
Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf] - protomyth
http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Gilmore_04-26-16.pdf
======
johngalt
The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a
project. A system designed to do everything for everyone. When it should be
designed to do one thing better than everything else.

Divide the F-35 into three different attack aircraft. Single engine CAS with
STOVL capability. Big/fast/stealthy twin engine bomber. Carrier based attack
drone. All three would likely fulfill their roles better for lower total cost
and be operational on a shorter timeframe.

The F-35 reminds me of this short story by A. C. Clarke

[http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html](http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html)

And this scene from pentagon wars:

[https://youtu.be/aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://youtu.be/aXQ2lO3ieBA)

~~~
smitherfield
>Carrier based attack drone

Drones were science fiction back in the early 90's when the F-35 program was
started. Even today they can't even come close to outperforming a skilled
human pilot in a combat scenario. (Although perhaps if it were Google working
on the hardware and software it'd be doable).

~~~
wavefunction
What if that skilled human pilot was flying a "drone"/unmanned craft rather
than sitting in the cockpit? I imagine there are benefits to being "in-person"
but the unmanned craft could theoretically endure far more extreme maneuvers
that would leave a human pilot unconscious or dead.

~~~
mjevans
Most of that benefit is that you still have something capable of mission
decisions when an enemy engages in jamming or other information distortion
tactics.

On the positive side for 'drones': they can be viewed as both expendable (with
costs/limits) and capable of performing maneuvers that would kill a human.

I can see narrow beam transmissions on multiple carriers and extremely fault
resistant communication protocols combining with remotely manned vehicles. The
pilots might best be closer for speed of light delay reduction, but
realistically you could have a relay in some kind of helicopter type vehicle a
short distance from the actual fight, and the expert pilots stationed
somewhere even more safe.

While you're at it, that helicopter/blimp/etc could also be your primary
communication platform for a local region; it's already a high value target so
there's little reason not to use it as an additional uplink.

------
nabla9
F-35 looks like it's the most ambitious software project ever attempted.

\- Lots of system integration for the final product from multiple suppliers
(usually nightmare).

\- Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) is critical for the
maintainability and it's millions of lines of code. Failure rate of large
projects like this is typically 40-60% and ALIS looks like it's more advanced
than most bean counting systems ever delivered.

\- Underlying hardware is slowly changing underneath because the system is
late.

\- It has frigging augmented reality system with helmets that integrates
everything together.

\- It's safety critical code.

> no less than 27 power cycles were required to get all systems functioning
> between initial startup and takeoff. These power cycles varied in degree –
> from “cold iron” resets, where the aircraft had to be shut down and then
> restarted, to component or battery power recycling.

Holy shit!

~~~
wrong_variable
This is what so many non-software people trying to make decisions on software
fail to realize - every constraint added increases the complexity of software
by an order of magnitude.

~~~
beamatronic
Maybe you can explain it to them this way - if they know what a function is.
If you have a function that does something, foo, and it takes one boolean
parameter, that's two test cases. If you add a second boolean parameter, now
you have at least four total test cases. And so on.

~~~
wmeredith
Ah yes, give it to them in functions and boolean parameters, that will get the
non-programmers on board. /s

------
ChrisBland
When viewing the F-35 through the lens of a defense project, it looks silly.
You must also realize that this is also an indirect federal jobs program. When
the F-35 would replace other aircraft and their roles, the bases, parts
suppliers, and ...sub contractors those people had to be kept employed. No
member of congress wanted to say don't add that or build that if it would hurt
their district. So much backroom dealing goes on with projects like these its
embarrassing.

~~~
sickbeard
Army: We need 3 different planes

Government: Why not build one plane that can do 3 things? it will be cheaper.

... it turns out it isn't.

~~~
russell
Hah! The army is the only service not getting one, unless there is a
helicopter variant in there somewhere.

~~~
Retra
Is it too late to add helicopter capability?

------
stillsut
Here are some new rules of warfare that the F35 is designed for:

"Blackhawk Down" If you lose even one aircraft crew as we did in Somalia, you
may be forced to retreat from the entire war. So it makes sense to spend 10x
to go from 99.9% -> 99.99% safety.

"Battle of the Civs, Proxy war edition": Fighter planes are less relevant to
hugely asymmetric warfare the U.S. is engaged in, and expects to engage in the
near future. These fights consists of the most advanced military technology
against insurgents with machine guns and RPG's. Clearly drones are better in
this area, and Missiles of all classes bring more destruction and accuracy to
the traditional fighter role of deterring the threats of advanced weapon
systems against your ships/bases.

However in the smaller proxy wars of e.g. Syria, Ukraine a traditional fighter
jet still makes sense, and in fact could be a crucial deciding factor. So what
the F35 program is doing is building a machine that can give a strong
advantage in a regional war. And by controlling the access to the machine, the
U.S. gets a say in the conflict without entering it.

"Terrorist hideout or hospital?" \- collateral damage has always been a part
of aerial combat but bad PR seems to do be especially discouraging to today's
democracies. So weapon systems have to be even smarter and more precise.

"Software is eating the world" \- As others have mentioned this is at least an
order of magnitude increase in software functionality over the F22. And yes,
an autonomous vehicle will probably be the main aircraft in the fleet in 20-30
years. So the F35 is this kind of avant-guarde experiment in how to structure
contracts, maintain and deploy weapons which are primarily based on software.

------
ardit33
TLDR: The delays are due to software problems and the plane wont be kinda
ready until end of 2018.

Software Development is going to be a competitive advantage in warfare as
well. From what I have heard, DoD has some really interesting practices on
building software (code review each line with physical printouts, etc), which
in combination with scope creep might be the cause of this slowness.

~~~
wyldfire
Fagan-style code review is likely a net productivity gain over no-reviews-at-
all. Sure, scope creep is a killer, but I'd imagine it's a herculean task to
create software for a new fighter. The expectation would likely be that
software could control and/or monitor many features that would not have been
software-controlled in previous generations. Safety requirements for flight
(active life support) and armaments would be a huge burden.

~~~
coredog64
IIRC, the F-22 has the equivalent of a Harris Night Hawk computer onboard.
That was a big deal 20 years ago _, but computationally outclassed by a $100
smartphone today.

_ My memory, faulty as it may be, seems to recall a two page ad in AW&ST
touting the Night Hawk "supercomputer" that would be in each F-22.

~~~
engi_nerd
This is normal in the defense industry. You must be very careful when you
upgrade hardware, because it should be proven that the upgrade provides at
least the capability of the previous system (regression testing) plus whatever
new/improved functionality you plan. Changing hardware on the timescale of
consumer electronics is simply not viable, or necessary.

In other words, my response to your statement that the avionics of a fighter
jet are "computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today" is, "So what?"
You buy and test the hardware that you believe is necessary to accomplish the
given mission, not the latest-and-greatest for the sake of being the latest-
and-greatest.

~~~
rootbear
Similar arguments apply to spacecraft. The processors and other IT tech are
usually far behind consumer gear. This is party due to the radiation hardening
required, but also the lack of a real requirement for the latest-and-greatest.

~~~
dajohnson89
I have a hard time classifying the computational power of a smartphone as
latest-and-greatest.

~~~
engi_nerd
That's almost irrelevant. The point is, the computational power on even a 5th
generation fighter is much less than a flagship smartphone. Which is fine,
because defense acquisition is on a completely different timescale than a
typical consumer electronic product.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I agree with your overall point but not smartphone part. The systems I'm
seeing certified for DO178C, etc and defense are usually PowerPC boards with
1-2 cores. PPC always smashed ARM back in the day. So, some are probably
better than most smartphones. Just not the highest-end.

Which is fine because you're right: they don't need them. I'll add the older
nodes were more reliable, too, as it was trivial to get chips to work vs deep
sub-micron. I'll take old-school, fault-tolerant chip over modern ASIC any day
if ny life is at stake.

~~~
engi_nerd
My point was that how much more or less powerful the avionics in a modern
fighter are as compared to a modern smartphone is irrelevant. What matters is
the ability to accomplish the mission in a robust and fault-tolerant matter.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I recognized and agreed with that in my comment. Just correcting the
misconception that they're all weak. Many are good and some have more than
one.

------
mrweasel
>The combination of re-hosted immature software and new processors resulted in
avionics stability problems that were significantly worse than Block 2B

So, the upgrade actually made thing worse. I'm sure I'm colored by many of the
negative articles about the F-35, but other than "we already spend a lot of
money on this thing" and "there's no plan b", why aren't the F-35 scrapped?

For the US, it would maybe make sense to get the F-35 operational, but why
would any other country, including my own, not pick a different plane?

~~~
ecnal
Because, for all their software and development delays, they significantly
outperform 4.5th gen offerings and (the A, at least, which is the majority of
what people are buying) don't cost nearly as much (~85-95 million for an F-35A
flyaway vs. 110-120+ million for a Eurofighter or Rafale).

~~~
gaius
Wasn't the F35 spanked by an obsolete F16 recently? Which means modern MiGs
are going to eat it for breakfast.

~~~
neurotech1
It was a Basic Fighter Maneuvers test point. The F-35 was supposed to maneuver
in response to an F-16 behind them, and they did. This was not an evaluation
of dogfighting performance of the F-35.

At TOPGUN (& FWS) the F-5 "spanked" the Tomcats and Eagles on most dogfight
missions. That same F-5 runs out of fuel pretty quick, limiting its frontline
effectiveness.

------
Aelinsaar
For the love of god, it's time to admit that the F-22 wasn't too expensive,
and crawl back to it.

~~~
sickbeard
F-22 is an apex predator, F-35 is a multirole fighter/bomber. two different
planes. I think you mean going back to building specific planes for specific
thing rather than jack off all trades plane

~~~
Aelinsaar
The F-35 is a 1.5 Trillion black hole; a stark lesson on the sunk cost
fallacy. The F-22 exists, and works. We already have bombers, and frankly it
seems less useful to put humans rather than robots in harm's way for a bombing
run.

~~~
engi_nerd
Maybe it is an example of the sunk cost fallacy. But ruminate on this for a
moment: if we were having this conversation in 1996, you could have easily
said something like, "The F-22 is a $800 billion black hole; a stark lesson on
the sunk cost fallacy. The F-15 exists, and works..."

Maybe the F-35 is what you say it is, but when you look at the history of
fighter development, I don't think the F-35 is significantly _different_ ,
just a continuation and amplification of trends seen on previous programs. In
other words, these kinds of problems aren't unique to the F-35. This is by no
means an excuse, just a thinking point.

~~~
GVIrish
Yes, to a degree, several modern fighter aircraft have run into significant
cost and schedule overruns due to the additional complexity born of new
advanced capabilities.

However, the F-35's woes are particularly bad because of some disastrous
decisions made early on with the project.

First, the government decided not to start out with drafting detailed
requirements for the JSF like they have for previous aircraft (and other
weapon systems). The idea was that defense contractors know how to build
planes so they could cut out some red tape. As it turned out, the result was a
large number of oversights due to the contractors vision not lining up with
the military's needs.

There was also a large reliance on computer simulation in lieu of real world
testing. Predictably there were some sizable problems simulation did not
catch, which resulted in major revamps and retrofits.

In the development of any weapons platform one would expect issues to be found
in real-world testing with prototypes. But with the F-35 the government
approved "concurrent production" which meant that production F-35's were
getting built before all of the testing was complete. This resulted in
extremely costly retrofits of existing aircraft everytime a major problem was
identified (and fixed). Right now there are about 170 production F-35's out
there, and operational testing is far from finished.

Put all of these facets together and it's a much worse situation than what we
had with the F-22. Cost is tracking at around 200% more expensive than
anticipated, and that's assuming we won't see a big drop in the number of
aircraft partner nations order.

~~~
engi_nerd
Your substance is right and I have no major disagreements with any of your
points. I do have some comments and a few very minor corrections which do not
substantially change your argument, but which you may find useful. I'm going
to assume that someone who wrote such a reasoned response would find these
minor corrections of interest.

On requirements: as an engineer I know how disastrous it is to write bad
requirements. But having a thorough set of bad requirements is better than not
having requirements at all. Without requirements, just about anyone is free to
make them up as they go along. As you said, the government did decide that it
didn't know how to build planes and the defense contractors did.

But, also, the government has, by and large, shifted its engineering focus
away from systems design and more towards systems engineering and integration.
Also, in general, the government cannot pay the same kinds of salaries that
contractors do. So, even if the government had wanted to take a more active
role in systems design, it would have found itself lacking the right people to
do so effectively.

This doesn't excuse the lack of requirements, but it does offer an explanation
as to why the government didn't take a more active role in design.

> There was also a large reliance on computer simulation in lieu of real world
> testing. Predictably there were some sizable problems simulation did not
> catch, which resulted in major revamps and retrofits.

Most notably, the government provided an incorrect computer model of the
dynamics of the arresting gear found on aircraft carriers. The initial F-35C
arrestment hook was designed against this incorrect model. When testing
revealed this deficiency, the hook had to be redesigned.

> But with the F-35 the government approved "concurrent production" which
> meant that production F-35's were getting built before all of the testing
> was complete.

Yes, in large part because the government believed that improved computer
simulation would eliminate the need for a separate engineering and
manufacturing development phase. We've seen how that worked out.

> Right now there are about 170 production F-35's out there

From different production lots, so not even all production aircraft are the
same. Later production lots include fixes that must be retrofitted on earlier
lots.

> and operational testing is far from finished.

What the government calls Operational Testing (OT, what is also known and
talked about in the linked document as Initial Operational Test & Evaluation,
or IOT&E) is different than a layman's interpretation of the term.

Traditionally, once the government completed a very detailed set of
specifications and the contractor built a few prototypes, these prototypes
were flight tested by the contractor (with government oversight, of course).
Once the developmental testing was done, the completed aircraft and all its
test results and paperwork were handed over to the government. "Here's your
plane, it meets all your requirements." Then the government would conduct
testing in environments representative of actual deployments and combat
conditions. Operational Testing. The OT force for F-35 just stood up last
year. OT has really barely even started.

> Put all of these facets together and it's a much worse situation than what
> we had with the F-22.

An amplification of previous trends, as I said earlier.

~~~
GVIrish
> But, also, the government has, by and large, shifted its engineering focus
> away from systems design and more towards systems engineering and
> integration. Also, in general, the government cannot pay the same kinds of
> salaries that contractors do. So, even if the government had wanted to take
> a more active role in systems design, it would have found itself lacking the
> right people to do so effectively. This doesn't excuse the lack of
> requirements, but it does offer an explanation as to why the government
> didn't take a more active role in design.

Unfortunately this is a trend that's happening all over government. There's
this pervasive idea that contractors can do it better so over time the
government has less and less full-time employees with the technical expertise
they need. Glad you brought up this point because this is a prime example of
how this philosophy can be very costly.

It does seem like the program has been running better under Bogdan but at the
same time you still have many staunch defenders who refuse to acknowledge
reality (like the USMC). Maybe it'll all work itself out but I feel like
realistically we'll probably need to produce more legacy aircraft
(Superhornets, F16E's) as a stopgap at the least. At worst they may have to
short cycle the F-35 and bring the replacement(s) sooner than anticipated.

------
ivl
I really think it's a shame that they moved to the F-35, instead of just
continuing to produce F-22s. Stupid export ban. Then again, the extra payload
may have been worth it.

~~~
vonmoltke
The unit production cost (the cost of building an aircraft, not including
amortized R&D) for the F-22A is about 50% higher than for the F-35A. You could
certainly argue that two F-22As is better than three F-35As, but that is an
issue that needs to be considered.

Furthermore, the F-22A was already running into parts obsolescence issues when
I was working on it (2002 - 2006). Those would have continued to get worse had
production expanded or continued. The F-35A was (supposedly) designed to
better handle those issues.

~~~
Gravityloss
The solution should be relatively straightforward. Purpose built different
airframes, with relatively conservative technology. Share components where it
makes sense. Manufacture lots of airframes and spares. Update components
later.

The next US fighter / attack program is going to be like that. It aims a lot
lower and should be more predictable. I've lost track if it's called F-X or
F/A-XX or what now, and what are the split parts etc...

[http://www.seapowermagazine.org/stories/20160426-f35.html](http://www.seapowermagazine.org/stories/20160426-f35.html)

~~~
neurotech1
There is 3 different models of super Hornets.

1) F/A-18E Strike Fighter

2) F/A-18F FAC(A) CAS/Strike Fighter

3) EA-18G Growler

Commonality is ~80% between all 3 aircraft. They could probably make a F/A-XX
based on F/A-18E/F with similar avionics, and engines based on the F135 in a
larger airframe, but they could make it happen relatively economically if that
was the priority.

~~~
Gravityloss
It's not a good design in the stealth and supercruise departments.

Back in the sixties and seventies when the Hornet was designed, modern stealth
shaping was not really known.

Modern airframes could be a lot more capable.

------
Impl0x
This might be off topic, but there are a few comments on here (mostly) joking
about why we even should bother designing planes like the F-35 to be operated
locally by humans. I'm curious, does anyone have any info on the state of
drone fighter planes, either remotely piloted or completely autonomous? Does
such a project even merit consideration when we could innovate missile systems
instead?

~~~
thinkcontext
Drones are not a good replacement for the traditional fighter aircraft. Remote
piloting has too much latency for dogfights and software is no where near
smart enough to trust full autonomy in order to, say, shoot down another
plane.

That said, would you consider a cruise missile a drone? One can imagine other
types of weapons getting smarter. Additionally, its clear the roles that
drones tackle will expand at the expense of manned aircraft.

~~~
Pinckney
What about a semi-autonomous fighter, with a pilot to provide low latency
input on what to shoot, and the plane deciding how to fly and make that shot
independently? You could even have the pilot prone for higher G tolerance,
like they tried in some of the old Gloster Meteors, since their input is no
longer necessary for all of its operation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor_F8_"Prone_Pilot...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor_F8_"Prone_Pilot")

------
nealrs
we found, designed a plan to, and (nearly) recovered an entire nuclear
submarine from the ocean floor -in secret- using a giant grappling hook in
under than 8 years and for $3.8 billion ($800 million in '74) dollars.

but we can't design a marginally improved fighter jet for less than a trillion
or under 20 years?

ref:
[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Project_Azorian](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Project_Azorian)

~~~
JimboOmega
We also built the golden gate bridge in 4.5 years for an inflation adjusted
$1.3B, the new Eastern span of the bay bridge took what, $6.4B and 11 years?

That's just seems to be the nature of all public projects - the cost rises way
faster than inflation.

------
transfire
Ode to what could have been...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZGgvhqs5g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZGgvhqs5g)

