Funny how the times have changed. The original 'Skunk Works' project (the XP-80) was designed and built in a little over 4 months. Now a couple of fixes to an ejection seat take multiple years.
The times have changed. In the 1950s and earlier, the belief held by both contractors and the government was "if you aren't killing pilots, you aren't testing hard enough". Now, the culture in flight testing is extremely risk averse. This is not completely bad, because we've greatly cut down on wasting human lives. But this has also contributed to longer project timelines and increased costs.
Lots of other things are also at play, of course. As electronics systems interface with each other in more and more complex ways, testing becomes more difficult. The principles of Gall's Systemantics [0] come to dominate. Regulations and laws in the US have also multiplied, increasing costs even further.
With respect to the JSF project specifically, this is an awkward time. This ejection seat issue is the kind of thing that should be sorted out in the system design and development phase (the phase we are currently in). But SDD is winding down and little money (in defense project terms) is available for new testing. So money must be found, or new contracts must be written, making things take even longer.
I'm leaving out a lot in the interest of brevity. In summary: there are many reasons why this will take several years. Nothing in this industry is easy.
i want to rationalise it by saying that the original jet did not have to have to interoperate with existing systems (because there was none), and that the vehicle had a single purpose, little to no electronics or software, and had very few inter-connected systems. It was literally a jet engine, with mounted seats and wings.
The joint strike fighter is a behemoth of a multi-tasker...i m sure the ejection is somehow tied to all the electronics, and have sensors, etc etc. I m also sure that as a project grows larger, the amount of beaurocracy also causes inefficiencies...so not sure whether my rationalisation is correct or just delusional.
The modern Skunkworks is now just another large division of the company; which means it now has much more bureaucracy, making Kelly Johnson's principle of "ruthlessly reduce the number of people you have working on a project" all the more difficult to implement.
So they have no equivalent of NASCAR's HANS device to keep the neck injuries down? Even a rapid inflate equivalent would be good if they are worried about the pilot being able to look around with ease
There are quite a few protection mechanisms the issue only starts to happen with pilots the weight under 165 lbs (with <136 lbs being at serious risk) which wasn't discovered during testing. This most likely will only effect female pilots as far as the USAF goes, and maybe applicable to foreign customers (although even as far as Europe goes I'm not sure how many male pilots would be under 74kg being tall especially with long legs, and very well built pretty much serves you well as far as being able to handle high positive G's).
The aircraft is a defense industry subsidy, not a combat weapon. It will be so expensive it can't be risked in combat anyway, so the best deployment will be to park the fleet in hangars, so the ejection scenario doesn't occur.
They will have to pull the planes out and run up the engines every now and then to get a few of them to start on fire so Pratt & Whitney can continue to be funneled money for replacements.
Immoral idea: This would be the perfect plot point for a Top Gun remake. Goose would die by broken neck during ejection instead of blunt force trauma. The influx of USAF applicants would replace the pilots who die of broken necks during ejection.
