
How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane - pvilchez
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/5c95d45f86a5
======
dkhenry
I understand the point the article is trying to make, but its not realistic.
Having worked with the Navy for a few years I know that the biggest use of
airplanes is not air to air combat ( which is what this article is complaining
about ) It is air to land bombing. So why are we complaining about making an
air force that serves our needs rather then one that might be useful for some
other task.

As a note he says this will be the "new mainstay of the air force" however we
still have the F-22 as our air superiority fighter which is still believed to
be better then anything out there, and indeed in their simulation the only
limitation to the F-22 was there were too few of them. So this isn't really
about America losing air superiority its about a few analysts not taking into
account the entire mission of the three branches of the military. Maybe this
plane doesn't stack up well against the F-16 or F-22, but It sure beats the
Harrier and the F-18.

~~~
bradleyjg
In addition to being a crappy fighter the F-35 is also a crappy bomber and
close air support aircraft. Not that it's a surprise that a plane designated
fighter (or 'strike' or 'fighter/attack') isn't good at these things.

We've virtually abandoned A and B line planes because the testosterone blinded
fighter mafia in the airforce would rather have fun toys than useful
equipment, and the navy is right there with them because heavy planes can't
take off from aircraft carriers. It doesn't help that the one bomber the air
force begrudgingly agreed to acquire is an obscenely expensive hanger queen,
designed for nuclear bombing runs deep into the Soviet Union.

If the army wasn't barred from operating fixed wing aircraft by the pernicious
Key West agreement, maybe they would operate as a voice of reason.

We should be working on a replacement for the AC-130 (1968), the A-10 (1977),
and B-52 (1955!). To the extent we actually need more air superiority fighters
they can bring back the F-22 line.

~~~
spartango
There is money going toward the development of a replacement for the B-52,
although the exact form it will take is still up in the air/under wraps.
Suffice to say that the "Next Generation Bomber" project currently has
funding.

Two observations along these lines, however:

* The B-52 originally was the US Air Force's all-purpose bomber when it rolled out in the 50s. It was a conventional heavy bomber, a strategic nuclear bomber, and a cruise missile platform all in one. Over time, however, the USAF's bombing roles have become split; the B-1 now takes on the role of a conventional bomber, while the B-2 is used for deep-penetration strikes and standoffs.

* One big hurdle in the development of a B-52 replacement is the limitations on the number of strategic bombers allowed under the New Start treaty. The US cannot easily develop new nuclear-capable bombers under this treaty, and thus must keep a chunk of the B-52 fleet around to maintain the nuclear capability.

~~~
bradleyjg
The nuclear triad always seemed a bit circular to me. We have three main means
of delivering nuclear weapons, so it must be a good idea to have three
different means of delivering nuclear weapons. I don't see it. With geographic
diversity and at least one delivery system that is mobile and easy to hide we
should be more than capable of asserting a second strike capability.

What's really needed from a modern bomber is a high munition capacity, a large
combat radius, and long loiter times. Cheap to build and operate would be
great too. Super stealth as well as high speeds and maneuverability are simply
expensive distractions.

For the rare situation where we need to deliver something like a conventional
bunker buster deep inside of territory that we don't wish to first completely
destroy the AA cababilities of first -- i.e. an Osirak type mission -- we
still have 20 of those $2 billion B-2s.

~~~
greedo
The nuclear triad is designed so that technical advances can't obsolete any
one leg of the triad. Currently, ICBMs are vulnerable, and are out of favor
due to the accuracy of SLBMs and ICBMs in a first strike role. So we put our
emphasis on SSBNs and stealth bombers. Now what do we do if an opponent
manages to work out an effective means of tracking our boomers on patrol?
Perhaps some odd trail of bioluminescence kicked up by the sub's wake
underwater; who knows. Then we're down to one leg. B2s. We only have 19-20,
and they can only fly so many missions, plus their bases a vulnerable to ICBMs
and SLBMs as well...

~~~
bradleyjg
Could the exact same arguments be made about a nuclear dyad or quad? What
makes three so special?

~~~
greedo
Well, I think the designers of SIOP were fond of tripods. ;)

Two legs is obviously less secure than three, and we don't have a fourth
because we haven't developed a fourth technology for delivering nuclear
weapons.

------
chiph
The USAF intends to replace the A-10 with this turkey, and it's an awful idea.

A-10: holds 1350 rounds of 30mm ammo. F-35: holds 180 rounds of smaller 25mm
ammo internally, plus 220 rounds externally

A-10: 1.8 hour loiter time. F-35: Not listed, but as a high subsonic (stall
speed) fighter, it's going to be shorter

A-10: Has titanium armor protecting the pilot & critical systems. F-35:
Already overweight, no chance of any armor.

A-10: Can be field repaired. F-35: Because of stealth requirements, only the
simplest of damage can be repaired in the field.

And then there's the price...

[Edit: Added stall speed qualification]

~~~
caycep
Agreed...compromised designs will be compromised designs. The A-10 was made to
work with the grunts in the mud. The F-35...

Of note, I think it was Pierre Sprey's (quoted in this article) baby.

~~~
greedo
Sprey was part of the fighter mafia pushing the LWF concept. I don't think he
had any role in the A-10.

~~~
chiph
If you haven't read it yet, Robert Coram's book "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who
Changed the Art of War" is good. He pissed off a lot of people, but he was
right. Which is criminal behavior in the Pentagon.

Speaking of which, watch "The Pentagon Wars" sometime. Has Cary Elwes and
Kelsey Grammer in it. It's all about the M-2 Bradley. "What it needs is a
turret on it!" Col. Burton sacrificed his career to make the Bradley less of a
danger to the troops it was designed to protect.

~~~
hindsightbias
He was right? His lightweight fighter isn't so light and has been more
utilized in an air-to-ground role than as a fighter.

If he'd been right, the F-16 wouldn't have all those hardpoints or a radar (he
believed air combat would be managed by ground controllers). You can say the
F-16 evolved, but it sure as hell didn't evolve as he thought it should.

The AF and Navy/USMC need a plane for dropping bombs. They keep hacking
fighters to do that. But they're more right than Boyd was.

~~~
chiph
Compared to the F-111, the F-16 is very light (well, almost everything is
lighter than an F-111...). He fought against the F-16 being certified in the
nuclear role and lost.

I hadn't heard he was opposed to a radar in the F-16 -- depending on ground
control doesn't make sense for an offensive unit. He probably didn't
anticipate how lightweight modern electronics have become.

~~~
greedo
Yes, he wanted the F-16 to be purely a daylight fighter, with simple avionics
and a fast turnaround time.

------
jasonwatkinspdx
"It could be that China doesn’t know how to build a working lift fan and
that’s why they left it off, Aboulafia said. But for a country that has
unveiled two different radar-evading stealth warplane prototypes in just the
last two years, that seems unlikely. It’s more plausible that China could
build a lift fan-equipped plane and has chosen not to."

The major difference is in posture. The US military wants to be able to
project power globally. That means fighting from carriers or allied bases of
varying quality half way around the world. The Chinese only care about their
borders and regional power projection. VSTOL doesn't gain them anything since
they'll never be that distant from their own bases.

This is the same reason why the Chinese haven't put much into carriers, but
have a ton of ballistic missile ships.

~~~
kqr2
The War Nerd has a great essay on why aircraft carriers are obsolete in modern
warfare:

[http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779](http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779)

~~~
anigbrowl
...from 2002. Since then, the Chinese have kept developing their own carrier
capability:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_progra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_programme)

Possibly they are only doing this to fake us out, and I don't disagree with
the war nerd's argument that carriers make worryingly good targets...but I
wouldn't write off the whole concept just yet.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Possibly they are only doing this to fake us out

No, they are doing it to maintain their regional position with regard to
potential conflict areas with regional rivals in the Indian Ocean/South China
Sea area, particularly, India.

[http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/12/world/asia/india-aircraft-
carr...](http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/12/world/asia/india-aircraft-
carrier/index.html)

~~~
anigbrowl
I think that too, but you need to read that remark in the context of the post
it was replying to (which suggested that such carriers were obsolete and
referenced an article suggesting that China would rely on submarines).

------
sschueller
"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."

vs.

"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."

~~~
masklinn
The final section of "Skunk Works" touches on the bureaucratic morasses.

Although the 30 months quote is really misleading: the surface analysis
prefiguring the Have Blue concept were started in 1974, XST phase one was
started in 1975, the Have Blue demonstrator first flew in 1977.

31 months (not 30) is the time between the full-scale development decision and
the first test model, decision to operational capability took 5 years (minus a
month, November 1978 to October 1983) and almost 8 if you add the Have Blue
studies.

~~~
thedrbrian
Doesn't Kelly Johnson give Ben Rich the advice to never work with the navy?

~~~
masklinn
I'm now home so I can both reply and complete my previous comment.

> Doesn't Kelly Johnson give Ben Rich the advice to never work with the navy?

It's more than that, it's Kelly's unwritten 15th rule of management:

> Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They don't know what the
> hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your
> heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy.

It's in the early page (#2) of the chapter on Sea Shadow.

The bureaucratic morass was from the Air Force and mentioned in the
penultimate chapter about the B2:

> When we began testing out stealth fighter, the combined Lockheed and Air
> Force personnel involved totaled 240 persons. There are more than two
> thousand Air Force auditors, engineers, and official kibitzers crawling all
> over that trouble B-2 assembly building in Palmdale. What are they doing?
> Compiling one million sheets of paper every day — reports and data that no
> one in the bureaucracy has either the time or the interest to read.

> The Air Force now has too many commissioned officers with no real mission to
> perform, so they stand around production lines with clipboards in hand,
> second-guessing and interfering every step of the way. The Drug Enforcement
> Agency has 1,200 enforcement agents out in the field [nb: the book was
> published in 1994, the DEA has learned since…] fighting the drug trafficking
> problem. The DOD employs 27,000 auditors. That kind of discrepancy shows how
> skewed the impulse for oversight has become both at the Pentagon and in the
> halls of Congress.

He also presciently notes that the way the B2 was done (involving multiple
manufacturers in a huge project) would spread and infect all future projects
as the number of projects would diminish and the DOD would spread projects
around to avoid any contractor dying.

------
beloch
Some U.S. allies are almost certainly going to bail out of the F-35 program.
Spiraling costs, the ideology requiring VSTOL, and some bizarrely secretive
aspects of the JSF project are conspiring to kill the F-35 as a viable option
for countries like Canada.

A surprising thing is that countries taking part in development are not
permitted complete access to program data. The U.S., despite making use of
other nations expertise in the development and manufacturing of the F-35,is
trying to keep some aspects classified from the nations who are supposed to
buy the plane!

Some Canadian pundits have (not seriously) called for the F-35 to be ditched
and the Avro Arrow resurrected. The Arrow was developed in the 50's as an
interceptor and, other than being _significantly_ faster than the F-35 is
probably inferior for Canada's requirements. It was designed in the freakin'
50's! It really is amazing that Canada went from manufacturing other country's
WWII propeller plane designs to building prototype's faster than today's
state-of-the-art F-35 in just a little over a decade. The fact that the F-35
is significantly slower than a 55 year old jet really shines light on how
compromised its design is.

There are many rumors surrounding the cancellation of the Avro Arrow since it
was probably superior to any other interceptor of its time, and one that
refuses to die is that the U.S. was pressuring Canada to drop the program
since Boeing, Lockheed, etc. felt threatened by Avro. Avro was basically
destroyed by the cancellation of the Arrow, and guess where Avro engineers
wound up!

I mention all this because Canada, despite being a perpetually self-doubting
nation, has significant aerospace and weapon expertise. Canada also has some
pretty unique design requirements not met by any existing fighters. The budget
to build fighters locally may not ultimately exist, but if the Canadian
government decides to compromise to cut costs, the F-35 is a horrendous
option. It doesn't meet Canadian requirements, isn't on time, is getting more
expensive every day, and the U.S. is trying to treat them like turn-key
installations rather than selling planes.

Why should the U.S. care? Every nation that bails on the JSF program will
raise costs for those that remain. Once one nation leaves, a domino effect
will likely ensue. Based on this article, I can't say that's necessarily bad!

~~~
efraim
What's wrong with buying the Saab Gripen instead? Wouldn't Canada have really
similar design requirements as Sweden?

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Politics generally block these type of deals. I bet Finland also have similar
requirements, but they went and purchased F-18 instead than whatever SAAB had
to offer.

~~~
kalleboo
And it was a huge snub to Sweden when Norway went with the F-35 for clearly
political reasons (later confirmed by Wikileaks cables). There's probably a
lot of Schadenfreude going around now…

------
brudgers
I am not saying that the JSF is a good plane, or that VSTOL is a good thing.
But the claims of the article are all resting on this:

 _" In the scenario, 72 Chinese jets patrolled the Taiwan Strait. Just 26
American warplanes — the survivors of a second missile barrage targeting their
airfields — were able to intercept them, including 10 twin-engine F-22 stealth
fighters that quickly fired off all their missiles"_

To summarize this scenario:

    
    
      () Successful Chinese first strike.
    
      () 72 Chinese aircraft.
    
      () Operating at short range
    
      () With initiative
    

versus

    
    
      () 10 F22
    
      () 16 F35
    
      () Operating at long range
    
      () Without initiative
    

Fastest with mostest trumps technology - e.g. the US didn't prevent the
invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the Tigers didn't stop the Shermans in 1944 [or
less famously in North Africa a year earlier].

In assessing the probability of the scenario, my questions:

    
    
      () how many allied drones?
    
      () where is the Navy?
    
      () when did the straight of Taiwan stop being
         a nuclear tipping point?

~~~
VLM
A simpler question is why did all the cruise missiles targeting airfields work
over Taiwan, but apparently none worked over China? Hidden assumption of cyber
warfare or ?

~~~
greedo
China is using SRBMs and MRBMs to target/attack Taiwan and Okinawa. While
Aegis and Patriot have some ability to intercept them, they'll be overwhelmed
by sheer numbers.

------
caycep
Honestly, for those who really know the battles within the Pentagon about the
design and procurement of equipment, it's no surprise. Too much design-by-
committee, and mission creep from difference parts of different services who
want a piece of the funding pie. When the program is billed as "one plane for
all 3 services," you know there's trouble brewing on the horizon.

It's telling that a lot of the quotes from this article comes from former
members of the "fighter mafia" that pushed for focused designs from small
groups done in "stealth" before the committees with their "mission creep" hit
the design process. The F-16 and A-10, as a result, were widely hailed as
revolutionary designs for the roles they were meant for (although in hindsight
they followed the obvious path for air superiority and close air support
aircraft). The F/A-18 was not quite as capable, but was nevertheless able to
benefit from the design knowledge gained by these programs.

The managers/designers of the F-16 and A-10 programs include Chuck Spinney and
Pierre Sprey, both heavily quoted here. John Boyd was one of the major
figures, and is probably one of the most hated men in the Pentagon, but has
since passed away.

The F-35 is succeeding brilliantly in its mission, though, which is to funnel
taxpayer money to a nice fat cross section of the military-industrial complex.

~~~
RougeFemme
"The F-35 is succeeding brilliantly in its mission, though, which is to funnel
taxpayer money to a nice fat cross section of the military-industrial
complex."

And in one of its secondary missions, which is to generate hundreds of
thousands of votes for many Reps. and Senators, spread across many
Congressional districts and states - and both parties.

~~~
dragonwriter
I don't think most of the widely-spread military projects are all that good at
_generating_ votes. Rather, I think that the threat of _losing_ votes for
"killing jobs in the district" is a good way of keeping members of Congress in
line behind the projects.

------
coldcode
Having worked on the F16 at one point in my career it kicks the F35 is the ass
every day and twice on Sunday. Plus you can buy 20 of them for every F35. It's
all about money though, the F16 is too cheap to keep Lockheed in business no
matter how much you upgrade it.

~~~
runarb
Can you elaborate a little more on which aspects of the 40 year old F-16
design you think is better than the F-35? After looking on the Wikipedia
page[0][1] it looks for me that the F-35 outperforms the F-16 in all aspects:

    
    
      |------------------------|-----------|----------|
      |                        | F-16      | F-35     |
      |------------------------|-----------|----------|
      | Maximum speed          | Mach 1.2  | Mach 1.6 |
      | Combat radius          | 550 km    | 1 080 km |
      | Dry thrust             | 76.3 kN   | 125 kN   |
      | Thrust w. afterburner  | 127 kN    | 191 kN   |
      | First flight           | 1974      | 2006     |
      |------------------------|-----------|----------|
    

0:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_Falcon)

1:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II)

~~~
caycep
You need to add weight, and wing loading area, and what G's the plane is rated
at. These are key variables.

The F-16's max speed is far greater than Mach 1.2, I thought, or at least it
used to be before they added on weight to the thing.

It's also well known that the designers optimized the F-16's ability to
quickly lose/gain kinetic energy, what they call "dump and pump". This is hard
to quantify.

Some of the "nextgen" fighter capabilities widely touted are "supercruising"
(i.e. supersonic flight without afterburner) and thrust vectoring, i.e.
changing directions quickly by nozzling engine thrust off center. Amusing, the
original YF-16A prototype could supercruise, and execute a "buttonhook turn"
maneuver, without the fancy 21st century engines.

Imagine what the F-22's P&W F119 engine could do in a modernized F-16
airframe....

~~~
antubbs
The assumption with the F-35 seems to be that technology (better sensors &
automation) will overcome performance & armament disparities. This is not a
new assumption in the air superiority game, but I don't think history's been
kind to it to this point.

~~~
protomyth
You're right, history hasn't been kind. The F-4 going into service with only
missiles an no internal cannon is a pretty good example. After all, the new
missiles would overcome and air combat maneuvering was a thing of the past.

------
protomyth
You pretty much knew it was having some serious problems when the US Navy
started talking about long term F-18 upgrades. They are currently testing
conformal tanks (like the F-15 has). It seemed like the F-22 folks were
solving their problems while the F-35 has been doing press.

Looking at it from the now, we probably should have built the full F-22 order
and scrapped the F-35 for something far cheaper. I still think a successor to
the A-10 and an evolved F-18 would have been better paths. Perhaps we also
shouldn't award both contracts to the same company.

~~~
caycep
Or at least put some program in place to "upgrade" the 1990's electronics in
the F-22, and make it several orders of magnitude cheaper...

~~~
protomyth
If they had actually built the full run, it would have been cheaper. I would
expect updated electronics over the life of the F-22 just as the F-15 and F-16
have been upgraded. Although they have done some pretty impressive things with
those 1990's electronics. Embedded systems are a very different bird.

------
gilgoomesh
Ultimately, this article has one point but makes it about ten times. The point
is that the F-35 led to the U.S. losing the 2008 war game. All of the quotes
(particularly from Australian military officials) are about the failed 2008
war game.

It might seem like a valid point except that the war game deliberately
crippled all the F-22s (the U.S. air superiority fighters) and instead pitched
the F-35s (the U.S. jack-of-all trades jets) against Chinese air superiority
fighters. It shouldn't be a surprise that a computer doesn't like that fight
but it's a contrived and fairly silly situation since it's not really the
F-35s job.

~~~
jacques_chester
It's less academic for those of us in Australia, and that's why Australians
are mentioned in the article. Australia is replacing its entire air
superiority and assault capability with F35s and is contributing billions to
the development program. We've already given up our bombers -- we were the
last operators of F-111s.

We can't buy F22s. I'm pretty sure we would (and so would the UK, Japan, Saudi
Arabia and a number of other close allies), but the US Congress has banned
their export.

There is a constant undercurrent pushing for Australia to buy Russian
fighters. They're cheap, they don't make design compromises we don't care
about and you can _actually get some_ , rather than seeing the delivery date
receding like a desert horizon.

And more to the point: our neighbours are buying them. In a confrontation,
they'd win. Which rather defeats the point of buying billions of dollars of
_air superiority_ hardware, don't you think?

Edit: Funnily enough, Lockheed has advertising spread throughout Canberra, our
national capital. I mean _everywhere_. Especially in the airport, it's like a
giant Lockheed showroom. I get the sense that they are feeling spooked.

~~~
cdash
This is stupid because you don't even know why the engagement was lost. It
wasn't because the f-35 was outmatched but because they ran out of missiles in
the fight which meant they could not defend their tankers and so they ran out
of fuel. Numbers matter, you can't expect to send up an f-35 with a limited
amount of missiles against a force much larger than yours because thats
exactly what is going to happen. You will eventually run out of missiles.

On the other hand, you can buy cheaper fighters and more of them, but are your
cheaper fighters better than the other teams cheaper fighters. I don't know,
one thing I do know is Australia is not going to ever have an air force
comparable to China in the future.

------
jkl32
$1 trillion; this is why the US has no health care. Does anyone realistically
believe you will go to war with China or Russia anymore?

It's time to stop the charade of war, and help your own citizens instead.

~~~
riggins
_Does anyone realistically believe you will go to war with China or Russia
anymore?_

Historically there have been military conflicts between superpowers. So I'd
say its incumbent on those claiming we won't have wars to explain what's
changed and why we won't have anymore major military conflicts.

~~~
jkl32
Globalization, trade, and the nuclear deterrent.

~~~
orf
The nuclear deterrent is the only valid point, and that's a shaky one.

~~~
riggins
_The nuclear deterrent is the only valid point, and that 's a shaky one._

I agree with this.

WRT global trade, I couldn't find the source, but I vaguely remember an
article that pointed out that global trade made up a similar percentage of
economic activity prior to WWI and was offered as a reason why there wouldn't
be another global war.

The other factor to consider is the consequence if you're wrong. You want to
take the chance of another Hitler or Stalin coming to power and not being able
to stop them?

~~~
jacquesm
> You want to take the chance of another Hitler or Stalin coming to power and
> not being able to stop them?

That presumes some foreknowledge about where that will happen. No part of the
world is immune from a Hitler or Stalin coming to power, so for all you know
he'll inherit those toys.

~~~
riggins
that's a strong rebuttal

------
VLM
Nobody mentioned the Osprey yet? The F-35 might suck, but at least its not an
Osprey. The wikipedia article fails in being a bit too neutral PoV. Only
people who are being paid to say the Osprey is great, or ordered by their CO
to say its great, say its great, everyone else says it sucks. Except maybe our
enemies, because using the Osprey has proven to be a reasonably effective way
to kill american military personnel and waste enormous amounts of money.

I think this is one fail in the article. Yes the F-35 kinda sucks when it's
given other planes jobs, compared to how well planes designed to do one
specific job do at that one specific task. How about comparing it to something
even worse? Then it still sucks, but its not quite the worst case, even if its
still the most expensive of the bad situations.

------
bediger4000
I think this article glosses over the general "fossilization" of
aerospace/defence corporations in the USA, and Lock/Mart in particular.

Before merging, Lockheed and Martin both had the reputation of being really
hidebound. From experience, Martin was exceptionally married to processes and
procedures and tradition.

If you look at other things that LockMart has (like the Littoral Combat Ship,
[http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/littoral-combat-
ship...](http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/littoral-combat-ship/)) you
can see that LockMart has general engineering problems.

General engineering troubles seems to plague LockMart.

~~~
mikeash
I worked for them very briefly a few years ago, as part of a complex (but
apparently normal for government stuff) scheme to have me do contract
programming work for NIH. After experiencing their internal procedures and
management, I don't see how this company can make a _sandwich_ , let alone a
fighter jet.

My experience started off with a two-hour meeting discussing retirement
benefits and health insurance, when I was a temporary part-time employee who
got neither, and went downhill from there.

------
jasonwatkinspdx
My prediction of how this will end up playing out: We'll waste money on the
JSF, but thankfully won't ever put it into a real combat threat. The Defense
Dept will pretend everything was a grand success while moving to UCAV's with
haste. I think it's clear Navy decision makers came to this view long ago.
They tried to pull out of the JSF program but Robert Gates smacked them back
in line. Meanwhile they're pushing the X-47 development program as fast as
they can.

------
gadders
I'm surprised at the criticism the harrier gets in the article. They're
popular in the UK and appeared to perform pretty well in the Falklands, for
instance.

~~~
newbie12
It is a UK developed plane and did do well in the Falklands-- a testament to
the skill of British pilots as much as anything. In the U.S., one third of our
Harrier fleet has crashed, here's the article cited in the parent:

[http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6722](http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6722)

~~~
gadders
So why are they killing US Marines and not British RAF?

~~~
zokier
There has been plenty of British Harriers crashing too:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Harrier_Jump_Jet_family...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Harrier_Jump_Jet_family_losses)

------
jotm
Indeed, why not make 5 different planes for different purposes instead of one
that does everything...

I mean, it's not like they're also building an aircraft carrier that can
launch ballistic missiles, cruise at 50 knots, go up rivers and also
submerge... or are they :-)?

~~~
jessaustin
Don't give them any ideas...

------
ergest
John Boyd fought for years to build single-purpose fighters, but the idea of
one, all-purpose warplane is just too seductive. (See John Boyd's biography by
Robert Coram)

~~~
sirkneeland
It's the Windows 8||Ubuntu Unity of warplanes!

------
kawera
_...currently an estimated $1 trillion to design, build and operate 2,400
copies..._

Am I the only one shocked that a country spend this much to make a weapon? Is
there any decency left?

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Over the 50 year projected life cycle of the F-35.

~~~
lucaspiller
So 20 Instagrams a year?

~~~
dodo53
Or supposedly most of the cost to end world hunger
[http://borgenproject.org/the-cost-to-end-world-
hunger/](http://borgenproject.org/the-cost-to-end-world-hunger/)

~~~
mpyne
World hunger isn't a simple resourcing problem, otherwise it already _would_
be solved.

------
ryusage
To be honest, I'm surprised they haven't started switching to air-to-air
drones yet. They seem to be using them for everything else these days.

~~~
greedo
You won't see A2A drones for at least another decade. In a non-contested
environment, dropping Hellfire missiles is easy from a slow moving drone like
a Predator. But this won't occur against a peer enemy. It's too easy to shoot
them down.

As to A2A, there are far too many obstacles for this happening soon.

Plus, there's the whole notion that in a conflict against a peer opponent,
that we'll somehow be able to manage the command and control of drones; that
the opponent won't be able to disrupt our satcoms and other control channels.
This notion is a bit naive. There will be a place for a man in the cockpit for
quite a while.

~~~
ryusage
Those are great points. I hadn't considered the ability to jam signals at all.
That seems like a pretty huge challenge to overcome actually.

~~~
sirkneeland
You could plug some serious AI into the drone so it can engage without a
connection back to home base. Video game AI is getting pretty good. Just pray
it doesn't go all Rise of the Machines on us...

------
stcredzero
One of the biggest factors is pilot training. To put things in perspective,
there are instances where US pilots in 4th gen aircraft have gotten simulated
missile locks and gunsight pippers on Su-30MKIs and F-22s -- which even have
thrust vectoring! You have to have the right equipment, but even great
equipment in the hands of bad/inexperienced pilots will result in poor
outcomes.

I've read that some think the F-35 is problematic in this regard as well. It
will be more expensive to maintain pilot training in these planes, and this
will result in less US pilot training.

EDIT: Also, the F-35 seems to be putting all of its eggs in the "stealth
basket." It can't loiter like an A-10 for ground support. It can't turn with
the F-15, F-16, or F-18 for the air superiority role. It's all about getting
in undetected, and firing high-tech missiles. If something goes wrong with
that, the pilots are stuck with a less dependable and less capable aircraft.

~~~
cdash
I am not sure where you are getting that it will be more expensive to maintain
pilot training in the f-35 from but from everything I have read it is expected
to cost less to maintain training as the simulators for the f-35 are so much
more advanced than any other simulators that a large portion of training will
be moved from live flight to the simulator.

~~~
stcredzero
I am specifically talking about live pilot training. Simulators are not a
substitute for actual operations. Reducing actual operations time is going to
reduce operational experience, period. Simulators are not a 1-1 substitute.

------
ryoshu
Why are we still building manned fighter planes?

~~~
VLM
Read about the early years of the F-4 and its gun pod. The wikipedia article
is fairly good, although short.

Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

The F-4 lesson was "everyone knew" that ever more expensive and
technologically advanced munitions were the way to go, so no gun pod just drop
missiles. (missiles are essentially somewhat dumb short range drones, although
there's a lot of overlap in the categories...) Turned out to be a near
disaster and they ended up bolting a human operated gun to the F-4. People
actually died because of this design mistake. The USAF is in no hurry to kill
a bunch more people with the same conceptual mistake.

I am certain that the same scenario is about to play out with drones. Maybe
not tomorrow, maybe not with the USAF as the victims, but "in a decade or so"
the same disaster will happen again. It is, after all, the same situation, so
expecting a different outcome would be insanity.

~~~
jessaustin
_People actually died..._

Presumably most of these were F-4 pilots? I thought one of the most salient
points of a drone is that it doesn't have a pilot?

------
neurotech1
This article is very biased. The F-35 is being compared to a clean (no
external stores) F-16, not a F-16 with same combat radius and weapons as
internally carried on the F-35.

The F-35 also has significantly better avionics than the F-16C Block 50.

For a more balanced opinion go to [http://www.f-16.net](http://www.f-16.net)

------
adventured
It's my opinion that the JSF will be quickly replaced - hopefully
domestically, but definitely globally - by air superiority drones and bombing
drones. The very rapid pace of development and much lower cost guarantees that
outcome. It'll happen in the next decade. If the US doesn't invest in order to
lead that charge, we'll be embarrassed by other countries that will. Even if
there's an argument to be made in favor of pilots in planes, countries will
rapidly turn to drone technology because it's cheaper.

It appears likely to take another decade to get the JSF program where it
should already be. By that time it'll be a trivial matter to swarm these
planes out of the sky with drones that cost 5% to 10% as much per plane. Even
a limited country such as Iran is going to be able to take down the F-35 by
throwing multiple drones at it.

------
dools
If the VSTOL capabilities are only required to launch the aircraft in a really
narrow set of circumstances (ie. from a ship with a helipad rather than a
landing strip) why don't they have a detachable booster model? I'm imagining
something that sits on top of the aircraft and provides the vertical thrust
during take-off then detaches as the plane blasts off horizontally, leaving
the booster free to lower itself onto the next plane for take-off and so on
until the fleet has been dispatched and it can land itself on the platform.
Instead of the capability to land, all you'd need is to build the planes so
they could be ditched in the sea close by and this thing could go pick them
up.

In other words just have a detachable VSTOL module instead of having to
integrate it into the plane.

~~~
dragonwriter
That's not a detachable VSTOL module, its a detachable vertical/short take off
module plus a much more expensive and complicated airframe designed to be
regularly handle water landings without complications.

Of course, even if "ditch it in a convenient large body of water" was a
suitable substitute for vertical/short landing capability for carrier-based
aviation, it wouldn't provide the same benefits for, e.g., improvised land-
based airfields.

So, this would be less capable -- and probably more expensive -- than just
building a VSTOL aircraft to start with.

~~~
dools
_plus a much more expensive and complicated airframe designed to be regularly
handle water landings without complications._

Even if you could slow the thing down enough to deploy a parachute ... if the
results of building VSTOL into the plane are so disastrous then surely it's
worth exploring other options to be able to deploy fighters from boats without
needing an carrier with a full airstrip on it.

 _it wouldn 't provide the same benefits for, e.g., improvised land-based
airfields._

Right, so from what I read just now (about the harrier at least) it doesn't
have those advantages anyway because the vertical thrust ruins the landscape
and kicks up dirt which clogs the engines ... perhaps that's fixed by the
thruster fan of the F-35?

But the point is that the main reason they wanted this capability is so they
didn't need carrier support to have their own aircraft, not so they could land
in random spots on land, right?

------
alexeisadeski3
Modern fighter aircraft need to: a) not be seen b) be fast (time to target is
still important!) c) carry a decent payload of weapons.

Ideally target selection should be provided by AWACS, and missile-sensors
provide the final kill guidance, allowing the fighter (AKA missile-launch
platform) to remain stealthy. In the absence of AWACS, the fighter will need
to carry it's own sensor suite.

Modern air warfare is all about sensors, ECM and stealth. The airframe is
almost inconsequential.

(This comment is copy+pasted from demallien's comment here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6213619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6213619)
)

------
InclinedPlane
It's tradition. Some of the biggest turds in fighter-plane history have come
out of big, bloated "one-size-fits-all" development programs (like the F-111).
And interestingly a lot of the most capable and long-lived combat aircraft
have come about through rogue programs and fly offs trying to remedy the
problems of being saddled with planes that just didn't work well. The F-16,
A-10, F-14, etc.

------
thelucky41
>even older Russian and Chinese jets that can fly faster and farther and
maneuver better

Dogfighting is obsolete as homing missiles fly faster, farther, and are more
maneuverable than the plane carrying them. Air superiority belongs to the
plane with the more sophisticated radar and stealth that is flying at a higher
altitude. Flying faster also aids intercepting incoming aircraft or escaping
interception attempts.

------
smegel
Come on, planes are only part of the equation. Weapons, radar, air-to-air
refueling, C4I, logistics, aircraft carriers...they will all make a big
difference.

The idea that a war is going to come down to a single F-35 vs a Sukhoi without
any other support factors is a bit fanciful.

The F-35 is looking a bit expensive for what you get though.

------
brownbat
> The jack-of-all-trades JSF has become the master of none.

I feel like I've read this same article about the Shuttle and one of the Army
vehicles, maybe the M2 Bradley.

------
6d0debc071
I wonder whether the article is applying a lot of thought to an issue that
won't really matter very much in a decade or so.

Fighters, as a delivery/sensor platform need to be manoeuvrable to not get
hit. It's economics - people are expensive to train, sensors are expensive,
and so you need an expensive system that you can reuse to ensure a good ROI.

Couple this with the increasing effectiveness of ground based missile defences
and it's questionable whether you can plausibly hope to penetrate an airspace
defended with a next generation, automated, system anyway. Whether investing
that sort of money in the aircraft is going to give you something survivable.
I don't believe it's ever been tried against a current gen system, and I'm
aware that operating in areas with previous-generation air-defence systems has
been incredibly risky already.

However. -chews her lip- If you _don 't_ have a lot of money sunk into your
delivery platform - and if your sensors are out of harms way - then the
survivability of the remaining components of the system, the bit that just has
to get your missile, or whatever, into the area becomes a non-issue.

To an extent the original cruise missiles were the answer to just that
question with respect to the Soviet Union: How do you penetrate a well
defended airspace without losing an unacceptably high investment?

Consequently, I wonder whether air dominance, in the mid to long term, is
going to be increasingly determined by the quality of your missiles. By
extremely long range missile systems interacting with very powerful,
networked, sensors (that might be, for example, based on drones far beyond the
active area.)

Under that sort of interpretation, you won't have a fighter. At its logical
extreme, you'll have a cruise missile that can go to the operational area in a
reasonable timeframe and has a very fast second or third stage to do the final
closing with the target. You can make your cruise missile go faster than any
fighter could, because the airframe is a throw away, and because you don't
have to hold any fuel back to get back to base, and because it will be vastly
lighter, and because you don't have to worry about any squishy human riding in
it.

That seems, to me, like the logical extension of the see first shoot first
doctrine that the F-22 and 35 were based upon, the logical extension of drones
as a low-cost delivery method, and the logical extension of the need to
penetrate increasingly well defended airspaces.

If that is how things go, the quality of the aircraft you have becomes largely
irrelevant. They'd never get close enough to the action to need great
performance.

------
w_t_payne
Well, the days of manned warplanes are fast running out anyway. UCAVs are the
future, baby.

------
ChikkaChiChi
200 million USD per strike fighter vs. under 17 million per Reaper.

No wonder we are broke.

~~~
tsotha
A Reaper has no air to air capability whatsoever and a tiny payload. You're
comparing apples and oranges.

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
Because there has been so much air-to-air combat in the past 40 years?

~~~
tsotha
Which means nothing in terms of the future. With cheap guided weapons air
superiority is more critical than it's ever been.

------
choarham
so... how about that well funded school system we enjoy here in the US?

------
sirkneeland
I read this and think "man, these guys are going to be great at running
healthcare"

------
crusso
_America’s newest stealth warplane and the planned mainstay of the future Air
Force and the air arms of the Navy and Marine Corps, was no match for Chinese
warplanes_

I'm sure that's in lots of papers in China today.

