
Pierre Sprey on the F-35 [video] - guillaume8375
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw
======
bane
When you need the absolute best for something, you need to specialize. That's
why there have historically been so many different kinds of aircraft, each
with relatively discrete missions.

The F-35 is a terrible aircraft, and the procurement is deeply suspect. The
South Korean acquisition process leaked some surprising information about the
acquisition process and the F-35 failed the relatively modest criteria the
Koreans had set and an older aircraft (F-15) to be purchased. At the time
there was loads of news about the F-35 failing the acquisition and it even
made it into Aviation week. Doing a google search now, it looks like it was a
smooth process from RFP to acquisition and I can't find many of the older
articles [1]

The rumor is that Lockheed bribed the hell out of the Korean National Assembly
and "won" the initial round of acquisition, but the agency in Korea
responsible for the acquisition (DAPA) saw right through it and awarded the
final contract to Boeing.

The National Assembly got upset, Lockheed got upset and probably some U.S.
congressmen got upset and the entire acquisition was tossed out "recompeted"
and of course the F-35 won the second time. It's a sad joke and I can't even
begin to guess at the acquisition shenanigans that happened in the U.S.

1 -
[http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130928/DEFREG/309280008...](http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130928/DEFREG/309280008/F-35-Back-
S-Korea-Fighter-Contest)

 _edit_ a great movie about this is the movie "Pentagon Wars" which includes
this great scene.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA)

~~~
noir_lord
The F35 is a dog and I suspect as a Brit we are going to get stuck with the
thing when everyone else pulls out.

~~~
rst
You think the US won't buy them? Our military bought and paid for hundreds of
F-111s, the last plane we designed to do everything for everyone, with the
result that it wasn't useful anyplace. (Yes, we've tried this trick before.)
And that was in the 1960s and '70s; if anything, the military procurement
process has gotten a whole lot more corrupt.

~~~
vacri
The F-111 was actually good for Australia, though the purchase was sort of a
'mistake' at the time - it's extremely long range suited our northern defence,
where the airstrips are few and far between. One defence person said in an
aside to me 'The F-111 has enough range to get from Darwin to Jakarta and back
without refueling'...

~~~
dwd
Menzies said as much quite openly after the confrontation with Indonesia
following the Malaysian Independence.

If you're near Caloundra they have an open cockpit weekend coming up.

[http://www.qam.com.au/ocw/ocw.htm](http://www.qam.com.au/ocw/ocw.htm)

------
nostromo
Isn't the whole idea of manned fighter jets antiquated?

And if this tech isn't dated already, the Pentagon plans to still be using
these jets in 2065. ([http://online.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-looks-to-lower-
costs...](http://online.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-looks-to-lower-costs-
of-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-program-1402610449))

I don't see a strong reason the Air Force should be investing so much in
fighter jets and not focusing on drone technology.

He mentions dogfights, do those even happen anymore? Why participate in a
manned dogfight when you can simply send drones -- and if they are shot down,
send one more, or one hundred more.

The U.S. military is always fighting the last war. In this case, they aren't
even fighting the last several wars, but are still locked into Cold War, pre-
drone thinking.

~~~
anologwintermut
Remote controlled drones have limitations due to electronic warfare/jamming
(not to mention security, see the one the US lost in Iran). There's also an
issue with lag.

Actually autonomous ones are as far as I know only good for static targets
(effectively they are reusable cruise missiles).Close air support or deciding
whether to engage an enemy airplane or not gets tricky.

~~~
alwaysdoit
Aren't the missiles they fire subject to the same jamming problems?

~~~
aeturnum
Depends on the mechanism used by the missile to follow the target. My
impression is that most missiles don't have guidance systems that require
direct communication after launch,

~~~
hga
A whole bunch of missiles actually do, like the Sparrow and Standard.

The longer range ones really can use it to increase hit probability. Or so
I've read is true for the Phoenix and AIM-120 missiles, classed as "fire and
forget". and the newest Standard missile uses a AIM-120 derived head with a
bigger antenna. And I'm sure still depends on mid-course corrections (for that
matter, I've read the current models self-destruct if they doesn't get
guidance fairly soon after launch).

~~~
bobmoretti
The Sparrow and Standard are "semi-active radar homing missiles", meaning that
they have a radar seeker head and no emitter. They require an external
illumination radar (from the aircraft or launch platform) to light up their
target.

The AIM-120 uses a datalink to guide the missile close to the target, after
which the missile's internal radar emitter goes active, and the missile locks
onto the nearest target that it finds. This is because the radar on the
missile is not nearly as powerful as the radar on the aircraft. So it's not
truly a "fire and forget" missile, at least if a high probability of kill is
desired. I believe the Phoenix is similar.

~~~
hga
Per what I've read elsewhere, and the Wikipedia article
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_missile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_missile)),
for long range attack the Phoenix has a rather unique flight profile, it
climbs to 80,000 or so feet and cruises there, then dives down. Per the
article, at 11 miles it activates its radar, and I'll bet given the distance
and its bigger size, bigger antenna, it gets a bigger view than the AIM-120.
Still, it has the capability of and uses course corrections from its plane.

~~~
poof131
I believe the Phoenix usually falls off its plane (the F-14) directly into the
ocean. The Tomcat pilots then RTB to the bar and tell each other how great
they are. The Phoenix is the Yugo to the AMMRAM's Ferrari. They are different
generations of weapons.

------
pravda
Q: What is the point of this plane?

A: The real mission is for the US government to send money to Lockheed.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw#t=443](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw#t=443)

By that standard, the F-35 has been a trememdous success!

~~~
Justsignedup
Someone once mentioned a long time ago, that this airplane is garbage for one
reason only. Price. Let's say it performed flawlessly, succeeded in all it's
goals, it would still be garbage. Because the point being that you counter
that with a few cheap drones that all suck individually, but dollar for dollar
you can get the hundred drones required to take these aircraft down, while the
owners of the F-35 will simply not be able to keep up money wise.

$200 MM is a VERY hefty price. Hell 5 of these guys will cover our education
needs across the whole damn united states.

~~~
branchan
Do you really think that drones would be able to take down a F-35?

~~~
fizx
Predator drones have enough payload to carry several AIM-120s (where to mount
more than one is an open question), which is a ~40mi range fire-and-forget
air-to-air missile. Whether the F-35's stealth/avoidance is good enough, I
don't know. But if you had say a dozen drones patroling an area, I don't know
if I'd want to take an F-35 nearby.

So no, I don't think drone tech is good enough to down F-35s, but I think with
sufficient zerg tactics, it could deny airspace.

~~~
nickff
The Predator does not have a radar which would allow it to launch the AMRAAM
at long range. The AIM-120 has a radar for terminal guidance, but it relies on
the aircraft to pass target information for early flight.

~~~
msandford
Sure, but that's not the issue. That problem can be solved in a hackish
fashion for a LOT less than $200mm and perhaps even in an elegant fashion for
less.

If every Predator gets a 100W wideband transmitter and SOME of them get
instead of weapons the equipment necessary to process the reflections and do
the calcs then the others can get that target information and blammo.

If there are 100 Predators for every F35 in the combat zone and they ALL turn
on their transmitters simultaneously at some kind of interval you're never
going to know which one is carrying weapons and which one is command and
control. So you can't do prioritized targeting and thus you're shooting blind.
Yeah you can shoot down some of them but once you're out of missiles that's
it.

Do we have to worry about 3rd world countries being able to muster this kind
of response? No. But there are plenty of industrialized countries that could,
and they could bleed us dry one $200mm plane at a time.

~~~
branchan
I think there's a general disconnect between HN users and how the defense
industry works.

When you are designing a weapons system designed to kill people, you cannot
just design something 'in a hackish fashion'. No, this shit has got to work
correctly all the time.

The cheapest Predator drone cost about $5M and top flight Predators and Global
Hawks cost between $20M-50M. This means flying 100 of them is not reasonable.
UAVs are also not autonomous and need manned pilots. Even if you were to build
100 drones, are you going to pay for 100 extra pilots, create some kind of
airport that can house 100 drones, keeping them all fueled and maintained in
the desert?

Kinda naive to think that you can just use SV start up philosophies in this
application.

~~~
msandford
> I think there's a general disconnect between HN users and how the defense
> industry works.

Agreed, and I stated EXACTLY that in another portion of the thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907637)

> When you are designing a weapons system designed to kill people, you cannot
> just design something 'in a hackish fashion'. No, this shit has got to work
> correctly all the time.

No, with that part of engineering as with EVERY part of engineering: it
depends. Do you want UNIT reliability or SYSTEM reliability? Does every plane
have a literal 100% chance of intercepting every target it is tasked with? No,
of course not. But the missiles do, you say? Again wrong. But surely SOME
portion of the entire system will work ALL THE TIME! Nope, no engineer worth
his salt will give you a 100% guarantee for anything as unknown as "stopping
all possible threats".

Furthermore plenty of systems that are supposed to be very reliable are made
up of less reliable parts. The whole Star Wars program was based on defense in
depth where no one layer of system was going to stop 100% of the warheads but
multiple layers acting in concert would be able to (presumably) stop them all
or almost all. Hackish is fine provided that you've got substantially
overlapping coverage from multiple command and control drones. No one drone
has to work 100% guaranteed because even at only a 95% success rate (which is
abysmal compared to the "all the time" demand you're making) with three
overlapping zones gives you .05 * .05 * .05 = .0125% chance of failing. I'll
take 1/8 of a chance of failure per thousand incidents as successful enough.

Again, I'm not talking about having 100 drones with 100 pilots but perhaps
having 100 drones with 9 pilots for the command and control drones (one for
every 10 mules) and some kind of a very rudimentary, randomized loiter
algorithm for the mules.

> Kinda naive to think that you can just use SV start up philosophies in this
> application.

I want to say a bunch of really snarky stuff in response. I'm an outsider to
SV; I grew up in MN, went to school in FL and now I live in TX. None of these
places ever get accused of being even SLIGHTLY SV-ish in nature so I don't see
how I deserve that kind of comment. Ultimately though you've made a lot of
assumptions that don't necessarily hold. The idea that you're going to defeat
the US using the same kind of procurement and whatever that the US uses is a
non-starter. You don't try and beat the US at a symmetric war but you can
defeat them with an asymmetric one. We're losing how many lives and how much
money in Iraq and Afghanistan right now to IEDs which are what, 10 notches
below the fancy shit we have? And yet all our fancy airplanes haven't saved a
single soldier from an IED that I'm aware of.

I'm not necessarily saying that you absolutely 100% can use SV philosophies in
war and win, but I am saying that the notion that the way the US military does
it is the ONLY way to do it isn't correct either.

~~~
branchan
I don't know why you are referring to the Star Wars program since it was not a
program that was ever fielded.

Anyway, so is your strategy to fire multiple missiles at a time for each
target? Assuming it's possible for UAVs to engage air targets (which they
cannot right now), how many are you going to shoot off for each target, at the
cost of $0.5M for each missile, just because you developed an algorithm in a
'hackish' manner?

If you gave each pilot 10 drones to control, good luck trying to execute
evasive maneuvers on all of them when they come under attack.

~~~
ericd
Evasive maneuvers are something that a probabilistic algorithm tied into good
sensors is probably better at performing for a swarm than a human would be,
especially if the performance characteristics of these drones were made to be
more extreme than most jets.

~~~
branchan
1\. Drones do not perform anywhere near as well as a fighter jet.

2\. There aren't even any autonomous UAVs right now, why do you think you will
be able to make one that can also autonomously evade a missile?

~~~
ericd
1\. That's not a characteristic inherent to drones, that's just what we've
done to date. And there are remote controlled fighter jets that the military
uses for practice.

2\. Because it seems well within our capabilities to do some basic missile
evasion AI, that's just a small subset of the challenge of making a fully
autonomous UAV. You need to identify the missile and its trajectory, identify
its flight and kill characteristics, and then identify the various actions you
could take and evaluate their likelihood of successfully evading the missile.
Then you carry that flight plan out. Rinse and repeat until you're no longer
in danger.

~~~
branchan
So you are saying:

1\. We should make a drone have the same flight performance capabilities as a
fighter jet, which will make it cost more money.

2\. We should spend even more money to create an AI system with the exact same
capabilities as a trained fighter pilot. Probably not an easy feat.

~~~
ericd
I'm not recommending that they do it one way or another - there're a lot of
new possibilities that should be explored, which means that more of the same
might not be the way to go. All I was saying that it's silly to say
categorically that "drones are slow", because they certainly don't have to be
- if anything, they have the potential to be even faster and more maneuverable
than manned fighter jets, because you can get rid of a lot of the cruft and
restrictions related to keeping a pilot alive and letting them pilot
effectively. No more canopy, no more cockpit shielding, no more visible
instrumentation and layout requirements, no more ejection seat, no more oxygen
supply, no more human survivable g-limits, etc.

I'm also not advocating for a completely autonomous drone, just saying that
automatically flying a plane to evade a missile doesn't seem terribly
difficult, as far as AI problems go, and the amounts of money thrown at these
sorts of things are absurdly large.

------
zobzu
The F-35 is actually a pretty awesome jet. Is it better than the F-22 in air
to air combat? Nope.

Does it have to be? Here's a similar jet: the Dassault Rafale. Its also
multirole. Its not nearly as good as the F-35. Is it better than the F-22 in
air to air combat? Nope. Did it shot down a F-22, ever? Yes (yes - they have
official combat simulations with real planes, only the missiles are not real -
and those are made to sell the airplanes so there is no incentive to go easy).
Does that means its better then? Nope, still not. Most of the time, it loses.

There's several points here:

\- you dont have to be the best tool for the job to be the best all rounder.

\- sometimes the best all rounder is better than the best tool for the job.
its cheaper (imagine 3 or 4 F-22 scale programs vs 1 F-35 program), and it
does the job well enough for many tasks. in fact, air to air superiority is
one of the only tasks where you currently need to specialize. Turns out that
the army has done this choice as well and has the F-22.

\- views you can see or read of what is "better" or "worse" regarding fighter
aircrafts is most of the time completely wrong and extremely misleading. Most
people have extremely, extremely high financial interests in this. Billions
and billions. War is a very juicy business.

One of the points of the "co designer of the F16" (mind you, id take a F15
over a F16 ANY DAY) are the "small wings" of the F35 giving it mediocre lift.

I like this one. The F-35 has better lift and better aerodynamics than the
F-16 or the F-15, or the F/A-18. But its non-obvious. This engineer knows
that. The general public doesn't. (note that the main reason for this, beside
better design for aerodynamics is that the body of the plane provides most of
the lift).

Some of the other commons points are generally either plain false, either have
truth in them but pushed further than the reality.

~~~
greedo
Not sure why people are downvoting you.

Do I think the F-35 is a great jet? Hard to say since it's still in LRIP. But
it's reported by pilots who have flown it to be more maneuverable than
F-15/16/18\. Not as fast as the F-22, and not as stealthy. Longer legged than
the F-18 (either version).

Where it falls down is in cost, largely due to it requiring so much
commonality between the three versions. If the cost stays above $150M a copy
(depends on how you calculate that, and it's a hard thing to do), it's too
pricey. The F-22 would have been better for A2A, and if the line had been kept
open, the Raptor's cost would have ended up below that. So if LM can get the
cost down closer to the $100m mark, it'll be fine. New build F-16s are over
$80M, the Silent Eagle was expected to cost North of $100m, and neither would
be able to handle the role of the F-35.

~~~
zobzu
People don't like controversial opinions. It's easier to go with the flow.

Im not sure the cost is such a huge deal compared to 3 concurrent programs
that make cheaper planes, due to the program cost. itd probably be about the
same granted that all 3 program would have been decently successful.

comparing to 1 program doesnt work if the plane fullfill 3 roles - IMO

------
protomyth
I don't disagree that the F-35 is poor in every respect (read up on the South
Korean procurement vs the F-18), but I am a little puzzled at one part of the
video. Is there an actual source that current stealth is easily beatable by
long wave radar? I acknowledge the expertise of Pierre Sprey, but I have my
doubts on how easy it is to beat.

~~~
opendais
[http://news.usni.org/2014/05/14/can-chinas-new-destroyer-
fin...](http://news.usni.org/2014/05/14/can-chinas-new-destroyer-find-u-s-
stealth-fighters)

[http://www.wired.com/2011/06/stealth-tech-
obsolete/](http://www.wired.com/2011/06/stealth-tech-obsolete/)

It is more complicated than "LOL LONG WAVE RADAR I WIN".

"The other problem that the defender must contend with is the fact that the
L-band and most parts of the S-band have radar resolution cells that are too
large to provide a weapons quality track. Effectively, even if a defender can
detect and track an attacking stealthy fighter, that defender may not be able
to guide a missile onto that target.

That being said, both the SPY-1 and the forthcoming Raytheon Air and Missile
Defense Radar (AMDR) operate in higher frequency portions of the S-band and
are able to generate weapons quality tracks. If the Chinese system is
similar—and there are indications that it is—it could generate fire-control
quality guidance for the HQ-9B missiles."

Stealth provides __some __ability to evade however the most modern systems
that are getting rolled out in the next 5 years are going to able to track a
F-35 and engage it without significant hardship.

Stealth at this point is really just another layer of defense, like decoys.
It'll decrease the distance at which you can truly kill a F-35. However, at
200 million each, you can afford to build a large number of missiles & mobile
SAMs to take out a F-35.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
Something people apparently generally don't realize is that the stealth claim
has only ever been about the front profile of the aircraft. Nobody is claiming
the F-22 is invisible, just that it's rather hard to see from a distance if
it's coming straight at you. And going straight at enemy fighters and air
defense radars is the role of the F-22. Radar onboard an enemy fighter is not
going to be long wave. So I don't really get Sprey's claim that stealth is a
scam. The stealth claims are modest and accurate as best I can tell.

~~~
Bluestrike2
The biggest problem is that stealth has always been surrounded by political
demands all the way back to the first stealth aircraft. Given Sprey's target
audience with the interview and the way he chose his words (particularly at
first), I think it's likely that he was addressing the prevailing belief that
stealth aircraft are invisible aircraft. That said, you've hit the nail on the
head in terms of the difference between being stealth (re: invisible, such as
what Sprey's railing against) and being low-observable.

Public comments about the JSF program by Lockheed, military spokespersons, and
congressional supporters alike have all touted the plane's stealth
capabilities to an extent that makes me wonder how many actually understand
the difference between the two. Given the likelihood that operational demands
(particularly close air support for the Marines with the F-35B... not that CAS
missions could every be very stealthy) will make the entire point moot, I
really don't understand all the emphasis on it.

~~~
opendais
Ya. Stealth made sense on the F-22 with its air superiority role.

The F-35....not so much.

------
greedo
I think Sprey's comments need to be taken with a huge grain of salt
considering he thought the F-15 would be a huge failure. The F-15 is
everything he didn't want in a fighter, yet it's probably the most successful
jet fighter in history.

~~~
hga
Although in all fairness it must be pointed out the Air Force put it's thumb
on the scales, you might say.

The original F-16 concept included a thrust to weight ratio > 1, like the
F-15's, plus 20 minutes of supercruise
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercruise)
which we've only achieved lately with the F-22). Sufficiently strict
requirements with the low weight and low(ish) cost that it e.g. sacrificed
night and all-weather capability.

The Air Force wasn't interested in such a bird, but they were interested in a
fighter-bomber based on it, which e.g. required serious additions to the frame
and cost it the super high performance.

But in an AU perhaps the original F-16 would have turned out to be a
magnificent fighter.

~~~
greedo
Oh, the F-16 is a fantastic fighter. It's a great fighter-bomber as well, but
it's been exceptional at dogfighting since day one. The USAF just doesn't use
it for air supremacy since the F-15 is tasked for that.

The USAF was really interested in a "cheap" aircraft that could replace the
F-4/A7 in quantity, and function in a swing role as a bomber if it wasn't
required for A2A work.

~~~
coldcode
Having worked on the F-16 in my first job (Jovial runtime libraries) I have a
real affinity for it. Even today you can buy a whole boatload of F16s for the
cost of 1 F35. I think the plane is too expensive to use as an everyday FB.

~~~
greedo
Not sure about a boatload. Current build (Block 60) Vipers are close to $100m
depending on how you calculate the cost of spares etc. It'll be interesting to
see how much the UAE pays for the Block 61s they requested this year.

------
bambax
Love this guy, and love the interview where the interviewer

\- LETS THE INTERVIEWEE SPEAK

\- listens so that she's able to accurately summarize what the guy said!

Great moment -- thanks for sharing.

------
WalterBright
Anyone interested in fighter design process should check out the biography
"Boyd". John Boyd is acknowledged as the 'father' of the F15 and F16.

~~~
hangonhn
I was about to say the same. Correction: him and the fighter mafia hated the
F-15. His work lead to F-16 and F/A-18.

~~~
pedrocr
>Correction: him and the fighter mafia hated the F-15. His work lead to F-16
and F/A-18.

If I recall correctly the F-15 was partly his baby but he only got in mid-way
so couldn't make it as good as he wanted it. Then the Lightweight Fighter
program was run by him and generated the YF-16 and YF-17 prototypes. The YF-16
won the competition and became the F-16. Then the Navy didn't like a single
engine plane (or didn't like an air force plane) and took the YF-17 and made
the F-18.

So I doubt they hated the F-15 but they definitely liked the F-16 better. I'm
not sure how happy they were about the F-18 given that it was a run-around
their LWF process.

~~~
hangonhn
Oh I think you're right. My memory of that book is a bit spotty and I forgot
some of the nuances of the situation.

------
knowaveragejoe
> Lockheed’s F-117 stealth fighter was developed in a breakneck 30 months by a
> close-knit team of 50 engineers led by an experienced fighter designer named
> Alan Brown and overseen by seven government employees. Brown said he
> exercised strict control over the design effort, nixing any proposed feature
> of the plane that might add cost or delay or detract from its main mission.

> The F-35, by contrast, is being designed by some 6,000 engineers led by a
> rotating contingent of short-tenure managers, with no fewer than 2,000
> government workers providing oversight. The sprawling JSF staff, partially a
> product of the design’s complexity, has also added to that complexity like a
> bureaucratic feedback loop, as every engineer or manager scrambles to add
> his or her specialty widget, subsystem or specification to the plane’s
> already complicated blueprints … and inexperienced leaders allow it.

For those interested in a deeper look at why the F-35 is so, well, F'd, this
is a great read:

[https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-
alli...](https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-
stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5)

It basically comes down to stupid design considerations forced upon the
program by the various branches(mainly the Marine Corps) and how easily
blinded Congress was by the notion of a (supposedly cheaper) one-size-fits-all
solution.

~~~
cowardlydragon
I'm guessing this is an outgrowth of modern management practices that
explicitly do not value engineering experience and believe "process" will
produce the desired result.

People are interchangeable, there is no institutional knowledge, and
management can solve all technical issues.

------
aerocapture
The best thing one can say about the F-35 is something akin to what rocket
designer Robert Truax once said about the Space Shuttle, that it "represents a
truly marvelous implementation of an absolutely absurd concept."

If you've read the "Boyd" biography mentioned here by other commenters, you'll
recognize many of Boyd's and Sprey's criticisms of the so-called "F-X" fighter
procurement program (which eventually led to the F-15) in his critique of the
F-35. [1]

None of the Fighter Mafia actually "designed" any of these aircraft, but Boyd,
Sprey, Christie and others did play a pivotal role in changing how the
Pentagon defined and proved the _specifications_ of the fighters it was
buying. The F-X was supposed to be a larger, swing-wing, multi-role behemoth,
similar to the abysmal F-111, which Boyd proved to Pentagon brass to be
inferior to virtually _all_ enemy fighters, by way of his brilliant "Energy-
Maneuverability" theory. In this way, Boyd and Sprey influenced the final
design of the F-15, but to a much lesser extent than the designs of the F-16
or A-10. [2]

One key point Sprey brings up in several of his other interviews on the F-35
topic (which he curiously leaves out of this one) is that, regardless of the
capabilities (or lack thereof) of the F-22 or F-35, neither will ever be as
successful as the historically-great fighters like the P-51, F-4, F-15, or
F-16, simply because they'll never be built in sufficient numbers.

For a fighter to be great, its _pilots_ must also be great, and to do that
they must train regularly and often, something which has proven impossible
with the low dispatch reliability of these complex fifth-gen fighters. Sprey
notes that in WWII, the U.S. P-51 fleet triumphed over the vastly superior
German fleet of ME-262s, by first developing tactics that could defeat this
amazing jet (i.e., shooting them down while taking off or landing), and
because there were simply more P-51s available to fight.

Sprey and Boyd were right about a few things: build them light (which helps
make them fast and maneuverable), build them cheap, and build lots of them.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#Or...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#Origins)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverability_theory)

~~~
Borogravia
To add to the WW2 examples - The German Bf-109 wasn't the best fighter of the
war by most standards, yet it got flown by arguably the best fighter pilots in
history (thanks to the insane Luftwaffe policy of keeping the best pilots on
the front line in perpetuity), and so is responsible for more aerial victories
than any other aircraft.

Also small, also cheap, and the Germans built scads of them. You could really
see the difference in training and experience, however, toward the end of the
war, where badly trained German pilots were thoroughly outclassed by their
Allied opponents.

------
infinotize
In the video Sprey critisizes the F-15, which is not unsurprising considering
the history of him going off and designing the F-16. But isn't the F-15
regarded as a great aircraft? It costs nearly double, but has a good record
and capabilities, and is perhaps better than the F-16 at everything but slow
dogfighting.

~~~
Symmetry
Yes, but the excellent F-15 was a synthesis between the ideas of the Figher
Mafia[1] which Sprey represents and the more technocratic elements of the Air
Force. By contrast, the F-35 seems to be an example of the worst excesses of
the later.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_Mafia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_Mafia)

------
neurotech1
Pierre Sprey is way off base on practically everything.

Almost no air-to-air combat starts out within visual range and this has been
the case since the 1980s when the F-16 became available.

Part of the reason the F-16 became popular is that its cheaper to buy and
operate compared to the F-4 and F-15, and even the F-16 Block 5 had an
avionics package that made it quite capable in combat and achieved its first
Air-to-Air kill in 1980. Smaller jets like the F-5E and the SAAB Gripen don't
have nearly the same combat radius on internal fuel.

The F-35 is one of the most agile jets available when loaded for combat. Most
of the claims about the F-16 are in airshow configuration and not combat
loaded with drop tanks.

~~~
hga
" _Almost no air-to-air combat starts out within visual range..._ "

Until the politicians require visual confirmation of the target. Which is
exactly what happened in Vietnam under LBJ. At which point Sparrows were dead
weight with a lot of drag.

~~~
neurotech1
The target is usually acquired and tracked on radar first. Getting visual ID
before firing the missile is a different story. In Iraq '91 they required IFF
transponder status to confirm a target as hostile which isn't always reliable.

By 2003, the USAF made extensive use of E-3 AWACS and fighters required
clearance from Joint Air Operations Center before engaging a target. The E-3
would vector the fighters for an intercept so it wouldn't start visually.

------
tsotha
It's a little bit early to write the F-35 off as a failure, unless you're
talking purely about the financial side. Certainly it's a failure as a down-
market F-22 with strike capability. It's far too expensive for that.

We won't really know what kind of air superiority platform the F-35 is until
it's had a few run-ins with other modern fighters. Stealth capabilities and
superior sensors may be more than enough to make up for lack of
maneuverability. Or maybe not.

------
hackuser
Many posters here are making definitive statements. Does anyone have expertise
in this issue or know what they are talking about beyond repeating what they
have read?

IIRC, Pierre Sprey represents one side in a political battle about aircraft
design, but I hope someone here knows more about it than I do.

~~~
jmelloy
Anybody with current experience can likely not talk about it, due to security
clearance issues.

~~~
orangewire
Exactly this. Lockheed tells its employees to be very careful about discussing
the F-35 in public, lest information be inadvertently disclosed. Obtaining and
maintaining a security clearance is a condition of employment in the defense
world, so those who know and could clear up many of the disagreements cannot
really say much. Even disclosing that you work on the program is not
encouraged.

------
virtue3
hey guys, it's ok. The chinese jacked the f-35 designs. Removed the VTOL
aspect, narrowed the chassis, and now it's a much MUCH better aircraft.
Hopefully they're cool and let us buy them back from them!

~~~
slater
Maybe this is all just an elaborate false-flag-y thing? The Chinese were
allowed to "acquire" plans to a shitty plane, and in a few years the US Govt
will be all "whoops that plane sucked, we've been working on a different
plane, here it is"

~~~
virtue3
I don't think our budget could handle another JSF disaster :(

------
rosser
"The point is to spend money. That is the mission of the airplane, is for the
US Congress to send money to Lockheed."

------
sytelus
There are uncanny parallels here with software projects typically getting
late, over budget and a complete mess of conflicting goals. In our industry,
we have found that this typically happens when people detecting requirements
are neither the end users nor the engineers. Best projects are the ones where
people behind it are playing both roles. May be its time for military to
instill this culture by assigning generals who are themselves pilots _and_
engineers to lead such projects.

------
zenbowman
Lots of lessons for software engineers in this lovely interview. Like Knuth,
Pierre Sprey seems to relish "beauty in the particular".

"The goal of generalization had become so fashionable that a generation of
mathematicians had become unable to relish beauty in the particular, to enjoy
the challenge of solving quantitative problems, or to appreciate the value of
technique" \- From the preface to Concrete Mathematics; Graham, Knuth and
Patashnik

------
Gravityloss
How much would it have then cost to develop three different aircraft?

The lightweight fighter program (LWF), which spawned F-16 and F/A-18, was done
for daylight dogfights, but both aircraft have picked a lot of electronics
during the years and are used for laser guided precision bombing (something
for which you needed an A-10 in the nineties still).

Further, AFAIK, the primary US adversary back in the seventies, the Soviet
Union, was much closer technologically than what they or others are now.
Russia and China are catching up though.

So a "good enough" "jack of all trades" aircraft might make a lot of sense.
You might just need less aircraft in total. The US Air Force and Navy have
been simplifying their inventory a lot in the past years anyway. The F-14 and
A-6 are retired for example, with worse aircraft (for specific missions) used
instead. You can always go in a more "hot rod" direction - but what will be
the price?

General Dynamics' Harry Hillaker is the real designer of the F-16. Boyd,
Riccioni, Christie and Sprey were part of the LWF mafia, while General
Dynamics designed the actual F-16.

GD used a lot of resources, did a very thorough analysis and spent a huge
amount of time in the wind tunnel. You can see the very visual design
evolution in various stories about it. (Incidentally the LWF third place
competitor Boeing design looked a lot like the GD one, as did the Vought
design.)

Here is one history:
[http://www.codeonemagazine.com/f16_article.html?item_id=131](http://www.codeonemagazine.com/f16_article.html?item_id=131)

IMHO, the fatness-inducing lift fan space could have been ditched to make the
airplane perform better. A separate less commonal version could have been
created for VTOL use.

------
bediger4000
How does any pair ("co-designer" implies two designers, doesn't it?) of people
design anything as complicated as an F-16? I've only worked on rockets and
missiles, but the design of something as small and simple as the old Harpoon
anti-ship missile is a pretty complex interplay between guidance-and-control,
aerodynamics, propulsion and structures.

~~~
AmVess
Project leaders, primarily. As in, "This is what I want, and this is how you
are going to engineer it."

~~~
bediger4000
It doesn't work that way. Some nominal "designer" might doing engineering
drawings, but with so much input from other engineers that what you might
think of as "design" just doesn't exist.

Oh, sure, Old Man Douglas might have drawn the outline of the DC-7's tail up
in the old "lofting room", or someone said "one engine" for the F-16, or
"elliptical domes" for the Titan fuel and oxidizer tanks, but after that,
saying someone is THE designer of a large project is just a fib.

------
henryw
Wow, I didn't know stealth was a scam. WW2 radars can be used to find modern
"stealth" planes.

~~~
hga
As other discussions have pointed out, that's not all that useful if you can't
then kill them, which existent long wave radars are rather bad at.

~~~
alphapapa
An old, Russian, mobile, vacuum tube-using radar system guided an SA-3 as it
shot down an F-117 over Serbia. What makes you think modern HF radars that use
high-tech computers won't be able to do better?

------
sitkack
I think most weapons are huge failure, at least for their openly stated goals.

This design [0] from Burt Rutan [1] is beautiful in its simplicity. While it
doesn't have the mission of objectives as the F35, I'd rather have 300
Mudfighters than a single F35.

[0]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG9LlHcX8lg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG9LlHcX8lg)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan)

------
meerita
I never understood why they went with such design when they have proper
aircraft designs to evolve. Watch the russians: they've evolved the SU models
over the years proving that it is better than create something from 0 again.
Su-27, Su-30, Su-37 all of them are far more polyvalent than the F-35 and the
F-22.

------
rbanffy
The F-35 reminds me of the space shuttle. It tries do to many different
things, with many different requirements and ends up being much more
expensive, much less reliable and not particularly good at any of the things
it was designed to do.

I wonder what these projects have in common...

------
chamakits
As an aside, it's kind of humbling to think how different the scope and the
impact that these design decisions make versus the impact that most of us work
on can make.

Very few of us can say that a design mistake on our part is the difference
between life and death.

------
RyanMcGreal
I'm reminded of the short story "Superiority" by Arthur C. Clarke:

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

------
kevin1
I am watching this video and thinking about unix design philosophy:

"Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather
than complicate old programs by adding new features."

------
andrewstuart
Australia has just ordered 86 of these little beauties.

------
SeriousM
And I thought we (Europe) have problems with our EuroFighter which wasn't able
to take off if it was too cold...

------
qwerta
Perhaps it is a good news. Junk airplanes means fewer wars. I am sure EU and
US could make decent airplane very fast when some credible threat emerges.

------
akeck
Direct link to video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw)

~~~
dang
Yes. We changed the url from [http://digg.com/video/the-designer-of-
the-f-15-explains-just...](http://digg.com/video/the-designer-of-
the-f-15-explains-just-how-inanely-stupid-the-f-35-is), which points to this.

Pierre Sprey, btw, is an interesting character. After retiring from military
projects he became a record producer specializing in highbrow jazz
obscurities. An original hipster!

~~~
noir_lord
Title is still wrong, Pierre Sprey designed the F16 (co-designed) not the F15.

~~~
hangonhn
Also the father of the A-10, which the air force hates but is so useful. He
arrived at the design after studying how air power was used in WWII. We still
get a lot of utility out of the A-10. The air force is of course trying to
kill it still.

Source: Boyd - [http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed-
ebook/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed-
ebook/dp/B000FA5UEG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403040077&sr=8-1&keywords=boyd)

~~~
sukuriant
Why does the airforce hate the A-10? That thing is terrifying.

~~~
nostrademons
Just a guess: the A-10 is designed as a support aircraft for ground troops,
which means that if it does its job perfectly, the Army gets to claim a
decisive victory. The F-15 is an air-superiority fighter, which means that if
it does its job perfectly, the Air Force claims a decisive victory. Inter-
service rivalry is a Thing...from the POV of an ordinary citizen, it doesn't
matter as long as we whup the bad guys, but from the POV of a career military
bureaucrat it matters a lot whether the victory is credited to his branch of
the service.

~~~
hangonhn
Yep exactly. The A-10 isn't glamorous. The air force hates interdiction
missions even though they're among the most useful. The A-10 is also
relatively cheap and can loiter over the battlefield for a long time

~~~
hga
Wait, I thought they liked interdiction missions (e.g. keeping the enemy from
resupplying the front), and that's congruent with their service goals.

Close air support is another matter altogether. Ugly, dirty, and a high
potential for friendly fire causalities, which makes them look very bad in
today's unrealistic no errors allowed environment. E.g. nowadays in our too
common non-existential wars if an officer flying a plane hits friendlies, I'd
suspect his career will be over.

Of course, the A-10 can do both, but the greater ability to do close air
support, unlike say the F-111 back when we were flying it, means it will be
called up to do so.

Another issue is that things like GPS guidance means close air support can be
done without getting as up close and personal, and if the guys on the ground
supply their own coordinates instead of the target's, as I seem to recall
having happened at least once, it's on them.

------
wahsd
"The point is to spend money. That is the mission of the airplane...is for the
US Congress to send money to Lockheed Martin."

