy aircraft and you need a
door again (or then you design it differently, AFAIK the F-22 doesn't have
such problems). Will it be easier this time? If you think it will, what will
be different? Why does it take years and years to develop software for F-35?
Why wouldn't it take years and years, and actually longer for these new
aircraft?

The gun problems are probably not caused by the "commonality between different
versions", that's always trotted out as "the fatal flaw in the program", as it
only exists in one version of the aircraft.

There might be some underlying reasons why progress is slow and expensive. But
I don't think many of them would be fixed by procuring just a new aircraft.
Maybe the department of defense could buy from Northrop or Boeing... but I
doubt the results would be that different with a roughly similar process.

I would likely look at radical software development methods (would still have
to be safety conscious). There are things like Skunk Works, Faster Better
Cheaper, Agile Manifesto... two out of these three are from the aerospace
world.

They don't last forever because the small group of competent people will
always turn into a huge mass of mediocre people governed by a mass of
bureaucrats. That's just nature.

~~~
probablybanned
For what it's worth, the F-22 has a similar system. Perhaps it's not such a
problem because the aircraft is significantly larger.

I don't know why the cannon door issue is taking so long to rectify but I can
guess: Whoever is responsible for the weapons systems can't fix this
themselves, it requires a modification to the flight control law, which is
handled by a different team and any modification to that system requires
extensive testing. That team is likely to prioritize work items that actually
impact systems they're responsible for, so the cannon languishes at the bottom
of the queue, doing nothing but attracting a storm of blog commentary.

One ought to keep in mind when reading the DOT&E report that it's their job to
tear the fighter limb from limb and take the program administration to task
for every problem. Of course the general tone is going to be negative, we know
the program is behind schedule and over budget. They still seem to be on track
to build a multirole fighter that is at least tolerably competent at all of
its assigned tasks (even CAS) and that's a win. Maybe it's not the best
possible solution but it's what the Pentagon wanted.

I'll never understand the impulse to cancel programs when they're just turning
the final corner to completion. I guess that's when they start to gain the
highest public profile. There is no magical second system that will solve
every problem, and at this point the thing to do is apply lessons learned from
the procurement and R&D processes going forward, maybe plan a Block II to
smooth out the rough edges. We're about a decade too late to flip the table in
a fit of rage and start over.

~~~
acchow
But the program was massively delayed and technology has progressed
dramatically. Why bring a jet to a drone fight? Or to a laser fight? Seems
obsolete.

~~~
probablybanned
There are essential comms problems that will face any unmanned system that
tries to take over the F-35's role. In the absence of a solution that is
extremely low latency, immune to interference, and undetectable as radiated
emission, you'd have to lean on computer AI to run the bulk of the mission
autonomously. Nobody is ready to throw the switch on that.

A possible solution is to augment flights of manned fighters with unmanned
drones as missile/bomb trucks. This gets you the force multiplier while
keeping all communication short range and within line-of-sight. But you still
need a stealthy, survivable manned fighter.

Overall it's a bit like saying why bother with a new generation of
conventional cars when universal self-driving is right around the corner.
Maybe it is, or maybe it isn't quite as close as you think. These are
questions that are more appropriately asked of the N+1 generation fighter that
may or may not be on the drawing boards at this time.

P.S. I've noticed the F-35 takes flak from both the extreme technological
pessimists (drones/fighters can't take over the A10's role, low & slow manned
flight is the only way to do CAS) and the extreme optimists (drones will make
all manned flight obsolete next year). Seems to me neither faction has a very
strong grasp of the state of military tech.

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LurkingPresence
Here is a really great write-up on the F-35 from Quora:
[https://www.quora.com/What-are-your-thoughts-on-
the-F-35-Lig...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-your-thoughts-on-
the-F-35-Lightning-II/answer/Dan-Rosenthal-6)

~~~
the_d00d
Great read...you should consider submitting this link as an article

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unabridged
How useful are fighter jets? Shouldn't we be building swarms of unmanned
drones instead?

~~~
MarkMc
Yes. I expect manned fighter jets will become obsolete within 20 years. A few
thoughts on the subject:

1\. Drones can handle much higher G-forces than manned fighter jets. This is a
huge advantage.

2\. AI technology is progressing very rapidly so there will soon be no benefit
to having a human in the aircraft. Even today the US military probably has AI
that can beat any human in a simulated dogfight.

3\. Pilots are very expensive. Not just to train but also in terms of the
political cost of having pilots killed or captured by the enemy.

4\. Eliminating the pilot opens up a range of options. For example, instead of
a $200 million fighter jet it may be more effective to build 10 drones for $20
million each, or even 100 drones for $2 million each. Maybe half the drones
will have stealth capabilities and half will have AWCS-like communication and
control features.

5\. During WWII German and Russian tanks were roughly equivalent. But the
Russians could build tanks at a far greater rate than the Germans, making the
German loss almost inevitable. Similarly, in future the country that can
produce many drones quickly and cheaply may dominate air warfare. In this
regard China will likely have an advantage over the US.

6\. The military-industrial complex is a huge bureaucracy in which many people
have a financial and psychological incentive to continue development of manned
fighter jets. For this reason I expect such development to continue well
beyond its use-by date, probably until there is a real-world battle where a
large, previously dominant air force is soundly beaten by a small power using
new drone technology.

~~~
TruffleMuffin
3\. Pilots are very expensive. Not just to train but also in terms of the
political cost of having pilots killed or captured by the enemy.

In terms of ethics, there is a need to ensure that war has a human cost or
there is very little to stop countries doing it all the time. If the cost of
war is purely financial, then I think perhaps that might be the beginning of
the end to the world as we know it.

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goatlover
As long as the US defense budget is bigger than the next 10 nations combined,
might as well throw money around.

Just imagine if NASA's budget was that big what we could be doing instead.

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wahern
Question: many people prefer the A-10 Warthog for ground support, and argue
that the F-35 is both overpriced and insufficiently capable for the task. A
big part of the reason is the A-10 cannon, which can be used to great effect
on enemy targets very near friendly forces, and in a timely manner.

During the Iraq War I remember reports about about AC-130 loitering in circles
above a battleground, presumably just out of the effective range of shoulder
fired ground-to-air missiles. More importantly, a gunner would use a side
mounted cannon on ground targets.

My question is: could be we replace the A-10's (and even the F-35's) ground
support role with a similar gunship, but with much a much more accurate
cannon; one that could reliably and consistently hit with, say, 1 meter
accuracy. Do the existing cannon mounts on the AC-130 utilize accelerometers
and mechanisms to compensate for the movement of the plane? Is there existing
technology to use, say, lasers to measure wind and air turbulence to improve
projectile accuracy? How high could a gunship theoretically loiter with
improved technology? (I assume ground-to-air missiles will only get better,
and cheaper, and more portable with time.)

Theoretically, such gunships could be flown fully autonomously, with a remote
human doing targeting.

~~~
Ras_
A-10 has been known to be a MANPADS magnet since the Desert Storm. If you have
air superiority, you can keep them, use UCAVs or buy new Super Tucanos. But in
contested environment they are useless. Multiroles or bombers with precision
weapons are better suited for CAS. Cannons are legacy, which is why you
haven't seen a uav concept matching your description. In the future targeting
platform and the one doing the shooting might not even be the same.

"Part of the reason the A-10 has enjoyed the amount of success and notoriety
it has is because there has been unopposed use of the airspace over
Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria. It is not a contested environment. It is not
a degraded environment. It’s not an operationally-limited environment–save for
bad weather and some really big, nasty mountains in Afghanistan. All of that
means our air assets have an ability to fly and operate unmolested in those
AORs.

Tomorrow’s fight will NOT be that."
[https://fightersweep.com/2038/the-a-10-warthog-debate-a-
fate...](https://fightersweep.com/2038/the-a-10-warthog-debate-a-fate-worse-
than-death/)

~~~
wahern

      Tomorrow’s fight will NOT be that.
    

All of our wars since Vietnam (after, but arguably during) have benefitted
from largely uncontested airspace. That's been the case for over 40 years, and
through many conflicts.

Why should we expect otherwise? The only conflict the U.S. might be engaged
where that wouldn't be the case is an an all-out war with Russia or China,
either on their territory or, like in Korea, an awkward proxy war where we're
unable or unwilling to control airspace. (Hopefully we don't ever repeat the
mistake of Vietnam, where we refused to control either the ground or airspace
in North Vietnam for flimsy political reasons.)

It seems pretty dumb to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on such a
theoretical conflict, especially given that so far the nuclear powers have
managed to avoid such direct conflict.

In every last one of our conflicts with substantial American ground troops in
the past half century, we've always controlled the airspace in short order. If
it's ever the case where we won't be able to control the airspace, we'd have
bigger problems than bike shedding this sort of technology. Any difference
between the F-35 and the cheaper alternative (Super Hornet, A-10, etc) would
be negligible.

I just don't understand wasting the money. I understand the principle is to
plan for the next war, not the previous war. But after a half dozen previous
wars with identical circumstances, and several similar on the horizon, at some
point not taking _reality_ into account seems grossly short-sighted.

Yes, MANPADS may be getting better, but there are more effective and cheaper
solutions to maintaining effective control of the airspace (excepting the
above exception) than the F-35 or similar platforms.

------
okket
See also previous discussion about this topic from 3 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14013203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14013203)
(232 comments)

Story: "F-35 Continues to Stumble"

[http://www.pogo.org/straus/issues/weapons/2017/f35-continues...](http://www.pogo.org/straus/issues/weapons/2017/f35-continues-
to-stumble.html)

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johan_larson
The underlying problem seems to be that they tried to satisfy too many
requirements, and are now ending up with a mediocre product that does nothing
well. At this point I would seriously be considering reducing the
requirements. Tell the Marines to go find another plane. Maybe the Navy too.
Focus on the big customer, the Air Force. Do whatever it takes to make it work
for them. (Although I kind of suspect the Air Force would rather have the
F-22.)

The Navy would probably go with the Advanced Super Hornet. God knows what the
Marines would do.

~~~
coldcode
Maybe the Marines should take the A-10 from the Air Force since they don't
give a rat's ass about infantry support.

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sqeaky
This is surprisingly complex. I expected more points to clearly lean towards
it or away from it. There are cost overruns and delays, but renegotiations
happened and corrected at least some of that. The plane is real and works, but
has weaknesses. It has tentative bipartisan support.

We built another Jack of all trades for Veitnam, the F4 phantom. Largely it
was regard as a failure because it wasn't good at anything. Is the F35
advanced enough that not being the best still leaves the USA with better than
everyone else and therefor less than the best is good enough?

~~~
mikeash
Is the F-4 really regarded as a failure? I thought it was a pretty big
success. It certainly wasn't trouble-free. Infamously, the missile-only design
ended up being _way_ premature, but that was ultimately solved with a gun pod,
and then a redesign to integrate a gun. Its combat record was good, it served
in the US military for three decades, and it _still_ serves in several foreign
militaries today.

However, I'm far from an expert, and would love to know more if I got it
wrong!

~~~
justin66
No, you're right. I suspect the plane squeaky was really thinking of was the
F-111. The F-35's development process was reminiscent of the F-111, with
features incorporated to create something for everyone, along with the
concomitant weight and cost increases.

~~~
mikeash
Yes, the F-111 would fit much better! Seems like the F-4 and F-111 occupy
opposite extremes of the potential outcomes for a jack-of-all-trades aircraft.

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nepotism2016
Does the world need F35...by the sounds of it f22 was good enough

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superbatfish
This article violates Betteridge's law of headlines.

~~~
Recurecur
Actually it doesn't.

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DomreiRoam
I think we need to compare the benefit the USA's population gets from this
Trillion-Dollar spending with other possible program like free college
tuition[1] who would around 70 billion/year.

I think democracies need a tool that help explore and explain what we gain
from a law/program and what are the cost associated. But consequence and
indirect cost is difficult to foresee: Obamacare (ACA) increased the number of
people going freelance (author, artist, start-up ... ) because they were able
to get insurance without a part-time job.

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/heres-e...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/heres-
exactly-how-much-the-government-would-have-to-spend-to-make-public-college-
tuition-free/282803/)

