I think the F-35 isn't real, that all the videos of it are CGI, and that all these reports are supposed to convince us that this money has been lost, all while the government is secretly using the entire F-35 budget to build a flock of flying drones, walking and talking robots, and rail guns for the next major war.
I have to believe such contrivances to avoid thinking about how my tax dollars are wasted.
I have my picture taken next to an F-35 thanks to a friend who is an F-35 pilot. I can assure you that it's fake. Most likely made of paper mache. The helmet's pretty cool though.
The plane flies; but I wonder what we're doing putting humans in an airplane at all at this point. The amount of additional engineering that has to be done to support a human in the cockpit is crazy -- life support systems, multiple redundant flight control systems, etc. All of these have maintenance schedules, checklists and protocols that make them very expensive to operate. By the time this weapons system is operational, it will be obsolete.
I would maybe understand if the goal of this program was to produce a weapons system that was a great leap forward in performance, but the F-35 was never designed to be that. It was supposed to remove the need for 3 or 4 different specialized aircraft by creating a general-purpose platform that can serve in multiple roles. It's essentially a cost-reduction program that basically fails at reducing costs because of the additional overhead some of the requirements brought.
In its current iteration, it doesn't do that, and having a single-engine fighter jet is a colossally stupid idea. In the event of engine failure, the pilot has no choice but to eject because fighters are far less aerodynamically stable than passenger planes, and with no engine power, the plane wouldn't be controllable. You don't have these problems in two-engine fighters -- if one engine goes out, you can still limp back to base and land the plane. So your single engine has to be that much more powerful and reliable, which leads to an engine that is more expensive to buy and that needs to be maintained more often. So they ultimately fail in reducing cost and complexity.
For the roles the F-35 will be appropriate for by the time it's finished, drones will be a much better option. The F-35 is explicitly not an air superiority fighter (a role human pilots are still better suited for, and for which the F-22 is a far superior aircraft), and most of the ground support and reconnaissance roles the F-35 is supposed to play are already handled by drones today.
The program only exists because big defense programs are parceled out to congressional districts, whose representatives are loathe to lose the jobs. I don't think the military even wants it that badly at this point.
... For an enemy that doesn't exist in a war that won't happen...
PS - Before people yell "China," China's air power isn't even on par with what the US currently has. Their only remotely threatening aircraft is a bad clone of the F-35.
It's kind of amusing that the one Air Force in the world that has the most means to have different super-specialized planes for every use case has decided to sink a historic amount of money into an all-purpose plane that's not particularly good at one task. You would understand if a place like Panama decided "We can only afford 6 fighter jets and one maintenance team/infrastructure, so let's get F-35s because they'll cover multiple needs", but these are absolutely not the constraints of the United States.
We had a specialized plane, the F22- but it cost $150M each and people thought "that's crazy" so they said: let's save money by building a new plane in bulk that can be customized for each branch! So while the costs upfront were/are high, in the end once we start stamping them out in bulk the price per place will be much lower.
And here we are. Intentions were good, execution has been bad.
Oh no, the Sea Wolf works, but is too expensive at $2B/boat! Let's scrap the working program, use "lessons learned" to build a cheaper attack submarine. Years of delays and cost overruns follow, and we get the inferior Virginia class, at a bargain-basement price of $3B.
Oh no, the F22 works, but is too expensive at $150M/plane! (Would have been less over time, but who's counting?) Let's scrap the working program, use "lessons learned" to build a cheaper fighter. Years of delays and cost overruns follow, no working plane in sight, but if it ever flies, we will get the inferior F35, at a bargain-basement price of $350M/plane.
I can't wait to see what happens when the Ohio-class replacement program starts for real. Also can't wait to see what happens when healthcare is fully nationalized — I'm sure the bureaucracy in charge will be so much sleeker and more efficient than the Pentagon, and special interests so much less influential in Congress. Oh, wait: annual US military spending is about $750B, and healthcare adds up to $3.5T.
UAVs are the future. They are more affordable, they can be stealther, they can be smaller, they can stay flying for longer, and they require less ground support.
I can not believe the F-35 hasn't been completely cancelled yet. Every partner of the US doesn't really want these expensive beasts.
Procurement is often not about warfighting but about politics. That's why they split construction up among multiple locations -- that's multiple congressmen who have a vested incentive in seeing that money continue to roll into their district and provide jobs.
Not trying to justify the F-35, it's a cluster fuck, but manned aircraft will be around for a while. Unless the operator is local, the communication latency for UAVs makes them unsuitable for some types of combat missions.
Every air force in the world wants these expensive beasts, it's the entire identity of the service - TOP GUN knights of old jousting for supremacy. The command structure of most air forces comes from the fighter pilots, it's a common complaint in USAF that transport, which is maybe the most useful day to day function, is a career dead-end.
Nobody in the military will take seriously a "warrior" that runs a joystick on a RPV, and when these things gain more autonomy it's going to eliminate the necessity for whole ranks of command. So the Air Force will fight to the bitter end for these things, long after they are will be effective solely as air show entertainment.
F-35 tries doing so many things and fails in almost all of them. The complexity of engine given the whole STOVL based frame and design is the culprit here. One plane to rule them all is still a bad idea, given the complexity of these machines. There are many lessons for any kind of system design and development in this whole story.
I realize "mean time between failures" doesn't mean what I think it means, but holy moley. The engine can only go 25 hours between failures instead of the 120 they're aiming for? That's a pretty big gap in performance and I wouldn't want to be flying one of these things.
"As of late December, engines on the Marine Corps’ complex version of the F-35, designed for short takeoffs and vertical landings, flew about 47 hours between failures caused by engine design issues instead of the 90 hours planned for this point, according to GAO officials. Air Force and Navy model engines flew about 25 hours between failures instead of the 120 hours planned."
An engine for a military application has very different characteristics from that of a commercial passenger plane. The MTBF for the latter is in the 100k+ hours, with servicing usually performed around 10k.
MTBF generally doesn't imply that the engine is either inoperable or completely failed. MTBCF, MTTF, or other metrics measure that.
The MTBF for a military aircraft as a whole system in general would likely be pretty low since it's composed of so many systems. In essence, something is likely degraded on the aircraft at any given time. That is why there are dual redundancies and easily swappable units.
Why use the mean and not the median? I would think that the likelihood of something failing is much higher during the first few hours than once it has been flying for a 100 hours.
I was about to point out the same thing. I left shortly before the program got cut. Everyone saw the writing on the wall.
I remember some talk about it being more about politics than saving money. I can't remember what politician it was, but they were one of the big pushers of closing down GE's alternative engine program, which was convenient since they were from Connecticut where Pratt & Whitney is located (If I remember correctly).
Basically they wanted their state to benefit exclusively.
Not to say GE's engine would be in much better shape right now either. I am really not sure what the right decision would have been.
They are already planning on using more advanced adaptive engine technology from the ADVENT program for future F-35 engines, since the program is going to last for quite a long time.
This could be related to campaigning against the current F135 engine.
[+] [-] mangeletti|11 years ago|reply
I have to believe such contrivances to avoid thinking about how my tax dollars are wasted.
[+] [-] bicx|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B
[+] [-] Lancey|11 years ago|reply
...or we could build a plane that doesn't fly.
[+] [-] exelius|11 years ago|reply
I would maybe understand if the goal of this program was to produce a weapons system that was a great leap forward in performance, but the F-35 was never designed to be that. It was supposed to remove the need for 3 or 4 different specialized aircraft by creating a general-purpose platform that can serve in multiple roles. It's essentially a cost-reduction program that basically fails at reducing costs because of the additional overhead some of the requirements brought.
In its current iteration, it doesn't do that, and having a single-engine fighter jet is a colossally stupid idea. In the event of engine failure, the pilot has no choice but to eject because fighters are far less aerodynamically stable than passenger planes, and with no engine power, the plane wouldn't be controllable. You don't have these problems in two-engine fighters -- if one engine goes out, you can still limp back to base and land the plane. So your single engine has to be that much more powerful and reliable, which leads to an engine that is more expensive to buy and that needs to be maintained more often. So they ultimately fail in reducing cost and complexity.
For the roles the F-35 will be appropriate for by the time it's finished, drones will be a much better option. The F-35 is explicitly not an air superiority fighter (a role human pilots are still better suited for, and for which the F-22 is a far superior aircraft), and most of the ground support and reconnaissance roles the F-35 is supposed to play are already handled by drones today.
The program only exists because big defense programs are parceled out to congressional districts, whose representatives are loathe to lose the jobs. I don't think the military even wants it that badly at this point.
[+] [-] Someone1234|11 years ago|reply
PS - Before people yell "China," China's air power isn't even on par with what the US currently has. Their only remotely threatening aircraft is a bad clone of the F-35.
[+] [-] cryoshon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pekk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frandroid|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josefresco|11 years ago|reply
And here we are. Intentions were good, execution has been bad.
[+] [-] gcv|11 years ago|reply
Oh no, the Sea Wolf works, but is too expensive at $2B/boat! Let's scrap the working program, use "lessons learned" to build a cheaper attack submarine. Years of delays and cost overruns follow, and we get the inferior Virginia class, at a bargain-basement price of $3B.
Oh no, the F22 works, but is too expensive at $150M/plane! (Would have been less over time, but who's counting?) Let's scrap the working program, use "lessons learned" to build a cheaper fighter. Years of delays and cost overruns follow, no working plane in sight, but if it ever flies, we will get the inferior F35, at a bargain-basement price of $350M/plane.
I can't wait to see what happens when the Ohio-class replacement program starts for real. Also can't wait to see what happens when healthcare is fully nationalized — I'm sure the bureaucracy in charge will be so much sleeker and more efficient than the Pentagon, and special interests so much less influential in Congress. Oh, wait: annual US military spending is about $750B, and healthcare adds up to $3.5T.
[+] [-] bhouston|11 years ago|reply
I can not believe the F-35 hasn't been completely cancelled yet. Every partner of the US doesn't really want these expensive beasts.
[+] [-] cwyers|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jtsummers|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yborg|11 years ago|reply
Nobody in the military will take seriously a "warrior" that runs a joystick on a RPV, and when these things gain more autonomy it's going to eliminate the necessity for whole ranks of command. So the Air Force will fight to the bitter end for these things, long after they are will be effective solely as air show entertainment.
[+] [-] sremani|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unreal37|11 years ago|reply
"As of late December, engines on the Marine Corps’ complex version of the F-35, designed for short takeoffs and vertical landings, flew about 47 hours between failures caused by engine design issues instead of the 90 hours planned for this point, according to GAO officials. Air Force and Navy model engines flew about 25 hours between failures instead of the 120 hours planned."
[+] [-] knowuh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gte525u|11 years ago|reply
The MTBF for a military aircraft as a whole system in general would likely be pretty low since it's composed of so many systems. In essence, something is likely degraded on the aircraft at any given time. That is why there are dual redundancies and easily swappable units.
[+] [-] josu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SG-|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wehadfun|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noobermin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kenrikm|11 years ago|reply
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/house-votes-to-kill...
Not looking like such a great idea now ehh?
Oh yeah, we're supposed to forget these things.
[+] [-] jgrowl|11 years ago|reply
I remember some talk about it being more about politics than saving money. I can't remember what politician it was, but they were one of the big pushers of closing down GE's alternative engine program, which was convenient since they were from Connecticut where Pratt & Whitney is located (If I remember correctly).
Basically they wanted their state to benefit exclusively.
Not to say GE's engine would be in much better shape right now either. I am really not sure what the right decision would have been.
[+] [-] greyfox|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinator|11 years ago|reply
* [0] http://www.amazon.com/Sway-Irresistible-Pull-Irrational-Beha...
[+] [-] dsr_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|11 years ago|reply
They look like they got some valuable technical information via espionage and built themselves a version that doesn't have some of the design flaws.
[+] [-] HeXetic|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gravityloss|11 years ago|reply
This could be related to campaigning against the current F135 engine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Versatile_Engine_Tech...