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More Bad News For the F-35
schwit1 sends this news from Aviation Week:
"A new U.S. Defense Department report warns that ongoing software, maintenance and reliability problems with Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 stealth fighter could delay the Marine Corps' plans to start using its F-35 jets by mid-2015. It said Lockheed had delivered F-35 jets with 50 percent or less of the software capabilities required by its production contracts with the Pentagon. The computer-based logistics system known as ALIS was fielded with 'serious deficiencies' and remained behind schedule, which affected servicing of existing jets needed for flight testing, the report said. It said the ALIS diagnostic system failed to meet even basic requirements. The F35 program, which began in 2001, is 70 percent over initial cost estimates, and years behind schedule, but top U.S. officials say it is now making progress. They have vowed to safeguard funding for the program to keep it on track. Earlier this week, the nonprofit Center for International Policy said Lockheed had greatly exaggerated its estimate (PDF) that the F-35 program sustained 125,000 U.S. jobs to shore up support for the program."
At least the UK's carrier building programme is running slow...it'd just be embarrassing if we had carriers but no planes to put on them....
Whatever one's political philosophy about them is, drones really are the future -- if one gets shot down, no expensive pilot lost and no embarrassing flag-draped coffins. Can hotseat pilots to allow for long loiter times. No need to have a cockpit for a pilot. Latency and jamming is an issue, but is steadily improving. It's the same way with aircraft carriers, which are steadily becoming welfare for defense contractors and an easy target for ballistic anti-ship missiles, super cavitating torpedos, etc. Defense needs to get out of the 20th century mindset, and out of the pockets of Congress, and into the business of actually building useful stuff.
I'm going to wait for the F-35 with service pack 1, at least.
rewriting history since 2109
DoD has learned nothing from conflicts we've fought, have they? Why has the B-52 seen more action than the B-1 or B-2? How about the A-10? Or drones for that matter. These successful platforms have a few things in common: They're (relatively) cheap, easy to maintain, and they have a high mission capable rate contrasted with their expensive big brothers.
There's a place for the B-2, the F-22, and even the F-35, but what does DoD have in the works to replace the reliable workhorses of the air fleet? Nothing. Not a damned thing. They've placed all their eggs in the F-35 basket, even as costs have ballooned and promised milestones/deadlines have come and gone. Maybe the naysayers (yours truly included) will be proven wrong and the F-35 will go on to be as successful as the F-16. Here's hoping. Even in that optimistic scenario they've still got a huge hole to plug with the pending retirement of platforms like the A-10 and the continued attrition of the B-52 fleet.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Just to be fair, can anyone name a U.S. aircraft that was delivered ontime and at or below budget since the U2 or SR71? This is SOP, not that it's right.
Just another day in Paradise
This is a structural problem, and seems a tough nut to crack. Ike pointed out the problem more than half a century ago, but there is no apparent solution/alternative.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The F-35 is expected to cost over a trillion dollars over ten years and that's not including the billions in cost over-runs. And then the GOP has the gall to talk about shutting down PBS and the Post Office as a waste of government money.
This plane's engine is being built in Speaker John Bohener's state of Ohio. No wonder funding for it will never, ever be cut. The plane could cost 20 trillion, bankrupt the entire United States, and they'd still continue to fund it, by cutting all healthcare, schools, welfare, social security, and foreclose on every American whether they can or not.
This is the GOP mantra. Build more planes and ships we don't need so that defense contractors can be wealthy beyond their wildest dreams... Remember the kid that ran over 4 people in his pickup truck and got off with the defense of "affluenza"? his parents are government contractors. Follow the money. We're being fleeced by the military and then told that the USA is broke if we dare ask for any social service.
The pentagon's photocopier paper budget is bigger than PBS. But what did Mitt Romney promise to cut during his (failed) campaign?
We're headed for a third-world nation banana-republic where the military has everything and the citizens live in mud huts.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
When has this misguided notion that we can have 1 base A/C be all things to all branches EVER worked out?
F-111 anyone?
The F-14 was a great A/C. For the Navy. The F-15 is one of the best ever, but would be useless as a carrier based A/C.
Anyone around fro all the fun and games that was involved in the F/A-18A rollout, and what was required for that to become a useful platform?
This flawed paradigm is why the A-6 was around for so long, they couldn't field a suitable replacement.
I expect that by the time the F-35 is out and working for everyone, it will cost the same as 3 well run, more narrowly scoped projects.
So many failures by trying to be all things to all people as long as the taxpayer foots it all.
My native Brazil has decided on ðe Saab JAS 39E Gripen NG, as did Switzerland where I lived. Two very different countries, very different needs, and sure enough the Gripen even in its NG version cannot do all the F-35 should be able to do — but it does not need to. It is more of a versatile aircraft, doing passably well in its intended deployments at a reasonable cost, than a do-it-all.
It is not to say the US should just ditch ðe F-35 and localise ðe Gripen just as ðey did with ðe Harrier. But it could be an strategy: to have a flexible (‘swing role’ is what Saab calls it) main aircraft, perhaps the evolution of ðe F-18, perhaps a pared down F-35 just as ðe Chinese did, and dedicated planes to do things ðe main platform cannot do, such as ðe A and B planes: ðe A-10, ðe Harrier &, yes, ðe B-52, or evolutions or replacements ðereof. Theoretically a single plane should be cheaper to keep ðan several ones, but not when its costs spiral out of control.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
We could be spending this money on other issues that could do a lot of good plus you don't need an Army when everyone has nuclear bombs.
Sure, if your first response to any kind of attack in the future is going to be nuking them until they glow. Most people would prefer a little less aggressive military policies.
I had a job offer to do systems engineering work on ALIS in Orlando. Glad I passed!
This is what we really needed to fight terrorists in Afghanistan.
I agree with your assessment, 100%. For instance, the US Navy tried to replace their SLQ-32 electronic warfare suite, which has been around since the 1970s, in the 1990s. Because the system that was currently utilized worked, and worked well, they couldn't build a better system. Despite the ship sets not being built for decades, they're still in use, and when a ship that has a console is decommissioned, they pull the console from that ship and put it on a new, to-be-commissioned ship. All because they can't build a better replacement.
I actually know something about the Falkland wars, and encourage your to learn something about it. Grew up hating Thatcher, and learning the history of what happened there was one of the first times that I realized how little I know about the world. It has always been the position of the UK government that the people *living* in the falkland islands should be able to decide if they want to be part of Argentina or not. The military junta that ruled Argentina didn't see it that way -- and in Argentina there is a myth that the Falkland islands were always theirs. (Please, Argentina was colonised by Spanish, and the Spanish had a rather tenuous connection to the Falklands.) When Argentinian soldiers landed on the island, they were shocked, SHOCKED, not to be greeted as liberators. That is how thoroughly propagandized they were.
If you dole sovereignty out first-come-first served, then the Falklands should be Portuguese, and Argentina should be a nation of natives. The French were the first to colonoise the islands, *briefly* conquered by the Spanish, and then transferred to the UK towards the end of the Napoleonic era. Argentina didn't even exist.
The British stood up to a bully. A weak, ineffectual, corrupted, delusional, but still dangerous bully.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
from here:
http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-h...
As an incentive for the contractor to fullfill the requirements, the Navy put some penalties on the project if Grumman would fail on some of the contract guarantees:
Empty Weight: $440,000 for each 100 lbs overweight
Acceleration: $440,000 for each second slow
Escort Radius: $1 million for each 10 nautical miles short
Approach Speed: $1.056 million for each knot fast
Maintainability: $450,000 for each extra maintenance man-hour per flight hour
Delivery to Navy Board of Inspection and Survey: $5,000 for each day late
With this background and a good deal of knowledge on building Navy fighter aircraft, Grumman succeeded in delivering the F-14 on time, on cost and as an even better fighter than they contracted for!
"Did you know though that the excellent F-14 was built in large part from spare parts (radar, engines, etc.) from the turkey F-111 program?"
Ya, vaguely familiar. Spent my 20's at Miramar working on F-14A+'s.
"It makes a lot more sense to first build a plane for the navy, and then have the air force adopt it."
Never, ever happen. AF is a bigger contract and has WAY more political clout. They always trump the squids.
Cost of 1 F-35 $300 million
Cost to keep Mars Rover operating 1 year $14 million
I know where my money would go...
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
"Don't worry, even if you don't deliver what we asked for, get way behind schedule, and run way over budget, we'll still pay you." That pretty much sums up the issue right there. That's why we have debacles like the F-35. These clowns making the hardware simply can't fail. We're guaranteeing to buy whatever crap they happen to offer us. Military Contracts have been known to be "gravy" for decades now, and that needs to change. The classic "$250 toilet seat" jab is unfortunately a reality, and a persistent one at that.
It's not jut the government that can't run like a business, it's the businesses working with the government that are having the same issue, and it's again a problem from within the government, it's a behavior that their system both allows and seems to encourage. A select few are getting rich on our tax dollars, and we're not getting what we should in exchange, be it materials or government itself. Pisses me off that there's nothing effective I can do about it. (and no, voting hasn't helped so farâ¦)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I bought an f-35 once... At least I thought until I had a look at it in the daylight. Turned out to be a MIG with a paint job!
Only thing about drones is the autonomy part:
a. drones are typically remotely piloted (RPV), which means loss of satellite signal or in-air network (E3/awacs/C4I, etc..)means you're done for the day.
b. drones remotely piloted have latency issues (just basic physics, though the tech is fast enough today for their current missions).
c. you need ahuge sensor network to match the sensing capabilities of a manned vehicle (i.e. a pilot can see & decide on stuff more quickly than the sensor processing packages).
Manned fighters do not have these issues and have more intelligence to respond to changing conditions. Cause everything is on-board.
From that, the only solution to drones is to go fully autonomous. And that creates a whole new set of problems (and a possible Skynet incidence).