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The F-35 Story
New submitter phyzz writes "The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program aimed to replace several aircraft from three major military services with a fifth-generation model capable of short-takeoff and vertical-landing while maintaining the capability of sustained supersonic flight — all while staying affordable. The project has finally gotten some test points validated, but after a decade in development and numerous cost and schedule overruns, it faces an uphill fight against budget reductions. Bloomberg has an interesting story about the program's troubled past. Quoting: 'Ten years and $66 billion later, the aircraft is still in development, five years behind schedule and 64 percent over cost estimates. The Obama administration may cancel some models and also cut the Pentagon’s orders. The plane, envisioned as the affordable stealth fighter for the U.S. and allies, has turned into a budget target. "I’d blame the program’s setbacks on the fact that we lived in a rich man’s world," said Jacques Gansler, a former Pentagon chief weapons buyer in the Clinton administration and now a professor at the University of Maryland at College Park. "There has been less emphasis on cost over the past 10 years," he said.'"
I think the larger story isn't a troubled individual program, it's a federal government that outsources and contracts almost *everything* these days. Having grown up around military bases, I find the level of contracting with anything military to be very troubling these days. I remember back in the 80's when bases began contracting out things like food services. Okay, that seemed pretty reasonable. But I recently went back to an old base that I had once been stationed at back in the day and being shocked by how far this has really gone. Not only were food services, the PX, laundries, etc. run by civilians--but so was base *security*. Instead of MP's greeting me at the gate, it was a bunch of rent-a-cops. I'm not even sure the base *has* MP's anymore (never saw any of them). It would seem a handful of contractors and merc firms do pretty much everything now for the government.
Thanks to the lobbying money of the Lockheed Martins, Northrop Grummans, and Blackwaters (or whatever the fuck they're calling themselves these days), we have overpriced weapons/aircraft programs that function as little more than cash funnels, U.S. embassies guarded not by Marines but by mercs, and a NASA that can't even build a rocket anymore without a Lockheed or Boeing to do all the work for them.
So why should Lockheed Martin care if the F-35 goes over budget, or the MEADS system turns out to be a money sink, etc. etc. ? It's not like a Congress that they *own* is ever going to call them to task for it. And they'll get a hundred *new* contracts to replace them. So why should it surprise anyone to see stories like this pop up again and again on /.?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The difference is that Lockheed isn't a bankrupt company, financed with taxpayer funds, given under dubious circumstances. The contracts for the F-35 and F-22 are well known and derived from congressional authority. If you want congress to investigate the largess at Lockheed, contact your senator, but at least the F-35 contract was awarded openly. We don't know much about the loan that was given to Solyndra since the administration has refused a lawful congressional subpoena.
It's the VTOL/STOL version for the marines that bogged the whole program down. It was just too ambious and when this became obvious the "solution" was to put almost all the focus on the Marine version to push it through. They should have paused the Marine version instead, met all the objectives for the convential and carrier versions, then come back to the marines. In 5 or 10 years we'll be smarter about how to do it, where the airframe can be lightened, how to put more thrust in the engines, etc.
The JSF's biggest problem: it's a replacement for things the military already owns.
While I do agree with your point, I'd argue the JSF's biggest problem is it's designed for a war we're unlikely to ever find ourselves in. What need is there for a high-tech plane like this when you're fighing against a bunch of cave-dwelling terrorists?
These shiny gadgets were born out of the cold war, but that's over. Does anyone think China would want a military confrontation with any of its largest customers? Do people really think Russia is likely to rise again?
#DeleteChrome
Building vertical takeoff into the thing was the big mistake. Historically, VTOL aircraft have not been very successful, despite many attempts. However, the USMC has the Harrier, almost the only VTOL aircraft that works. So VTOL capability was specified for the F-35. This complicated the design enormously. (Look at the video, with all those hatches opening and huge nozzles deploying). I admire Lockheed-Martin for making that work at all. That's where the money went.
The best fighters have been clean, simple beasts, like the F-16. Trying to combine fighter, bomber, stealth, and VTOL guarantees an expensive aircraft. Usually something important is lost, like range, bomb load, or turn radius. Or, most importantly, number of aircraft. In an air war, the side that runs out of fighters first loses.
The US Marines were the origin of the vectoring in forward flight move. This provides the old harrier with at least one move that almost nothing can hang with in combat. The brits took that and used it (I'm a brit).
In the falklands - the harrier force had pretty much everything on paper against them. Their enemies had range, they had surprise, they had speed, they had superior planes within the envelope. The fact is that the Harriers did what they have always done. They did a remarkable job well beyond their supposed envelope, and worked in the most hostile environment. They have a questionable repair rate in peacetime, with aircraft going down. In the falklands - the fact is their had a fantastic record in terms of unservicablility - very little time was lost to them not being available. And they proved more robust than the paper claims of certain marine generals would like to paint - coming back with AA shell holes in them and 'I counted them all out, and I counted them all in' being famous words.
This aircraft which started as a bit of a flying machine people did not know what to use it for, became a weapon system that had limited punch (its weight limits, especially in hot and high are very limiting) and limited range meant it had questions. But often overlooked, you could put the things in a field behind you and hit the enemy in front. Close support was never as practically close as with the harrier. And the fact is it may not be the best, in fact its had many cases where its become clear it was not the best. But its also been there, used, available, and in the action for a very long time. Its (or I should say it was..) a brilliant functional, cost effective chunk of weaponary that was very very useful to have in your pocket.
The brits retired the joint harrier force recently, and this is supposedly for the J35. The J35 looks to me, a poor aircraft all round. Its a horrible mish mash of requirments and hashed up garbage. We would have been better off with a new modification program, or even a new production run of harriers.
The J35 isn't going to be better and replace the A10, The Harrier and strike planes like the F16. Well, it is, but its going to be worse than all three in their primary roles. It will be worse at tank killing. It will be worse as a VTOL/STOL rugged cheap fighter/bomber and it won't strike or fight as well as the F16. In fact, I would put money on the F16 beating it time after time in AC.
As it stands right now, at least in the case of the UK - there is a blindness thats similar to the pre-vietnam US fascination with missiles. The theory is that everything is tech based. So now you have UK fighter pilots being so under trained they are losing in dogfighting contests against Pakistani air force F16s while being sat in EuroFighter Typhoons - and all because they are not allowed to burn the fuel, spend the training time - or threaten the expensive airframes/flying hours..
The prior comment about STOVL is relevant- because the harrier really is pressed in some situations in regard to load. Hot and high being a serious limit on its direct lift ability. This matters less if you have them on large carriers where take off and landing room is plentiful, so no need to overly cripple the flights / weight/ weapon load.
We`re all equal
Remember the recent Tanker fiasco... Boeing and Airbus fighting over pork with gravy while the KC-135 fleet gets older and older. And the new tanker is still YEARS away.
This was again mostly the fault of the DoD. They ran the worst acquisition program ever. They basically issued requirements which Boeing and Airbus had no trouble meeting. However, they didn't really nail down the desired capacity for the new tanker. Boeing was told (by DoD personnel) that they preferred a smaller tanker; Airbus was told (by different DoD personnel) that they desired a larger tanker. Airbus easily could have offered a smaller tanker to meet the requirements; Boeing easily could have offered a larger. But because the Air Force's requirements were so poorly put together, it wasn't really clear what they wanted. The first round of the selection, which Airbus won, was decided largely because the Airbus solution offered greater fuel capacity. Boeing objected to the selection because Airbus received bonus points in the evaluation for offering more capacity - which Boeing also could have offered had it been clear that the Air Force was going to give bonus points for it.
Not the only issue by far in the tanker competition, but it could have been avoided if the DoD had just spent a little more time figuring out exactly what they wanted before calling for bids. Just as with civilian airliners, I really don't think there is much to choose between a Boeing-based platform and an Airbus-based platform, and a purely cost vs. capability evaluation would probably depend on easily-fudgeable (or difficult to predict, depending on your mood) analyses of lifetime costs; adding in slightly different requirements for each just makes it impossible to have a fair evaluation.