The biggest design problem is a failure of conception:
> The Pentagon sold Congress on the F-35 in part with the idea of creating a common aircraft for three services, alleging it would save money—despite the well-documented and glaring failure of the tri-service F-111 program 25 years before Congress signed off on the very same plan with the F-35 in 2001
The idea that the STOVL variant would have significant parts commonality with the others despite having a giant fan in the middle was pretty laughable right from the start. In general, three aircraft with three very different design mission profiles were not going to be able to share much without making bad compromises.
Absolutely. And the depressing part is that SOME parts still could have been shared between the different aircraft even in a more modest proposal (e.g. warfare systems). They just decided to go that extra mile, and wind up with an aircraft that likely won't ever save money and is too complex for its own good.
I hope we're done with manned aircraft after the F-35, and it is all drone swarms from here on out.
I've thought that drone swarms are an "obviously" good idea, but that assumed that the communications/navigation were not easily spoofed. Then Iran captured one of the US's most advanced drone, pretty much intact. Now I'm not so sure.
The idea of drone swarms doesn't go well together with aerodynamics and basic physical intuition. If you shrink an aircraft down, the aerodynamic cross-section (i.e the drag force) scales with the area (scale^2), but your engine thrust is going to drop roughly by the decrease in volume (scale^3).
So you end up losing maximum airspeed and fuel efficiency (in terms of the mass you're moving) the smaller you go. Unless the drones in your swarm were really big, it doesn't work out.
Although, I imagine we'll see some smaller, unmanned jet fighters in the future (assuming someone figures out how to control something like that remotely, or autonomously). A smaller aircraft has the advantage of a smaller radar cross-section and being more difficult to hit. Doing away with the pilot cuts out a lot of weight and frees up room for a larger engine and fuel tank, offseting the downsides of the smaller size somewhat. There should be a sweet spot where that works out.
Shape is the major determining factor for radar return, not size. From Ben Rich's Skunk Works-
>I really wanted a photographer around for historical purposes to capture the expression on Kelly’s big, brooding moon-shaped mug when I showed him the electromagnetic chamber results. Hopeless Diamond was exactly as Denys had predicted: a thousand times stealthier than the twelve-year-old drone. The fact that the test results matched Denys’s computer calculations was the first proof that we actually knew what in hell we were doing. Still, Kelly reacted about as graciously as a cop realizing he had collared the wrong suspect. He grudgingly flipped me the quarter and said, “Don’t spend it until you see the damned thing fly.” But then he sent for Denys Overholser and grilled the poor guy past the point of well-done on the whys and hows of stealth technology. He told me later that he was surprised to learn that with flat surfaces the amount of radar energy returning to the sender is independent of the target’s size. A small airplane, a bomber, an aircraft carrier, all with the same shape, will have identical radar cross sections. “By God, I never would have believed that,” he confessed. I had the feeling that maybe he still didn’t.
>with flat surfaces the amount of radar energy returning to the sender is independent of the target’s size.
it is basic geometry. Like a flat mirror, no matter the size, will reflect to you the same Sun spotlight (to be precise - as long as the mirror is bigger than 32 arcminutes as seen from the receiving position)
Yup, shape is the biggest thing you can control, then radar absorbing and reflecting materials.
One of the big anecdotes from the early days of stealth aircraft development in the 1970s is how at some wavelengths the Hopeless Diamond shape wasn't visible to range radars at all. During one test, the range radar guys went absolutely crazy trying to detect the shape -- which was a pole model, not even flying yet -- and were about to just give up, when suddenly, there it is on their screens, plain as day. Awesome, the Hopeless Diamond lost its stealth! Or not, because what really happened was a bird landed on the pole model.
> If you shrink an aircraft down, the aerodynamic cross-section (i.e the drag force) scales with the area (scale^2), but your engine thrust is going to drop roughly by the decrease in volume (scale^3).
Why would we shrink drones down? You read drone swarm and assumed small, but most swarm proposals are using drones of a similar size as today or even large in some cases. They're swarms because of the way they interact with one another, and overwhelm enemy defensive systems, not because they're small.
Yes, but the parasitic drag scales with velocity squared, and the induced drag scales with mass. Shrink the aircraft by 2 in all dimensions, you're fine on induced drag, you just need to slow down by a factor of 1-sqrt(2) -- 30%. Structural weight will also be much less. You also aren't carrying the weight of a pilot cockpit, ejection seat, etc. You don't have the drag penalty from the canopy either.
You do need to duplicate a lot of systems, but with modern electronics, these are a lot lighter and take much less power than before. The swarm aspect also allows for large synthetic apertures instead of a big single radar aperture in the nose of one aircraft. Swarms can also deploy cheap unguided weapons, because they can get very close to a target without the worry of losing a pilot and a $100 million airplane. The structural advantages of being small can also be exploited in an unmanned vehicle in that they can sustain much higher G loads than a large airplane, and with no pilot to black out, they will be much more agile in evading missiles.
"swarm" means large numbers by definition, otherwise you have... well, plain-old coordination. Large numbers of F-35-sized aircraft is flaunting economics in the face a quite a bit (so I'm sure the US military loves the idea).
We already have large numbers of F-35 sized aircraft, and are dedicated to having a current stock for the forseeable future, so the economics are already proven.
The issue is not that any given drone is expensive. The issue is that any given manned vehicle with roughly the same profile will involve the same-ish hardware along with expensive life support and safety systems, and a super expensive pilot, and super expensive logistics and possible recovery missions. Plane for plane the drones let us do more with less, justifying their investment during ongoing appropriations. Human pilots will always have a role, but will never be disposable in the way a drone can be.
And, yeah, "swarms" because there is no cookie cutter monolithic answer to what unmanned military craft should look like... Low speed ground hugging smart missiles, ocean based spy capsules in mesh networks, slow speed support craft, high altitude recon craft, in theatre air fire support, air-to-air combat drones, and orbital UAVs can all coordinate. All we know is ever increasing automation and standardization is intersecting with decreasing costs and requirements... very fertile ground for mass production.
Aircraft drag is largely from the wings producing lift, which scales with weight (l^3).
The drag from the fuselage does scale as l^2, but most drones have small fuselages since they don't need room for a pilot and (for fighter planes) a big glass canopy, and lifting drag dominates.
Your comment assumes "drone" means anything like we have today. Any fighter designed in the last 40 years could be made substantially better by removing the pilot and everything necessary to keep him alive and in the fight.
That drone swarm is dropped from a fighter and they don't go very fast or probably have much range. The was to defend would be to stop the fighter flying over your target. I'm not sure it dropping drones would be any more effective than dropping guided bombs in the traditional way.
Air superiority basically means being able to deny airspace to your enemy's forces while ensuring the safety of your own air assets. What if we developed swarms of drones to the point where both sides could ensure the destruction of anything flying in contested airspace, but not ensure the safety of anything flying?
Maybe warfare will return to a static mode, like WWI, but with much deadlier weapons, including automated AI area denial tanks and swarms of suicidal aerial drones.
At the same time it will shoot sub-prime mortgages directly into the Wells Fargo accounts of the enemy. Interesting times indeed. If WW1 was facilitated by the telegraph, WW3 will be lubricated by Twitter.
if you are joking this is humorous...
but this is also serious reality that you have commented about, it is a feasible thing with sufficient sophisocation...
...the economic system is a vital leverage point...
The capabilites to deny airspace to something like an F-22 would be pretty high/expensive. AA missiles are expensive to buy, deploy and maintain and they probably haven't gotten cheaper over time. Their true effectiveness in a peer-to-peer contest is unknown or only known to a select few with access. Drones would likely not be cheaper than AAM.
But swarms could change the whole anti-personnel/troop exposure calculation, so it might make mute using super-platforms for air support. Flying IEDs is a lot easier to imagine than an F-22/35 killer (that are in the air, at least).
Right. In a way, that's part of the point. AAM are constrained to me munitions. They are expensive, but need to be far cheaper than the aircraft they are launched from, because the missiles are meant to be expended and the aircraft is meant to return. Swarms of suicide drones running tactics of area denial could be made at many different levels of capability and expense.
make mute
(Make moot.)
Flying IEDs is a lot easier to imagine than an F-22/35 killer (that are in the air, at least).
AAM are already flying explosive devices. Drones might well still carry AAMs, but be able to operate in a "mutual destruction" mode, sacrificing themselves to make a shot on a more expensive aircraft. AI programmers for fighter drones might well build in economic decisions. "Suicide for the kill, but only when the target is more expensive than yourself."
Considering the fact that organic geese will handily destroy aircraft turbines, I'd hazard to guess that a metal drone loaded with fuel and explosive armaments would also do a fair bit of damage.
They don't need to spoof your comms to deny you said comms. All they need is a good jamming system. If you have no comms to your drone, then you're toast.
>I hope we're done with manned aircraft after the F-35, and it is all drone swarms from here on out
That's just going to result in a "multi-purpose" drone that simultaneously carries comm systems for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Civilian Corps, CIA, FBI, and that one experimental group established in the 90s to test communication by aurora borealis. Never underestimate the power of the boondoggle.
> SOME parts still could have been shared between the different aircraft
Maybe it's just too much time with software talking, but this feels like the intuitive approach. If you have one task with three cases, use a standard frame and customize the part that changes. But if you have three distinct tasks, plan for three approaches and pull out common requirements into a shared pool - whether that's a utility class or a parts depot.
Doing requirements-first designs for each role and then looking for opportunities to standardize some parts might get you an unpredictable amount of savings, but it'll save some money and get you three working planes. Doing standardization-first design and hoping you can customize for each role after gets you... about half a plane and a broken budget, apparently.
...i think this will be the new mutually assured destruction[m.a.d.]...
we have nukes because the other guys have nukes, thus niether side actually uses them...
AI war drones are a step sideways into a new flavour of m.a.d.
They're not. Mad worked because any single use was substantial and unforgivable. For better or for worse, this does not apply to "AI war drones". We've already seen them drop bombs on caravans of civilians and miss their targets in asymmetric war zones, and they can only get more precise.
Any outrage we wanted to see hasn't just been there and can only decrease.
the AI F-35 would be a different type of war drone than the predator
the predator drone is a pigeon carrying a firecracker compared to what is coming...
My gut feeling is the US got lucky, with a high chance of drones after the F-35. France (Rafaele) and Germany (Eurofigher) might not be so lucky and need another manned fighter in between. UK with a F-35 / Eurofighter mix not clear to me.
From das Wiki: "Tempest will be able to fly unmanned, and use swarming technology to control drones. It will incorporate artificial intelligence deep learning and possess directed-energy weapons.[7][8]"
Really? We can't even get self driving cars right and BAE thinks we can have a fighter with lasers that controls a swarm of drones? Going to be an epic letdown when it first rolls off the line.
Unmanned does not mean self-flying. And even if it did, self driving is a much harder problem than self flying. You have rent a swarm of drones today if you wanted to.
I'm pretty sure they mean like Predator drones not your COTS hoverbots. Doing all that in a tactical/adversarial situation means the likely of catastrophic failure is high.
Air vehicles are substantially easier to make autonomous than road-borne vehicles that must intermingle with massive numbers of hazards, unpredictable circumstances, laws to abide by, life to preserve.
Airspace is, by and large, empty. For where it isn't: it's strictly controlled by other means.
also has AI capabilities for interfacing with the pilot...
[Re:] sharing of parts, there could be a series of "shells" and an AI drone core that can eject, so as to let the shell burn in to the ground when it is "kacked" said AI core should be autonomous and plug and play with other shell types such as boats tanks and android mechbots.
There is a flip side to the "common aircraft" pitch. Looking to the F-15 and F-22 development costs, it was known that any next-gen aircraft would be massively expensive to design. Funds for the development of three/four/five different aircraft would not be forthcoming. Everyone knew there was only room for two: another crack at replacing the B-52, and a light fighter-bomber program to compliment the F-22. Setting aside the B-52 thing, everyone wanted in on the fighter program. So the one-for-all concept wasn't pitched as a cheap option, but the only viable option to get anything. It avoided infighting between the various branches.
This is a uniquely American issue. The US has four or five different air forces. They all fight amongst each other for research and new toys. Other countries operate on the principal that "if it flies, it is airforce", which moots most all of this debate,
> Other countries operate on the principal that "if it flies, it is airforce", which moots most all of this debate
Other countries have naval aviation don't they? What do you think the French fly off their carriers? What do you think the British plan to fly off theirs? (The British are actually planning to fly both Royal Air Force and Royal Navy aviators off theirs.) The British Royal Marines also sometimes fly fast air, when they have aircraft, but only as part of the Naval Service.
There are different approaches to naval aviation. On one end is the canadian approach, where the helicopters living on ships are run by entirely airforce crews. On the other is the American/Russian total separation of branches, to the point that navy pilots don't even call themselves pilots (Tom Cruise played a "naval aviator"). In the middle are solutions like the Australians, where all pilots are trained by the air force and are then transfered to naval aviation squadrons for type training.
All these countries have very different military cultures between air force and navy. Navies, people who drive ships, generally have more ridged rank structures. Airforces, groups that fly aircraft, delegate authority according to job descriptions. There are historical and practical reasons for this, mostly linked to minimum team sizes, but safe to say the two cultures can conflict. Keeping some degree of separation reduces conflicts and increases cooperation/safety.
Russia is similar. Aerospace Forces, Airborne Forces, Navy, National Guards, Border Services operate aircrafts. Army used to have own aviation, but it was recently merged under Aerospace Forces.
Traditionally it's been a way of playing the odds- between the 5 different services one of them has probably done the right thing. But that only works when you have enough money to throw around.
I'm all for the space force, but imho it should be called the "federation". And I cannot wait to see the pentagon expand into a hexagon.
In all seriousness, the various US armed forces all step over each other. The Navy has it's own air force, but the USAF also has its own navy (Google "Tyndall AFB"). The Coast guard has plenty of helicopters and the national guard has a bit of everything. They all operate different recruiters, different training schools, and maintain unique relations with foreign forces. It's a total mess compared to countries like Canada where all the forces train and fight together from day one at basic training.
When a Canadian ship sails with a helicopter, the ship is Navy. The helicopter, its aircrew, and all the servicing people, are airforce. Their navy (RCN) handles the ship stuff and their airforce (RCAF) all the flying stuff. So a US carrier could stay in the USN, while the air detachments would be handled by the USAF. This sort of cross-branch cooperation means everyone gets along. The navy doesn't get jealous of the airforce's new toys because everyone plays together. When favors are needed, everyone has buddies in the different branches and knows each other's abilities.
As someone who knows nothing about the military, how hard would it be to have the carriers themselves operated by the navy, and have the aircraft operated by the airforce? The airforce pilots would obviously report to the ship's captain, but the training, maintenance, and everything else about the aircraft could be done by the airforce itself.
Well the first thing I can think of is that the crew would be split (care little about the other side), and would generally be less effective at executing orders because of constant competing/infighting :)
The air force has long had plans to keep the B-52 fleet operational for a 95 year span (last B-52Hs from 1962 serving until 2050). They don't need a replacement for them unless Congress forces the issue.
I honestly think the american defense contractor industry poses a national security risk. In time of war,the country needs efficiency as much as capability and how much cash you burn through(even if you just print more money) can also decide who wins the war.
> I honestly think the american defense contractor industry poses a national security risk.
Doubleplusagree. The military-industrial-intelligence axis and their cadre of lobbyists are forever heightening tensions around the world and greatly exaggerating domestic threats in efforts to sell more units and invent new ways to kill people and grab more of those taxpayer dollars.
Real war (aka not fucking about in third world countries) does a really good job of weeding out this kind of behavior, once the bad actor's own property starts being targetted.
I've always wondered why they don't reuse old frame designs with new materials and components. They're proven to fly well, so why a completely new design every damn time?
F-35 program is in large part complex software project but it's not just any software project
- it's a large software integration, sensor integration project with many suppliers and interfaces
- it includes incredibly advanced logistics, inventory, health and maintenance software ALIS that is essential for the program's success. Without ALIS F-35 can't keep readiness and availability needed
- almost everything is safety critical or at least mission critical.
The project has so much momentum and so much sunken cost that it may take a decade to see if it can really deliver.
The ultimate test will be a high sortie rate mission that lasts few weeks. Lockheed engineers (civilians) are now on site doing custom work and repairs for individual parts to make the planes fly. If operational tempo increases, it's likely that the system can't keep up.
Those are all nice words, but I doubt reality will resemble marketing.
First, it is already old (first flight in 2006). Those sensors, augmented reality, mesh networks and such are unlikely to be bleeding edge by now. We may already have better options, but they probably cannot be swapped in because safety, because it is such a complex mess and of course because secrecy.
Second, successful aircraft (efficient, envelope pushing, not money guzzling) are designed quickly by a relatively small team empowered to break barriers or ignore red tape. Look for example at Skunk Works, their products and their timeline. F-35 is opposite: a multi-national, multi-service monster with bureaucracy, oversight and special interests that alone will drive good engineers away.
Sorry, it is just a feeding trough. Let's finish what absolutely must be finished and limit our losses before it acquires another zero in the total price tag. My 2c.
And yet, if you ask anyone in the street about what they think about "complex systems", I bet most of them would have a negative sentiment. (if anyone knows a study that goes in that direction, please share).
A smartphone is arguably a complex system, but there are thousands variants of them, and new evolutions appear every month globally.
To me, the whole military industry looks like an hoax (not solving any real modern world problem), and the citizen pays it with their taxes.
Several of these flaws, like the lack of any means for a pilot to confirm a weapon’s target data before firing, and damage to the plane caused by the tailhook on the Air Force’s variant, have potentially serious implications for safety and combat effectiveness.
Tail hook? That 2nd one is pretty basic for a Navy carrier aircraft! Just how bad is it?
Reading again and further, it's the Air Force plane, not the Navy plane:
Testers have also identified an issue with the arresting hook on the Air Force’s F-35A conventional takeoff variant. The F-35A, like other Air Force aircraft, is equipped with a single-use tailhook for emergency-landing situations when the pilot suspects a braking failure. Testing on the F-35A’s tailhook began in 2016. Testing engineers found that the arresting hook is causing damage to the aircraft due to “up-swing.”
It's a "just in case" piece of emergency equipment for emergencies. Not nearly as serious. I wonder if this article is a bit of a hit piece?
It really reads that way. Stuff like this makes me think it is:
> " F-35 test teams rated this a Category I “High” deficiency, but the Board downgraded it to Category II “High,” without any indication of whether plans exist to correct it."
So they're both "High" but one group thought it was Category I and the other thought it was Category II? There's never been a disagreement about issue severity in the history of any development project, that's for sure.
>There's never been a disagreement about issue severity in the history of any development project, that's for sure.
Right, but take a look at the groups doing the categorization. The team that rated the issue Category I was the actual QA testing team, made up of engineers and aviators. The Board that downgraded it was made up of managers and bureaucrats, the majority of which, according to the article at least, have a vested interest in the process rather than the result. This reads to me as a Dilbert comic.
Engineer: "We tested the product. It has these 111 critical defects, any one of which can destroy the product, or the user. These need to be fixed as soon as possible"
PHB: "Would you call these fixes an upgrade to the current system?"
Engineer: "Yes, in that it would upgrade the product to "not death to look at"
PHB: Downgrades issue "Perfect. So we can fix it after we ship and charge an extra 40% as part of our exclusive upgrades contract"
The only difference between the F-35 program and the Fed's quantitative easing programs is that the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households. In all other respects both policies were designed to protect companies deemed too big to fail.
Boeing had the better solution for the next generation fighter, but LM had the greater need and its interests prevailed.
The F-35 project is (so far) the ultimate expression of our permanent war economy which has propped up the United States since the end of world war 2. As such it is no less misguided than QE since the object of this type of military spending is to consume excess production.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
This is exactly what I think of when I hear senators and congressman talk about cutting so-called entitlements.
The narrative needs to be switched around to highlight defense spending as "entitlements" to defense contractors and numerous local economies that depend on them.
I believe it's from Eisenhower's "Chance for Peace" speech, one of his two major speeches against military spending. The other major speech was his farewell address, where he discussed the military industrial complex. If anyone's interested, I'd highly suggest watching Why We Fight, a documentary from 2005
You forgot about Russia and China in the statement above.
You can't make an absolute statement that every gun comes at the expense of the poor, because if we hadn't had guns, I can assure you we all (including the poor) would have been worse off under a Nazi or Russian Communist regime.
In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce.
You can't tell me that if the entire US fleet was sunk, every tank blown up, that the US couldn't rebuild in a year or two if the public was all-in on support.
Instead the US has this enormous force that, by virtue of merely existing, it feels compelled to use now and then.
> In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce.
It doesn't seem wise to rely on that always being true. The U.S. has not been involved in wars for very long (considering the history of war) and war has changed so much recently that assuming things won't change in the future seems like a bad plan.
Since WW2, the "wars" have been mismatched to the extreme (never mind that in both world wars USA came in late, and never had its industrial capacity threatened).
The closest to a symmetrical war was in Korea, after China sent troops. And that war has never really been resolved.
The US is just too fucking big to be subject to 24/7 bombardment.
The US military, which is ridiculous, couldn't even keep a lid on Iraq and it's not even as big as Texas. There's no adversary that could possibly mount a bombing campaign that big, not even the US itself.
Eventually conquering North America was a long term goal of Adolph Hitler, which is a part of the reason why Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. (Though the overwhelming short term need had to do with gaining the oil resources of the Soviet Union. A big part of the reason why the P-51 Mustang could outperform the German fighters was the availability of better fuel to the allies.)
The Soviet Union's ideology originally included the long term goal of promulgating the dictatorship of the proletariat worldwide. However, even Lenin's ideology changed a lot when faced with the actual challenges of ruling a country.
>the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households
Not sure I agree with you there. It's no secret that the Air Force is already developing solutions for unmanned aerial superiority platforms. Being as kind as possible to programs like the F-35, I'd have to say that they will be, at best, "transitional". No way they will have the service life of, say, the F-16 or even 18.
You have to wonder, if you know you have to go unmanned anyway, why not just upgrade the F-18 and your existing stealth platforms to get you through?
The answer to that question was likely given to us a long time ago by General Butler and Ike.
All of the existing stealth platforms (F-117, B-2, F-22) are out of production. There's no practical way to build more, and they can't really be upgraded to fly from carriers.
The F-18 has been upgraded to a limited extent, however the basic shape of the airframe means it will always have a large radar cross section and IR signature no matter what they do. The concern is that it's just no longer survivable against modern air defense systems. So at some point they have to start over with a new airframe.
AI technology might allow for totally autonomous tactical aircraft someday. But the technology doesn't actually exist yet, and probably won't for a long time.
To correct and expand upon your point a bit. Yes, the Super Hornet isn't just a limited upgrade.
The Super Hornet is a bigger airframe. You can think of it as "what would happen if we scaled up a Hornet by about 15%?" New wing. New intake design. It required a development program and a flight test program of a kind that you do when you make a new airplane, not upgrade an old one.
The Super Hornet is much more capable. Greater endurance, can have an AESA radar, better ESM suite, better communications.
I guess it depends on how you define limited. But regardless, the minor low-observability upgrades in the Superhornet were insufficient to make it survivable.
>The only difference between the F-35 program and the Fed's quantitative easing programs is that the F-35 program provided significant benefit to main street businesses and households.
You got that backwards, QE prevented (at least temporarily) a Depression, which would have impacted mainstreet businesses and households far more than whatever benefits they’ve gained from the F-35 have (nothing imho).
The jury is still out whether the Fed can unwind QE with a soft landing or not, but so far it’s been far more beneficial to Main Street than the F-35.
Boeing's proposal was horrible. LockMart at least made a fighter-bomber that could fight. The F-32 would have been fine in A2G, but in air to air would have made the F-35 look outstanding. Plus it had a hard time with ingesting hot gas exhaust.
It's actually a common problem since the AF has been going away from old school oxygen tanks. The OBOGS (on board oxygen generating system) should be capable, but they're having problems with hypoxia.
This doesn't make any sense. The F-35 program has no similarities to quantitative easing. First of all, I'm not sure how you even got the idea that Lockheed is too big to fail or that the F-35 program is supposed to be an economic stimulus. Second of all, quantitative easing doesn't cost the taxpayers any money, let alone hundreds of billions of dollars.
Most importantly, the quantitative easing arguably prevented the next Great Depression, so how's that for benefiting main street businesses and households? The economy is built on debt, which is a good thing because that means cash ends up with people who are spending it instead of sitting idly. If banks deem it too risky to lend out money, the world's economy would grind to a halt.
Indeed. The Federal Reserve stated that they'd rather see law-makers act to produce a sufficient stimulus to prevent 1930's 2.0, but since they didn't, QE was Plan B. Our culture-war-obsessed Congress is dysfunctional. We are lucky we didn't (entirely) repeat the 1930's.
What does QE have to do with anything? Also, if you think extending cheap financing to businesses during a financial collapse is wasteful you're a fool.
Pretty strange to be bitching about monetary policy then in the same breath praise pseudo-weaponized Keyensianism that doesn't even yield anything useful. Who do you work for, friend?
Not praising or protesting anything. Just an observation. QE or DOD-pork have utility provided there is a check against moral hazard. As nobody of consequence went to jail for creating the CDO crisis, and as nobody will do so for the F35 boondoggle... the hazard remains.
This program is going to end up like the M-16. Even after its flaws are fixed the reputation isn't going to be shaken off. People still see the M-16 as unreliable even as its the most common form factor used by militaries today. Ironically the AK-47 wasn't as reliable in its initial iterations and now its simplicity is its only major advantage today.
Currently a lot of the flaws of the F-35 program have been fixed. Even the cost per fighter is reasonable now, its approaching a sub $100M cost per aircraft. Its a much better plane than its contemporaries, and its costs are in the same category.
Designing an advanced fighter aircraft in the 21st century is hard and expensive. Designing one to do 3 roles and built in the thousands is even harder. But its easier and cheaper than the alternatives. The F-35 is going to end up being a good aircraft and will fulfill what it was designed to do.
You mean like the PAK-FA? Or maybe the F-35 successor?
What other modern plane development programs don't actually take decades?
Include Boeing and Airbus planes into that too. Include helicopters. All of it is a time consuming and expensive thing to do. We are not riveting metal together and putting piston engines in fighters anymore.
Oh I am aware. PAK-FA, a program that started in 2000 because the previous program for the Mig 1.44 that start in 1979 was delayed so often. And now we have the Mikoyan LMFS a program based on the Mig 1.44.
I have high confidence that the Russians will manage to eventually make a 5th gen fighter using a legacy of nearly 50 years of development. But no, the JSF program is the one that is heavily delayed.
Yeah, the F-35 is delayed. Originally, Initial Operational Capability declarations for the services was supposed to be in 2010. Now it's 2018 and while the USAF and USMC declared IOC for their variants, the Navy still has not.
Each F-35 costs about $100M now. When you want to compare the entire project scope, you should also account for how many planes have been planned to build. Because that $1.5T number includes purchases and lifetime expenses. About 3000 planes and decades of use.
Strictly measuring the R&D places the program at $50B. A price tag that includes making virtually 3 kinds of planes for more than a dozen operators.
So when you say its cost $1.5T, then try to point to alternatives, I'd have to ask, which other alternative planes have had 3000 constructed and then operated over the course of its life in the past 2 decades? What exactly are you trying to compare that $1.5T number to?
Do you want to compare this to the Rafale, of which there are only 150?
To use a metaphor:
I went out and bought 10 bags of apples for $100, but that guy only needed to spend $10 for his bag of oranges.
That money being spent on the obsolete plane could instead be providing evidence based drug treatment, instead of letting people fall victim to the abstinence-based rehab schemes.
That wasn't a trial of air-to-air combat. It was a control law test of the F-35. An F-16 aircraft, which was already being used during the mission as a "chase" aircraft for test execution safety reasons, was also used by the F-35 pilot as a visual reference.
There was no coverup. Rather, the reporter who was sent the document and wrote about it simply didn't have the engineering knowledge to understand what he was reading, nor did he ask anyone experienced with flight testing to review what he had been sent and what he had written.
The document was the opinion of the F-35 pilot just to be clear. Here's a direct quote from the pilot:
> The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft. There are multiple occasions when the bandit would've been visible (not blocked by the seat) but the helmet prevented getting in a position to see him
#
> The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage in a turning fight and operators would quickly learn that it isn't an ideal regime.
I think you are making some of the same mistakes as the author of the piece you linked to. You are not understanding the context of the whole test, nor are you reading all of the pilot's observations.
Look at what the pilot says about pitch rate, and I'll pick out the part that makes all the difference. Brackets and emphasis mine:
"Insufficient pitch rate exacerbated the lack of EM. Energy deficit to the bandit would increase over time. Therefore there were multiple occasions where it would have been tactically sound to accept excessive energy loss in order to achieve a fleeting WEZ. [Weapon Engagement Zone]. The CLAW [Control Law] prevented such shot opportunities (and hindered defeating shots)."
In other words, the control laws prevented him from doing what he wanted. But, as he knows, because he's helped develop the aircraft, the control laws are trying to be conservative. Therefore, in his conclusions and recommendations, he says:
"Consider increasing alpha onset." and "Consider increasing pilot yaw rate control authority".
These fixes were put in the CLAW really quickly.
As for your jab about "pilots themselves aren't qualified to criticize the program either", well, look, the reporter didn't do his due diligence. You can criticize anything you like, but when you don't do the work to make your criticisms informed by relevant experience and knowledge, you're just another guy with an opinion and a blog.
> But, as he knows, because he's helped develop the aircraft, the control laws are trying to be conservative.
And are based on the physical construction of the aircraft, which is why they increased the size of the control surfaces after this.
> You can criticize anything you like, but when you don't do the work to make your criticisms informed by relevant experience and knowledge, you're just another guy with an opinion and a blog.
According to you nobody that criticizes the F-35 sacred cow does their due diligence. You paint people one of two ways: You either think the F-35 is wonderful and thus are informed, or you don't know anything.
I also love how you keep going back to an article that isn't even relevant in this thread, nobody brought it up, nobody has linked it, and yet you're strawman-ing this mysterious article to death as a defense of the pilot's own criticism's of the F-35 in 2015.
> You yourself linked the article that I'm referring to, and you mentioned it originally.
I haven't linked to any article like what you're referring to, nor did I reference it. I linked to the pilot's original mission report, I also referenced the same report. You seem to be attacking some editorial, and since you haven't linked it, nobody knows which one.
> And I am informed on the F-35 and don't think it's wonderful, but I don't think it's a horrible piece of garbage, either.
Nobody was claiming it was a "horrible piece of garbage."
Exactly. Which is nothing but the pilot's report un-editorialized. You've been attacking some strawman editorial all throughout this thread that nobody linked or referenced here.
Could you explain this, or point me to a link? I don't know the term and I'm having trouble searching it since the words are so common, but I'd love to see a proper breakdown of what was being tested.
Sure. The F-35 is a "fly-by-wire" aircraft, which means that computers are required to direct the movements of the control surfaces. The engineering and mathematics here is not my area (my flight test experience lies in data acquisition, instrumentation, and data analysis/reduction) but I do know that the computers run software -- control laws -- that take the pilot's instructions as inputs, observe the dynamics of the airplane, and issue control commands to the surfaces to execute the inputs.
Plus they could have released anything that helped make the aircraft look less deficient, they didn't. Just tried to hide the test and pretend it didn't occur.
Tried to cover it up? It's an unclassified report from the test pilot. Not really intended for public disclosure, but this isn't the Pentagon Papers. And the author of the article has an axe to grind against almost all of the military. He left out most of the in that mitigated the story he's been pushing for a decade.
"In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.
At this point, the exercise was suspended, Blue's ships were "re-floated", and the rules of engagement were changed; this was later justified by General Peter Pace as follows: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?" After the reset, both sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action.
After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore. Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, and that they also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force and even ordered the location of Red Force units to be revealed.
This led to accusations that the war game had turned from an honest, open, free playtest of U.S. war-fighting capabilities into a rigidly controlled and scripted exercise intended to end in an overwhelming U.S. victory, alleging that "$250 million was wasted".
Seems like a faked war exercise to me, seems more like a propaganda exercise.
I am having a difficult time understanding how you're taking the fact that they did a test and got an outcome, and concluding therefore that they "faked" the test.
Let me try an analogy to explain my viewpoint. Let's say I'm testing pre-alpha UI with some users. In the first phase, I give them no explicit training or instruction on the software because I want to see, as a whole, how the thing holds up holistically. Let's further say that, during that first phase, they struggle with the menu system or how to enter commands. Okay, noted. But I still need to check various wizards and dialogs, and I've already brought all these testers in. So instead of sending everyone home while I fix the main menu/command bar/whatever, I construct and direct situations so that all the aspects of the UI are exposed to the user for testing. "Go here and click the arrow-into-a-box button to save the file." "Oh, that's what that is? How come it isn't a normal save button?" "Sorry about that, but go ahead and do that and then see how it goes from there." "Okay!"
Would you similarly conclude that I "faked" the test? Do you think the better solution would be to send everyone home? Or just have them twiddle their thumbs for the entire length of the exercise?
It seems quite clear, to me, that the correct course of action is to keep testing. Continue to test and try various components of doctrine to see how they hold up. The fact that this Red Team didn't want to use anti-air radar doesn't mean we should waste the opportunity to test our doctrine on how to counter it.
Yes. That is how these things work. Anything less would be irresponsible.
I feel like we're talking past each other. I don't understand your point of view.
Let's say I'm doing a platoon-sized exercise over the course of two weeks. I've been training my platoon on some basic maneuvers like fixing and flanking, rushing machine gun nests, some patrolling, etc.
The first night, the Red platoon ambushes my Blue platoon while they're on patrol. Red platoon does a great job thinking on their feet, Blue assaulted through the ambush per doctrine and did a good job of it, but Red platoon knew the doctrine too and exploited a weakness.
Got it. Red won. However, we still need Blue to get some experience patrolling, and we definitely need them to have experience reacting to a linear ambush like they'll be facing in a couple months when we deploy. The fact that the Red team used a complex ambush with an IED and an extra machine gun oriented down the MSR is irrelevant. We still need to make sure the SOP works and that Blue can execute it. So I order Red team to use some linear ambushes to see how Blue does.
Explain to me how this is a fake test. Explain to me how this is somehow a waste of taxpayer money, or training time, or pro-Blue-platoon propaganda. Because to me it sure as heck looks exactly like what you should do in an exercise.
Is it really a boondoggle though? I mean, it keeps the defense industry rolling, gives the military something to fly, politicians and the media something to talk about, and it's more or less capable of bombing third worlders who can't effectively shoot back. Did the people who green lit it, paid for it, and made it honestly expect anything more?
> it keeps the defense industry rolling, gives the military something to fly, politicians and the media something to talk about, and it's more or less capable of bombing third worlders who can't effectively shoot back
That sounds like the literal definition of a boondoggle.
"work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value."
"...Officials in the F-35 Joint Program Office are making paper reclassifications of potentially life-threatening design flaws to make them appear less serious..."
Hey this must be the company where I used to work a while ago. QA finds a 'crash' enter it as 'showstopper' in BUG database. As time goes by PM slowly 'erodes' it to 'Major', then a few months later it's closed as 'will not fix'.
The F-35 initiatives for a "one platform for all branches" mirrors the F-4 Phantom and McNamara's push for standardized platform to emphasize on a perceived technologically advantage-guided missiles that made dogfighting rebundant....
We all know that played out in vietnam....
Now they are saying it's okay if the F-35 is beta, nobody can detect our stealth planes!
Like the unshootable Nighthawk stealth bomber in Belgrade that was taken out by a SAM. Of course the f-22 has no equal but I wonder just how much this stealth edge is going to last.
Somewhere someone is sitting on a slush fund to figure out (or have figured out already) how to detect stealth and counter measures.
The F-35 has been a huge success for China. We funded everything, made every mistake in the book, and now the PLA can pick and choose the parts they like best and fold into their own, perhaps better working, model.
Very scary but also a reminder of the high cost of politics and agreements and strong personailities and "you're damned if you do and damned if you don't"
I was reading earlier about the UK saying they were going to buy 150 of them at $100M a pop. Probably already signed the agreement and then will get the shock of the service pricing and the idea that once you have it, it costs you more to mothball and replace than to keep paying good money after bad.
'As the program’s only Level 1 partner, the United Kingdom has garnered tremendous economic benefits from the F-35. British industry will build 15 percent of each of the more than 3,000 planned F-35s, generating significant export revenue and GDP growth. The program is projected to create and support more than 24,000 jobs across every region of the United Kingdom.'
..but still, I do wonder whether we are trying to fight the last war with this plane.
Wouldn't be quite so bad if we weren't in the process of completing two carriers that can only be used with the F-35B as they don't have CATOBAR capabilities - so far that's over $10 billion just on the ships.
CATOBAR is far better in the long run. You can take off with more weapons/fuel, and bring back more of both instead of dumping them. The RN made a huge mistake in not putting in catapults and arresting gear.
Nope. You need to keep much more fuel in reserve if doing arrested landings compared to vertical ones. You probably also need airborne refuelling provided from the carrier.
Another extra cost comes from needing to keep practicing landings, plus trainers like the T-50 to learn how to do them. There is more chance of losing an aircraft in a landing accident too. Not needing to keep practicing landings means that the mix of F-35s and helicopters can be changed at short notice.
1. CATOBAR means no onboard AEW (I'm not counting the Crowsnest on the Merlin). An E2 Hawkeye has longer loiter time, range and higher ceiling (granting a longer detection range).
2. Airborne refueling from a carrier is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. STOVL aircraft have short legs anyways, so being able to provide dedicated tanking is essential.
3. Practice landings is an extra cost? How? With STOVL aircraft you still need to practice landings and takeoffs, and landings are still quite complicated. This will have no impact on the mix of aircraft that would or could be deployed.
4. Safety - the track record for STOVL is far far worse than normal aircraft. The Harrier has an atrocious rate of Class A accidents. Hopefully the F-35B will be better than past STOVL aircraft, but there's no indication that it will be safer than more traditional aircraft.
Actually, my main concern is the risk created by coupling one very and expensive project (the carriers) to the design of a particular model of new aircraft.
At least with CATOBAR there is the option of falling back to other designs.
Correct. Harriers are out of service for the RN/RAF, and good they should be. The French were prudent in using CATOBAR with their carriers. They get the advantage of Rafale, F-18, E2, etc etc. Plus they wisely chose nuclear power.
The story also re-stipulates the quote very likely misattributed to Stalin, but likely is from Thomas A. Callaghan Jr.:
Quantity has a quality all its own.
While provenance of the quote is tricky [1] [2], it is generally accepted the US leans towards the "quality" side of the spectrum. This shouldn't be an issue with the purported ideals of the US, unless the US finds itself precipitating a hot war by the MIC and neo-conservative foreign policy establishments with a numerically superior foe.
I'm personally for a "tick-tock" release schedule into a Swiss defensive posture: ratchet up quality in one period, then in the next period distribute the quality gains into a massive materiel and training dispersal program focused on defense of the nation's land itself.
There are problems and complaints with every weapon system:
the P-51 Mustang was designed for high-altitude bomber escort but the original engine couldn't produce power > 15k feet. Oops. The British put a Rolls Royce engine in it and it was gold.
My favorite F35 hack: just buy whatever the latest out of Sukhoi is. It will be cheaper and work better, and we can afford more of them than the Russians can.
Perfect plan, if you want a good plane for target practice for the F-22 and F-35. Or if you need to test your radar systems against something and you can't find a Piper Cub.
Has the US ever managed to shoot down even an old Su-27? Guessing the answer is no.
F22 might do it. F35, only in a beyond visual situation. Remember in Vietnam when the doctrine was that missiles were so good all combat would happen BVR? Yeah, it's not gonna happen now either.
I've written extensively on the topic, under my real name even. Pierre Sprey, one of the fighter mafia guys who came up with our Gen-4 fighters agrees with me. Who are you?
At the end of the day, they are going to put all the fancy gizmos on the more capable platform - the F-22, while keeping its more powerful radar. There is going to be an F-22E that will be able to deliver more ordinance than the F-35. There is going is going to be an F-22x which will get the F-35s IRST so that it can get around without emitting. Or maybe this will be a pod to avoid compromising stealth. Oh, and the A-10 isn't going anywhere.
Complete fantasy. Lockmart would love to build new F-22 for Japan (at $250M a pop), but that's not going to be for the USAF if it pans out at all. Upgrading the F-22 with newer electronics is going to be very problematic due to its avionics architecture.
Do you have a source on the F-22 variants? I thought that one of the things that locked us into the F-35 was the tear down of the F-22 production line. Can we still make F-22's?
We cannot make an F-22 right now. A few years ago, Lockheed Martin was asked how much they thought it would cost to restart F-22 production. The cost was several billion dollars. Plus, the people with the intimate knowledge of how to build an F-22 are dispersed throughout the rest of the industry, retired, or deceased.
Purely speculating, but with some thought. The F-22 is innately stealthier, has better aerodynamics, and a better thrust-to-weight ratio.
The A-10 has proven itself to be indispensable for CAS. Helicopters can't get there in time and are at more risk when getting in close. Not to mention that the Apache (and even the Russian MI-28) are much lighter armored, which is a factor when being shot at with heavy machine guns. No flares / chaff for that.
You cannot know this unless you are read in to both programs, so this is further speculation. And if you were read into both programs (or either one) you wouldn't say things like this.
"To achieve lower costs the JSF accepts notable aft sector stealth limitations, especially when tackling deep or layered air defences with fighter threats - an acceptable tradeoff for shallow littoral and FEBA area battlefield strikes against predominantly short range mobile air defence systems. The aim in the JSF is to use newer materials technology than the F-22A does to reduce stealth costs, although we are likely to see this technology migrate across to the F-22A in later blocks."
> The Pentagon sold Congress on the F-35 in part with the idea of creating a common aircraft for three services, alleging it would save money—despite the well-documented and glaring failure of the tri-service F-111 program 25 years before Congress signed off on the very same plan with the F-35 in 2001
The idea that the STOVL variant would have significant parts commonality with the others despite having a giant fan in the middle was pretty laughable right from the start. In general, three aircraft with three very different design mission profiles were not going to be able to share much without making bad compromises.