Is the $400 Billion F-35's 'Brain' Broken? (cnn.com)

Zachary Cohen, reporting for CNN News: Almost 2,500 of the world's most advanced warplanes, with a total price tag of $400 billion, and they may not have a "brain" in the bunch? That's the fear of federal watchdogs who say problems with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's complex logistics software system could lead to a grounding of the entire fleet, not to mention future cost increases and schedule delays. Documenting risks to the F-35's Autonomic Logistics Information System, which Department of Defense officials have described as the "brains" of the fifth-generation fighter, an April 14 Government Accountability Office report says a failure "could take the entire fleet offline," (PDF) in part, due to the lack of a backup system. The report also outlines concerns related to the lack of testing done to ensure the software will work properly by the time the Air Force plans to declare its version of the aircraft ready for deployment this August and the Navy reaches that milestone in 2018. The Marine Corps declared the first squadron of its F-35 variant ready for combat in July 2015, with the intention of upgrading and resolving the software issues before its first planned deployment in 2017.

Comments

giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing how that isn't clear to everyone by now.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[fiannaFailMan]

Amazing how that isn't clear to everyone by now.

Do not underestimate the influence of Fox "all government spending is wasteful unless it's on military toys" News.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Dutch Gun]

Answer to headline: No, it's just way too damned expensive. With enough time and money, anything can be fixed.

Next?

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[kaiser423]

Yup. A large part of the problem with the F-35 is because it's multi-service and multi-national, that everyone kind of got to slide their stuff into it. There's literally no reason for a super-advanced brand-new logistics software for the fighter. But to get support for it, some Congresscritter or whomever tacked those requirements onto it. So now you have a brand new plane, and a brand new logistics operation to support it. They happened all over the place on the F-35 program, where we ended up with "brand new" everything around it -- logistics, maintenance, support, training, mission planning, post mission de-brief, etc, etc. Really too many new things at once.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[sexconker]

With enough time and money, anything can be fixed.

Next?

As for what's "next", may I suggest you reflect upon the tale of Humpty Dumpty? You seem to have missed the point.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Streetlight]

Not just one congress critter. Defense equipment manufacturers make sure that there are parts factories in as many congressional districts as possible insuring that a big project will be funded. And the critter will be reelected because jobs were brought to the district or not lost in the district. The more features add to the device the more jobs there will be.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Tablizer]

It's gotta be close to the point where pulling the plug is the better path. Is it ego-protection and/or sticky politics preventing the pull?

Spruce up existing road-tested jet lines, and invest in drones instead. Drones don't have to be as perfect as manned planes.

Re: giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of. This can be fixed with enough time, money and sufficiently talented software developers. Unfortunately the US military has to use US citizens for that, so number 3 on the list is a problem. It cuts them out from going to Finland, Israel or Australia.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[msauve]

The US spends more on the military than the next 12 countries combined . Those who want a strong military would do better to make them more efficient in their spending, rather than increasing it. And, the US military budget could easily be cut in half without losing a bit of security against the current bogeyman.

Eisenhower warned about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, and he was right. The national debt is a greater threat to the country than any foreign foe.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

We are past that point by a couple of years.
The reason it's still around is all the pork.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[gweihir]

Ah, no. The primary purpose what obviously to get a gigantic pile of money to certain companies and people and that goal has been accomplished. Or do you think they will have to take back their defective product?

Re: giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Type44Q]

How about we just return the ground-attack ordinance... the quick way.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's gotta be close to the point where pulling the plug is the better path.

Ha! My "sunk cost" fallacy beats your logic and rationality!

Re: giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, Finland, Australia, and Israel, the countries that dominate the global software industry. (Snort!)

I will give you that Russians have shown a special knack for clever software. Now if we could only purchase from them a malware missile system to infect the computers of enemy jet fighters and render them our zombies... then you would have something.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

It has never been about building an airplane. The F-35 is about funneling money into the hands of the weapons manufacturers that bribe *ahem* contribute to the right congressmen.

Re: giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

At least their software industries arent full of H1-B Indians doing a shitty job.

Re: giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

F-35 software is done by contractors, not some cut rate visa code monkeys.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[cfalcon]

It's the fact that there's a bunch of functioning F-35s, and these stories are controversial so they run. If it bleeds, it leads. The F-35 has a whole bunch of versions, for different military branches, different countries, etc. All these stories make it sound like it's some alpha project instead of a functioning jet.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[rtb61]

Not only could you cut US military spending in half, you could cut that half in half. Right at this moment the US military industrial complex via the corporate control of NATO is purposefully wasting money creating enemies, in order to generate more funding. Cut funding in half and they no longer will be able to fund that. With fewer enemies the military funding can be halved again. The bulk of spending is currently horrendous waste. Replacing what does not need to be replaced. Creating new and ever more expensive ways of fighting wars, not to fight wars but to spend more money. The fomenting of and fighting those artificial and unnecessary wars, not to succeed at anything beyond spending more money. Cut the waste and you can have the same size military at a quarter of the price and of course at half of the military industrial complex profits.

Trying to shut down those corporations is extremely difficult. So, trying to focus them in on space as an alternate, same turnover, same profit, less risk for everyone else becomes extremely desirable. At the end of the day it is far easier to isolate disruptive regions than enforce cultural change.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[msauve]

"trying to focus them in on space as an alternate"

Trade one boondoggle for another? No thanks. You want to fund space, contribute to The Space Society, or whatever. Vote with your dollars, instead of trying to take mine for the things which interest you.

Re: giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, the software developers will need a security clearance to work on the DOD program, and one of the requirements for a clearance is US citizenship. Some of these guys might be of Indian or Chinese ethnicity, but they most definitely will not be H1-Bs.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[slashdot_commentator]

The US could cut their military budget in half if it didn't have to provide protection for Europe and all the other free loaders in SE Asia.

But it doesn't have to, and that's the point. The US is nothing more that a sociopathic bully, who says to the kids on the block, "you need my protection", and every once in a while goes off on some unpopular twat. The US has to stop volunteering to do Team America: World Police. If Europe can't get around Germany, and facedown Russia, then its Europe's own fucking fault. They have it easier than being a neighbor of China.

The F-35 is the most economically mismanaged weapons development program in US history. And that's because all the other failures, from the B-1 bomber to the Paladin artillery system, got killed rather than committing the US military to go bankrupt over it. This is the price taxpayers pay when they don't fire their politicians for fucking up military spending. Because #1 for every military contractor is make a profit, not provide a quality weapon system at a reasonable price.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[slashdot_commentator]

There's literally no reason for a super-advanced brand-new logistics software for the fighter.

You're just demonstrating your ignorance. Luckily, its the dumb preaching to the dumb.

Software on a weapons system is used to improve the weapons system's performance. It automates tasks which once required a human to do. It also determines whether a component of the plane is not working properly, which means it improves maintenance, thus effectiveness and longevity of the plane. Just like sensors do in your car now. In a $25K car, it would be stupid to do some of the things that being done in the F-35. But since each F-35 is going to cost $100M USD per plane, its a freaking cheap investment to keep those suckers going.

The real problem is that the F-35 became a white elephant, a weapon system to make corporations money, and they promised too much while lowballing their contract estimates. Since the people responsible for killing the program (officers) are the same people hired by weapons contractors when they retire, they were too slow in flipping the kill switch. When this kind of corruption is rampant, you can only blame your local congressman and senators.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[slashdot_commentator]

What happens when you jam a drone's signal? Expensive flying bricks that eventually crash in enemy territory.

What happens when you develop autonomous computer systems to take control of the drone when it loses the ability to signal its controllers? Skynet.

Its extremely unlikely that drones will ever fully replace humans in the air. When they are capable of doing so, that's when you'll have to worry about your weapons being used against you.

The problem is that its (probably) past the point of pulling the plug. The Pentagon is already decommissioning front-line weapons systems in order to "make room" for the F-35. The only justification for shutting down the F-35 now, is if it is certain it will financially collapse America to the point the military can'f face down foreign threats. Unfortunately, its not quite certain enough to justifying bankrupting Lockheed Martin and put the Western militaries into a 5 year disarray. So most western military services will be moving to this boondoggle, and hopefully it will function better than the national Obamacare computers did when put to the test.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[rtb61]

It is not about me and my desires it is about them and theirs and redirecting it to cause less harm. You want to crawl into a hole with your greed and self interest go ahead, don't try to drag the rest of the world there. Vote with you dollars, no that is a lie, vote with your equal right to access to all resources, that is the truth, ownership is the lie, the great theft. Becoming a galactic species is no boondoggle and only the most shallow and primitive could think so.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[slashdot_commentator]

F-35's being configured for different countries is bullshit. The F-35's were advertised to take care of specific foreign buyers requirements, and that's what those buyers sunk their money into. The UK's requirements were not different than the US Marine Corps'. The same goes for every country, excepting Australia and Canada (and the US Navy) that wanted two engines in the F-35. They were told (very politely) to go fuck themselves, and if they didn't like it, they could go buy someone else's stealth warplane system.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, we bullied 54 nations into signing defense pacts, and we bullied Europe into sticking us with a huge bill for NATO. We bullied every other Nato country except for Poland and Britain into not paying the 2% of their GDP on defense that the treaty requires, so we could sociopathically pay for the gaps in their budgets, in addition to providing such a huge military force, that Germany, for instance, only needs to have available one light brigade of combat troops for NATO operations. Oh, and they can't legally fight on foreign soil. We also bullied them into using things like our Satellites for navigation and such.

It never ever happens that when shit goes down, any number of other nations look to us for help, because they were all bullied into an agreement they didn't want. Oh, and of course, other countries don't do their own bullying or have complex bundles of purposes guiding how they interact with us.
We're just thugs doing everything entirely for our benefit, because were sociopaths.

I also want to seriously commend you on the brilliant insight that military contractors, being businesses, are focused on making profits. If only we could be like the Norwegians or the French and have our missiles hand-rolled in the laps of our mothers at home!

And yes, all we have to do is "fire" politicians who supported bad ideas. I mean, it's not like the political class is powerful and resilient or that actual information on the specifics of what they do are hard to come by. I mean, if the average citizen only spent 20 hours every week digging up information on government contracts, lobbying, and a few thousand pages of legislation, it would be easy.

In other words, you are one seriously obtuse motherfucker.

Re: giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Fox News have to do with the F-35 program, you fucking idiot?

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love the US to return every piece of foreign deployed military hardware and the soldiers that come with the hardware. Cancel all mutual defense treaties, reaffirm any existing trade deals, and then tell the world they can handle their own problems without any interference from the US military. This new posture would allow Russia to reclaim their eastern European cold war partners. China can accomplish what Japan tried to do in WW2 which was to rule many of the SE Asian countries. They would occupy Taiwan and give Japan a good pounding just to get a little payback for Japan's actions in China during WW2. The ME would explode making today's fighting look like a pillow fight. I really want to see how the world would act if this scenario actually happens.

You don't need an expensive fighter jet until you really need an expensive fighter jet. You don't need the military until you really need a military. The US doesn't operate in a vacuum. There really are other countries that run their own military and intelligence agencies.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

On the whole, I agree with you, but

...thus effectiveness and longevity of the plane. Just like sensors do in your car now.

Oh sure, ever seen a $20,000 dollar car made near useless because of the failure of a $25 sensor?
Don't ask me what one, I'm not a car person, it was my sister's car, and I say $25 but I've no idea as to the true cost of the thing. The scalper price she paid for a replacement was approx $100, so assumed the usual 100% mark-up for each stage of the supply chain..and as to the cost for fitting the damn thing, she was charged another $170. I hear other stories about EMS refusing to accept the existence of new sensors and engine/electrical parts and wonder sometimes why people fall for this crap (I mean, seriously?, having to update the management thing when you replace a headlight module? wtf?).

Scale the number of sensor up, increase their average complexity, couple these facts with a possibly buggy overall management system, factor in also, this is the MIC we're talking about here, this isn't so much a 'freaking cheap investment to keep those suckers going.', more like another 'lucrative stitch-up to keep yet another ongoing parts supply gravy train contract in place'

 

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[butzwonker]

What happens when you jam a drone's signal? Expensive flying bricks that eventually crash in enemy territory.

That or the drone will fire a hellfire missile on the signal jammer.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[msauve]

"It is not about me and my desires it is about them and theirs and redirecting it to cause less harm."

Disingenuous bullshit.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Archtech]

You're just demonstrating your ignorance... Software on a weapons system is used to improve the weapons system's performance. It automates tasks which once required a human to do. It also determines whether a component of the plane is not working properly, which means it improves maintenance, thus effectiveness and longevity of the plane. Just like sensors do in your car now.

Ironic that you write about the parent "demonstrating ignorance", when you haven't taken the trouble to understand that the topic is *logistics* software. This software is NOT part of the aircraft at all; it is basically doing the job that an experienced store-room manager used to do back in the days when weapons systems were simple enough to be understood by human beings. From TFA:

"Unlike the airframe and engine, however, the software is not built into the plane itself. Instead, it runs on ground computers to support operations, mission planning, maintenance and sustainability".

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[stealth_finger]

Eisenhower warned about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, and he was right. The national debt is a greater threat to the country than any foreign foe.

Well, what kind of guns do you use to shoot National Debt? Is that an off shoot of National Front or something?

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[ThatsNotPudding]

The national debt is a greater threat to the country than any foreign foe.

The national debt *is* a foreign foe; the greatest, in fact. Ironically, most of the debt is due to the corporate welfare known as Permanent War (TM).

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[freezin fat guy]

Sure, we bullied 54 nations into signing defense pacts, and we bullied Europe into sticking us with a huge bill for NATO. We bullied every other Nato country except for Poland and Britain into not paying the 2% of their GDP on defense that the treaty requires, so we could sociopathically pay for the gaps in their budgets, in addition to providing such a huge military force, that Germany, for instance, only needs to have available one light brigade of combat troops for NATO operations...

As a non-American in an allied country I can attest that America more than just a bully. Sometimes a bully, yes, but often a great help and friend.

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[rtb61]

I am trying to fathom what you think I would gain, why your personal greed somehow defines my opinion and seeking ways to redirect those industries focus to less harmful objectives. Don't not equate you greed to my gaining nothing but reduced risk of war.

Re: giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorists! Be afraid!

Re:giant boondoggle is giant boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

The logistics system *does* have a role in the aircraft. The aircraft has a prognostics system that is integrated into the supply chain and logistics of the aircraft.

Tell me this isn't a government operation...

[__aaclcg7560]

[...] due to the lack of a backup system.

Feature creep missed this one.

Re:Tell me this isn't a government operation...

[Hognoxious]

They had a backup but that dago twerp deleted it.

Re:Tell me this isn't a government operation...

[Anonymous Coward]

They had a backup, but their hard disks weren't big enough.

The end of manned aerial combat

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's broken. It's broken in a dozen ways, but most of all it's broken on the most basic measure: Performance.

The inevitable end of the F-35 won't happen due to budget, and it won't happen due to tests, wargames or software testing. It will happen in combat where it will underperform and rapidly go extinct.

Which is a good thing. The subsequent generations of unmanned aircraft will outperform at levels that human piloted aircraft never could. They will be smaller, more agile, capable of higher-G maneuvers, and vastly cheaper. They will have vastly superior response times and less susceptible to pilot-error.

Let's hurry up and get these things into combat so we can bury this disastrous and embarrassing chapter in Air Force history, and get on with the actual next-generation.

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[TWX]

Which is a good thing. The subsequent generations of unmanned aircraft will outperform at levels that human piloted aircraft never could. They will be smaller, more agile, capable of higher-G maneuvers, and vastly cheaper. They will have vastly superior response times and less susceptible to pilot-error.

They also won't be able to make judgement-calls to not engage a target.

Remember, while humans have the capacity to do terrible things to each other, humans also have the capacity to defy orders to to terrible things to each other. Removing a layer of humanity further concentrates terrible lethal power in fewer and fewer hands.

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[dsmatthews9379]

"They will be smaller..." Yes, in fact small enough to be launched from the weapons bay of an F-35. Duh!

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[rickb928]

Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) is the 'maintenance' software system, stuff like parts inventories, maintenance and airframe systems status, scheduling, blah.

Unnecessarily complex. It does not do targeting, battle communications, flight control, or pilot extension, something that is described as handled by 'sensor fusion software'. However, it is issuing false alarms for radar system capability, which occurs during flight, including combat. This impacts the pilot...

Also, the parts management system misorders parts, which seems inexcusable. Your Chevy dealer does better, by all accounts.

Since 2014 this software has been described as having so many problems and being so complex that "it needs to be treated “like its own weapon system.”"

Maintainers have said 80 percent of issues identified by ALIS are "false positives."

And then this tidbit:

"The ALIS system is currently computer racks totaling about 1,000 pounds, and was too big to be used during carrier testing. The program is developing a deployable, two-man portable version of the system that will be ready in July."

Woot. I thought 70s era systems were big.

Sheesh.

Re: The end of manned aerial combat

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly this, which is exactly why armed unmanned aircraft should be banned. Sociopaths make up a small percentage of the population. You can't use the military for, say, mass operations against domestic targets using only people who won't refuse illegal orders UNLESS you have huge force multipliers. That's what drones are for.

The 'humans are bad' crowd around here continues to amaze me. I can only conclude they have neither morals nor skills at anything so they assume nobody else does either.

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[Calavar]

There's difference between unmanned and autonomous. Drones are unmanned, not autonomous; there is still a human issuing orders. The next generation of fighters will be drones.

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Which is a good thing. The subsequent generations of unmanned aircraft will outperform at levels that human piloted aircraft never could. They will be smaller, more agile, capable of higher-G maneuvers, and vastly cheaper. They will have vastly superior response times and less susceptible to pilot-error.

And chances are that they couldn't be built at all without the F-35 technology and experience.

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[Livius]

it's broken on the most basic measure: Performance.

I'm pretty sure the most basic measure is funnelling money to contractors. So far that seems to be the *only* thing it can do successfully. *Everything* has been compromise for the sake of that objective.

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[Plus1Entropy]

Isn't this the plot of Gundam Wing; Mobile Suits being replaced by Mobile Dolls? At least they had colonized space for nearly 200 years...

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[LordWabbit2]

The ALIS system is currently computer racks totaling about 1,000 pounds, and was too big to be used during carrier testing

Must be written in Java...

Re: The end of manned aerial combat

[rickb928]

Imagine it's a beowulf cluster...

Re:The end of manned aerial combat

[Anonymous Coward]

Growing pains. This is the first time Lockheed has attempted this kind of a logistics system. All of those issues are issues that Lockheed is capable of resolving.

Back in the 20th century when it began

[k6mfw]

as the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter. I sometimes wonder about back in the days when fighter jets were being cranked out from the factories like Toyota cranking out Corollas. There was a time of where it took multiple flights to take out a target (most attacks on bridges fail along with a lot of friendly fire incidents), a time of Aces, test pilots that can list zillions of different aircraft to their resume, etc. These days just a few drones are needed. There was an article about new grads from USAF basic pilot school and waiting list for positions like F16 squadrons were lengthly. Some signed up immediately for drone piloting, one said though they don't get to fly the "real thing" but you don't want to be in the horse calvary when the tank comes along.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[whoever57]

Some signed up immediately for drone piloting, one said though they don't get to fly the "real thing" but you don't want to be in the horse calvary when the tank comes along.

Another massive waste of resources. You don't need the same level of training to pilot a drone that you need to sit in and pilot a fast jet. The Army uses enlisted men/women to fly drones, while the Air Force uses officers.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Frosty Piss]

Some signed up immediately for drone piloting, one said though they don't get to fly the "real thing" but you don't want to be in the horse calvary when the tank comes along.

I work with USAF pilots, and in fact am sitting right now in the Current Ops of a major AF base. Fact: no officer coming out of pilot school wants drones. None.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Harlequin80]

Drones are perfect for asymmetric warfare. The US pounding ISIS is the perfect example of this. The drones have a clear flight path, limited interference and nothing that is going to shoot them down.

Now lets start are conflict with a first world military power, but assume it doesn't go nuclear. ASATS take out your communication birds, high powered jammers lower your radios range by at least a magnitude, advanced AA systems come on line & missile strikes start hitting your home base drone control systems. Right now how well do you think your drones are performing.

A manned aircraft allows you to bring weapons to bare with an advanced intelligence system (the pilot) having full autonomy of when to fire and when not to.

You need to change your thinking about aircraft. Aircraft are weapons platforms, they bring weapons into effective range of a target. At one end of the spectrum the b52 brings a load of weapons to the table, but its radar signature and flight characteristics means its a sitting duck. The f-35 is meant to be able to get close to the target under fire, drop a small but significant load of weapons and get out.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not.
I imagine that no coachman wanted cars.

Re: Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

All those higher up the chain of command in the Air Force need to justify their positions. How do they do that? They point to the number of high ranking people they command. Drone operators that are enlisted don't help that number (the Army doesn't have a lack of places to put people) so officers fly 1 drone each in the USAF.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

No the Joint Tactical Strike Fighter.
It was doomed before it began.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[bjwest]

I work with USAF pilots, and in fact am sitting right now in the Current Ops of a major AF base. Fact: no officer coming out of pilot school wants drones. None.

You're either lying, or we're in one hell of a state of insecurity. When I was in the Navy, in our secret and above areas we weren't allowed to have cell phones or even pagers, and there sure as hell wasn't internet access in there. If you are sitting in a Current Ops center accessing the internet, thanks for possibly helping breach our national security.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[r1348]

It's too slow and its range is too small to be an effective incursor. Its only strength really is stealth, but pray you don't end up in a dogfight with it.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[ColdWetDog]

Shhhh. His basement is whatever he wants it to be.

Don't mess up his day.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[k6mfw]

The Army uses enlisted men/women to fly drones, while the Air Force uses officers.

come to think of it does Army still use NCOs or warrant officers (if they still exist) to fly helicopters? about AF, I remember in 1980s talking with a non-pilot USAF captain when he expects to become a general. He said no, "to get stars here [pointing to shoulder], you need wings here [pointing to chest]." This guy also wore glasses so zero chance to be a pilot. I wonder with less flying officers in AF will we see more non-pilot generals in this age of drones?

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in the Navy, in our secret and above areas we weren't allowed to have cell phones or even pagers, and there sure as hell wasn't internet access in there.

To expand on this point, here's an object lesson for why you don't allow cell phones near secure locations.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Harlequin80]

It has a longer range than the f-16 and a higher speed. The f-16 out ranges it when it has drop tanks.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Sarten-X]

I'm sorry, but this is the Internet.

Your reasonable position and comprehension is not welcome here. We are all armchair commanders whose personal military experience tops out with a few battles in one war, and our understanding of tactics is based on a few thousand hours in Modern Warfare. In our opinion, all wars are like the last one, which we're pretty sure we won... or would have, if not for that one big mistake by that one guy.

Obviously, this new plane is expensive and complicated, and we never saw that with our previous beloved planes. What we did see were planes coming back with damage, but still flying, and we haven't seen such feats from these new planes that haven't flown yet. That means it's wholly unsuitable for use, and its money would be better spent cutting our taxes, rather than making "accurate" or "effective" weapons. After all, surely if we stop building new military technology, every other country would be content with their state-of-last-decade's-art weaponry, right?

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[tsotha]

That's true, but that's partially because we have faced a competent air adversary since at least the early '60s. Fifty years of owning the skies breeds a bit of complacency - there's enough danger to make it fun, but not enough to make it truly dangerous.

Beyond that, being a drone pilot is bad for your career, and when you get out airlines don't want to hear about your hours as a drone controller.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[tsotha]

This is not really true, except the part about the dogfight. Even that is very much overblown, since the planes they used weren't comparably equipped.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

These days just a few drones are needed. No, if you are in a serious war, only a couple of big bombs are needed. No one does serious wars anymore.

Re: Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

Cars were a people empowering idea. Drones are a people suppressing idea. If you don't see why, you will soon enough.

The pilots are right.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[K. S. Kyosuke]

high powered jammers lower your radios range by at least a magnitude

Uhuh. With wide band frequency hopping and directional communication, those would have to be some serious jammers.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Harlequin80]

They are. Have a look at the Borisoglebsk 2. Not only will it severely degrade your communication, it will pinpoint where your drone command structure is.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

He is probably a contractor in a homeland base. That doesn't change the anecdotal fact that I too was reading years ago about just this very issue: Air Force pilots don't prefer flying drones.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

Different contractors and bases work differently. There's plenty of places where green systems sit next to red systems, and the green systems are on the net, and the red ones on sipr or a local net.

Re: Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

A shirt on more aircraft are needed then e could possibly buy the bandwidth for.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[MouseR]

Owning the sky?

Ruskies buzzing your destroyers and even carriers, chasing other planes...
Iranian shooting rockets across your bows, shooting down your stealth UAV
North Koreans shooting missiles left and right
A10 going out of production. Oh wai. No. back in. Oh wait, maybe not.
F22 being cancelled. Oh wait, maybe not

The US military is getting owned all over the map because the real assholes out there know they can push your buttons because the command chain is so slow to react, everything goes and is never retaliated.

I'll believe US still own the skies when it can protect and defend their navy.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[slashdot_commentator]

Its more like will there be a US Air Force in a hundred years. The Air Force may have come about because of military politics, but air resources were ill suited to be managed by less technical services like the Army. That is just not the case today. The question is which service disappears first, the Air Force or the Marines.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Nice, but there doesn't seem to be anything about its relation to highly directional communication. A decent dish can have tens of decibels of gain (or suppression, depending on how you look at it). Combine that with UWB for another ten to thirty decibels (and perhaps some extra decibels for low-bandwith control of a semi-autonomous asset) and you get an outrageous power requirement for the would-be jammer.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Zocalo]

Definitely bullshitting. Doing some design work on a military system at the moment and the guys who deal with stuff like Tempest are freaking out because the requirements call for WiFi equipped tablets and they are terrified that one will get compromised then used to compromise the Secret and above hardware on-base in-turn just by bringing the tablet into rooms/corridors adjacent to the equipment. Keep in mind this would be military issued hardware, with all the security that entails, and the Secret hardware is located in shielded cabinets that are in turn located in equipment rooms that has a built in Faraday cage. Whether that says more about the state of paranoia about the capabilities of other nations in NSA/GCHQ etc. or some indication of what their current state-of-the-art is open for debate, but most probably it's a bit of both.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[dwillden]

To answer your question, yes the Army does still use Warrant Officers to fly helo's. I'm not aware of any NCO pilot positions or even training slots for NCO's at the flight school at Ft Rucker.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[dwillden]

Having NIPR and SIPR (unclassified and Secret level Classified) computers on the same desk is very common in operations areas. You get to TS and the NIPR access usually goes away.

They need the unclassified access as well as the classified. Precautions are in place to limit air-gapping data between the two networks, but in large part they do rely on simply trusting those we've chosen to trust to work with classified information. Of course such machines are supposed to be separated to Tempest standards but that often does not happen.

Cell phones are still restricted usually, though secure blackberries are not uncommon among the leadership. In reality it's turned out those we entrust with our classified information are usually more trustworthy than previously thought. But then that comes from having greater time separation from the days of a drafted military versus a professional volunteer service. Yes breaches do happen but not that often for the fact that such is not difficult to do.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Xest]

Fighter aircraft have always seen criticism until they've had chance to prove themselves, and the F-35 is no different.

Your criticisms of the F-35 are the exact same criticisms that were made of the harrier jump jet - people said it was too hard to fly, it's range was dire, it was overly complex and VTOL/STOVL were a waste, and that it wasn't fast enough, but it has gone on to be one of the most succesful fighter aircraft of all time proving itself both in carrier launched air-to-air combat downing sometimes equally modern (at the time) aircraft such as the Super Etendard, through to being one of the best CAS platforms available to troops on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan bar perhaps the A-10.

I see little reason to believe the F-35 will be any different to any other fighter project in history where nearly all of which equally saw the same criticisms of can't do this, can't do that, over budget, behind schedule at some time or another.

I'm not defending poor project management, nor would I dream of defending the way the defence industry rips off the tax payer by failing to properly plan and budget and expeting the tax payer to pick up the bill, but in terms of capability aircraft seem to have a habit of nearly always proving their critics completely wrong when they end up being tested in real actual warfare. All aircraft have their quirks, mistakes, and design features, and they're always dealt with by a combination of upgrades and the skill of pilots in playing off the strengths of the aircraft against the weaknesses. When pressure comes into play to get these things into real actual combat pragmatism quickly takes over from profiteering and these vehicles end up being made to work just fine.

As I say I'm not arguing that the way the project has been handled is acceptable, but I think it'd be a mistake to claim this will be useless because as I say, it's something many millions of people have done before you about just about every fighter project ever, only to fairly consistently have been proven wrong. Before the F-35 it was the F-22 and the Osprey, and both these aircraft are actually now pretty fucking good.

I think the thing to remember that's often lost in all this, is that everyone else has these problems too. So the F-35 is over budget, expensive, and imperfect - sure, but so is Russia's PAK-FA, in fact, that project is all but cancelled at this point with Russia having dropped it's order to a mere 12 aircraft. So whilst the F-35 has it's problems, so does everyone else, and when it comes to the reality of combat you don't have a crippled F-35 project facing off against a perfect PAK-FA project, you have a crippled F-35 project facing off against and even more crippled PAK-FA project for example. The net result is that they'll all do their job less well than originally sold, but that's okay, because everyone's playing on the same crippled playing field so being slightly less crippled still leaves you with the advantage - it's an industry where "good enough" for whatever reason has always had to do (don't ask me why, and again, I'm not defending it!).

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

"frequency hopping".. I raise you by jamming the entire spectrum. As for your "directional communication", great, talk to your base all you want, you're still blind as a bat.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[dwillden]

It depends on the level of classification worked on. At TS level you are right. Down to Secret level the precautions get more lax. A couple years ago I was working in a SCIF and no external devices are allowed for fear of using them to transmit data out. Even though as you noted the facilities are faraday cages and no signal gets in or out.

At the secret level that many operations teams work at the security levels are lower. SECRET and Unclassified networked machines will be found sitting side by side on the same desk. They should have TEMPEST separation but operational needs or desires often result in machines being closer together than they should be.

And of course once you go downrange it's a whole different story. On the FOB I was on in Afghanistan in 08, we worked in a tent, so our classified machines were protected by canvas and a very flimsy plywood door.. And network cable was color coded as per the classification and bundles of red (S) and blue (U) cable ran across the ground in the open between tents.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[dwillden]

Your definition of owned is off, way off.

Just because we have ROE in place to avoid international incidents with intentionally provocative nations does not mean we are owned. You can be sure those Russkies were lit up with the air defense systems and had they tried to act they would have been shot down in a heartbeat.
Ditto with the Iranians shooting rockets, the flight paths were analyzed and determined to be intentional misses and so we did not respond. Again to avoid creating an international incident possibly leading to more conflict and direct combat. They spoofed the GPS signals to bring UAV down in their territory.
North Korea is just rattling it's sabers, and we did respond by conducting our regularly scheduled joint training exercise with the ROK forces.
The A-10 has been out of production for years. The issue is that the Air force wants to retire it, but nobody has owned an A-10 it rules the close air support realm.
And the F-22 was intentionally limited in production to 122 aircraft.

Exactly what about showing restraint equals being owned? The closest to being owned is the Russian fly-byes and the Iranians spoofing the UAV. The UAV incident was due to our hubris in not encrypting the data stream letting the Iranians realize the craft was flying and giving them the opportunity to try to spoof it. The Russians well those very brave pilots have to know that come Jan 20 of next year the ROE may change substantially. Or if the captain of the ship begins to think that the aircraft is actually a threat it will be smashed and hard. At the range it flew by it's not only well inside the missile envelope but also inside the range of the CWIS guns. Which systems can shoot down missiles let alone a much slower and less agile manned aircraft.

Nobody has owned us. We've chosen to take the path of peaceful responses. For NOW....

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

but pray you don't end up in a dogfight with it

Pilots who have flown it say the F-35 can dogfight. Have you flown one?

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a 26 star general you insensitive clod! I know all the keyboard shortcuts.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Ramze]

There's no defending the design of this Homer-mobile of fighter jets. It was designed specifically to replace a wide variety of planes in multiple services -- knowing that it would be a jack of all trades, master of none. This was done specifically to reduce maintenance costs by having one basic design to service across multiple services for multiple purposes. Instead of multiple crafts tailor-made for specific purposes, they chose to make one that will do everything, yet poorly. No other fighter jet in history had this as a constraint.

The project is more akin to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle than any other jet. Case in point -- the body was designed to accommodate vertical take-off engines which only one service will actually use. The other services will not have vertical take-off capability, but the fat rear body of the plane still exists because it's the same frame. The F-35 was supposed to replace the A-10. Yeah, that will never happen. The A-10 is a plane built around a huge gat gun -- with the ammo, fuel, and maneuverability to support ground troops for extended periods. The F-35 flies too fast, burns too much fuel, can't hover, and hasn't got the ground support firepower to sustain the cover of the Warthog. The A-10 got a service extension AND they're designing a plane specifically to replace the A-10 as they now admit the F-35 will never be able to replace it.

Beyond that, it was designed for stealth, speed, and more automated systems (along with the bulky vertical take-off design) rather than maneuverability for air to air combat or sustained presence for ground troop support. Stealth is a complete joke -- designers themselves admit any modern radar system will pick up the plane just fine -- just perhaps a slight delay before they notice the small bird flying at Mach 2. All the head's up displays and sensors won't help in a dogfight or in sustaining ground troop support when you have to fly very, very fast (which leads to poor steering) just to stay in the air because of your frame with small wings and crappy aerodynamics due to the stealth paneling.

The designers of the F-16s crap all over the F-35's in very public forums like youtube. I went to school with a couple of engineers at LM, and those old friends gave up any pretense of polishing this turd a long time ago.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[mattventura]

Even if everything got jammed, the drone could still potentially take out targets using GPS or other techniques. Even if you jammed GPS on top of all that, the drone could still likely return to base. Don't forget, people flew planes before electronics.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[k6mfw]

The closest to being owned is the Russian fly-bys

maybe they gave those guys a favor or a gift so when those pilots file their periodic officer evaluation reports they can include, "Flew 326 hours since last OER, buzzed a US ship," Hey, that's a promotion and good boost in payment that can be used for down payment for a 500 sq foot apartment.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[tsotha]

Honestly, your comment makes no sense whatsoever. None of it addresses the point.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the Secretary of State.

Re:Back in the 20th century when it began

[Xest]

"Instead of multiple crafts tailor-made for specific purposes, they chose to make one that will do everything, yet poorly. No other fighter jet in history had this as a constraint."

At least they designed for it from the outset, there are countless aircraft out there that have ended up in this role despite never being designed for it. The Eurofighter was designed as an air superiority fighter, then we ran out of money for our harriers and realised we needed to drop bombs on people in pickups with DSHKs mounted on the back so it was fudged on retroactively. The same has been true for many aircraft - the F-14 was never intended to drop bombs, yet the F-14B was rerolled for exactly this purpose - the same has happened to varying degree with things like the F-15, F-16, F-18 and so on. I'd wager recognition of the fact that fighter programs inevitably seem to end up adapting into multi-role and designing for that from the outset is quite a pragmatic and smart move given that pretty much no single role aircraft has ever stayed a single role aircraft. Even the C-130 has gone from being a cargo plane to having artillery stuck out the side, to being an air refuelling tanker, to being a reconnaissance aircraft, to launching fucking hellfires off it's wings.

I agree that the F-35 will never replace the A-10, but I disagree that it was ever intended to. It was never intended to, the problem is that the USAF didn't want to keep funding the airforce because they have a hardon for things like the F-35. They didn't want to be pouring money into a plane that only benefits the marines and the army, they figured those services should pay for that plane themselves if they want to keep it. The F-35 replacing the A-10 was simply the USAF playing politics, not a specific design goal of the project, nor one it ever tried to cater to. No one commissioning or working on the F-35 project has asked or been briefed to make it fulfil the role of the A-10 other than where the A-10 itself was used outside it's intended CAS role.

"Beyond that, it was designed for stealth, speed, and more automated systems (along with the bulky vertical take-off design) rather than maneuverability for air to air combat or sustained presence for ground troop support. Stealth is a complete joke -- designers themselves admit any modern radar system will pick up the plane just fine -- just perhaps a slight delay before they notice the small bird flying at Mach 2. All the head's up displays and sensors won't help in a dogfight or in sustaining ground troop support when you have to fly very, very fast (which leads to poor steering) just to stay in the air because of your frame with small wings and crappy aerodynamics due to the stealth paneling."

Nonsense about the stealth, it's still got a massive edge over aircraft like Russia's PAK-FA and China's J-20, the radar profile of the F-35 is roughly 3 orders of magnitude lower than both these aircraft. That means it's going to be drastically more easy for an F-35 to detect a target than for a target to detect the F-35 from any current projected potential opposition. The J-20 only does a little better in terms of stealth head on, but still not as good as the F-35, and none are as good as the F-22 - there's a 4 order of magnitude difference in radar cross-section with that aircraft.

As for dogfighting, if you think the F-35 is meant to be a dogfighter then you should even be commenting as you don't understand it's purpose even. The F-35 is a strike fighter, not an air superiority fighter. If the US ends up in a situation where it needs dogfighting because it's up against super advanced opponents which no airforce in the world has in active service yet or in the near future then the F-35s will be sent in with F-22 fighter cover. This obsession with the F-35's dog fighting capability completely misses the point, the F-35 has a job and that's to get in and precision strike ground targets like air defence positions. It can do that incredibly well precisely because it does have good stealth, and because i

Good Grief

[Frosty Piss]

Pfffffft.

It's new technology, you think there will not be glitches and growing pains? It's like the Dreamliner, everyone is saying that Boing will NEVER make money on it. But who thought they would? IT'S BRAND FUCKING NEW TECHNOLOGY.

Re:Good Grief

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it's kind of not new technology at this point.

Re:Good Grief

[Sand_Man]

Uh, no. It's nothing, at all, like the DreamLiner. And who in the industry is saying they won't make money on it? They have years worth of production already sold.

The problem is that they are trying to make this A/C do mutually exclusive things, which doesn't generally end well. Again.

Re:Good Grief

[NormalVisual]

Jack of all trades, master of none...

Re:Good Grief

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's technology being sold much like a mobile phone or website.... cause those are the 2 things we judge everything against in tech since it makes people a lot of cash.

Re:Good Grief

[tsotha]

The logistics problems are very much like the DreamLiner, actually.

Re:Good Grief

[hyades1]

Aren't you the guy who was arguing with me a year or so ago about what a great plane this is, while I said it was a giant turd squeezed out onto the taxpayers of the USA and its clients?

The argument ended, if I recall correctly, when you vanished in the wake of a story that one of these pathetic trailer queens burned down to the landing gear while sitting on a runway, and they had to ground the whole fleet.

Re:Good Grief

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, it really is. The F-35 is like some sci-fi thing come to life.

Re:Good Grief

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually watched this plane burn. It definitely didn't burn down to the landing gear. It did catch on fire, and of course that's bad. But the frame and body remained intact. The paint was scorched.

There is actually another plane nearby that is used to test firefighting capability. That thing is fully engulfed in flames all the time. They just put it out, repaint it, and it's good to go.

Re:Good Grief

[hyades1]

Perhaps the account I read was a bit...overheated. Nevertheless, it was pretty funny, because the guy who was arguing that the F-35 is the greatest thing since sex just vanished like the last cold beer at a tailgate party when I posted a link to the story.

Law of headlines answer...

[Anonymous Coward]

...seems to be incorrect this time. Obvious answer to obvious question is obviously "Yes."

Let Me Fly One And I Will Tell You.

[zenlessyank]

Until then why are you asking people who can't answer?

Re:Let Me Fly One And I Will Tell You.

[Anonymous Coward]

True. Better to hear from a pilot who has flown the F-35.

Lots of countries are in ob the f35 poison apple a

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a globalist ponzi scheme.

Is the $400 Billion F-35's 'Brain' Broken?

[The Grim Reefer]

Yes. If nothing else, it is as a subset of the entire project being broken.

Re:Is the $400 Billion F-35's 'Brain' Broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, what's $400 billion worth these days. Well, it'd go a long way towards paying some of our budget items! But hey, why not continue giving these grants (I say grants because we haven't gotten a finished good working project out of it.) as the builders have proven they can't do the job properly for the contracted price, but have been successful in giving bonuses and payouts to their stockholders and employees...sort of a welfare, but to richer and working class folks.

No, but..

[fred911]

The tax payers rectums sure are sore!

Ground Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Brains? ALIS is ground support diagnostics software for use by maintenance techs. It's not even needed to fly the aircraft. This is the least of the F-35's problems.

Re:Ground Support

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It's not just diagnostics. If you believe that, you are missing the whole supply-chain management aspect of ALIS.

If you think you don't need those brains, try flying the plane without a few tires.

Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[TigerPlish]

I say it's the answer to a question never asked.

It can't really replace the A-10, because it can't be Low, Slow and Ugly. In fact the USAF is shopping around for a real A-10 replacement, that project is just getting put together now. I wonder what a new real ground-pounder will look like.

F-35 is a shitload of money, when an F-16 will do the job quite nicely albeit not as stealthily.

It is a shitload of money, when an F22 - currently the most unfair airplane in history - will do the job better

It is a shitload of money, when even the F15 - the former most unfair airplane in history - will do the job better, albeit not nearly as stealthily. The Eagle is still formidable, the Mudhen has proven to be just as good.

It's a shitload of money, when the brutal truth is it, and the F-22, are likely the last two manned fighters we make. =o( Drones this, drone that, those who have tasted flight cannot be content driving a drone. I wouldn't.

This thing is an El Camino, it doesn't know if it's a muscle car or pickup truck.

Re:Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Armchair pilot is so wrong that he thinks he's asking the right questions.

Reap replaced the A-10. Low, slow, ugly and 8x the loiter.
The Viper is not survivable against modern SAMs.
The F-22 doesn't have a significant air to mud loadout.
The mudhen isn't surivivable against modern SAMs.
I got stuck driving a drone. I also know how fragile the comms network is.
The F-35's value is in being able to prosecute a war against China, not losing the Vietnam war again in Iraqistan.

Re:Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[guestapoo]

A-10. Low, slow

That is why those are CAS.
The fighter plane must be slow and low when your troops and an enemy troops are so closed, and by advantage of CAS you could attack the enemy right after the airstrikes.
At low speed, the CAS airplane could turn around and repeatedly harass the enemy.
That is why when India to choose between Mikoyan and Rafale for their multirole fighters, they choose Rafale because they could flight at slower speed and lower. So, India doesn't need another CAS fighters. (Russians have Su-25 for this, they don't need MiG)

Re:Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't understand why we didn't buy way more F-22s and scrap this F-35 project a long time ago. It has so many flaws and problems. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if the F-22 has to fly F-35 escort missions in future wars just to keep those planes safe from everything.

Re:Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[Livius]

the most unfair airplane in history

By what measure of fairness, exactly?

Re: Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the GAO lied by indicating that e APUC was the cost for the next production batch so the idiots in congress cancelled it before it could replace the F-15C , doubling the cost of air supremacy fighters.

Re: Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[Anonymous Coward]

What's "APUC"?

Re:Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have to explain that to SecDef Robert Gates; "the high cost of the aircraft, a lack of clear air-to-air missions due to delays in Russian and Chinese fighter programs, a ban on exports, and development of the more versatile and comparatively lower cost F-35 led to the end of F-22 production."

Re:Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[TigerPlish]

How to define unfair? If it can turn inside others to get a gun or short-range missile firing position, if it can't be readily seen on radar, if it can track and kill multiple targets at once, if it has enough power to streak away and come back quickly, that makes it unfair. That's why that breed of airplane is called "air superiority fighter." Their mission is to sweep the skies clear as fast as they can.

Other "unfair" airplanes have been the F-15, the mig 29, the Super Hornet, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few others, maybe the Eurofighter.

But, the F22 is more unfair than the above. Now, it's hard to find links to published results of dogfighting tests, but there's f-15 pilot quotes out there saying that in exercises, a flight made up of many F-15s got bounced by just 2 F-22s and within seconds all the 15s were dead. The comments from the F-15 drivers are "didnt' see them, didn't hear them."

I've heard of 2-on-18, 2-on-8, and so forth. Invariably with the same result.

Now, dogfighting (that's gunfighting) with a "dirty' F-22 puts it at a disadvantage. Enough of a disadvantage that 22s have been "killed" by Eurofighters and Mig 29s in simulated gunfights. "Clean," on the other hand, the 22 is an excellent dogfighter.

But all that talk of unfairness and capabilities assume all pilots are equal. They are not. In a gunfight, I'm betting on the meaner, wiser, more experienced pilot, regardless of what he's flying.

Here's some plane pr0n, just because I think the F-15 is the most beautiful of the modern fighters.

Re: Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[Anonymous Coward]

WAG says it is Annual Per Unit Cost.

Re:Armchair pilot says it's a questionless answer

[samwichse]

Is it just me, or is low, slow, and ugly now a drone job?

" all the F-35 data produced...."

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the worst part:

"Another major concern highlighted by the GAO's findings is that under its current design, all the F-35 data produced by the entire U.S. fleet is routed to a single main operating unit that does not have any backup system or redundancy.

If this main server were to fail it could take the entire F-35 fleet offline, according to the GAO report. "

Re:" all the F-35 data produced...."

[guruevi]

Not if, when. All servers fail a lot more than you'd expect.

Nothing but a scam.

[bjwest]

The F-35 is not wanted by the military, it's being pushed on them by Congress. It has never worked as ordered, and needed to be scrapped years ago. This flaw, and all others, needs to be fixed on the industries dime, not with even more of my tax dollars going into the coffers of the rich CEO's. It was their ineptitude and cost cutting that created this mess in the first place.

I think it's time we cleaned House and Congress and got rid of all those money grubbing corrupt puppets.

Re:Nothing but a scam.

[Fallen Kell]

Actually you were more right the first time when saying the problem was created by Congress. It isn't the industry's fault at all and certainly isn't the CEO's faults. Congress said thou shalt build one plane to rule them all. One plane to find them, one plane to bring them all in and in the darkness bind them.

The industry is simply bidding on the contracts that Congress is making. And in this case, then dealing with all the feature creep that Congress has caused by telling the Air Force, Navy, and Marines that they all need to use this one plane to replace all their existing needs.... There was a reason we had specialized planes for specialized purposes. A plane that is carrying several tons of bombs will not do so well when having to dog fight against other planes. A plane that has VTOL capability will have a lot of space taken up by all the extra power plant requirements needed for having enough thrust to lift straight off the ground and/or hover for landing. A plane that has short, foldable wings to be able to fit more onto an aircraft carrier will have more structural drawbacks than airframes that do not have foldable wings.

It is all the feature creep to make a single plane that does everything which is the problem. Don't blame the industry. The industry didn't invent these requirements. Someone who has zero technical ability said to someone else wouldn't it be great if all our planes were the same because then we could save on maintenance and training costs because it is all the same platform, and a bunch of other people which no technical ability looked at the numbers for projected cost savings over the lifetime of the airplanes and said yes, that would save money. But none of those people looked at the technical challenges and costs involved in engineering a single plane that could do everything that 5-6 existing planes do when they said replace all those existing planes with just a single one which does all the same roles that those other planes could do, only better...

Re: Nothing but a scam.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is congress' fault, but industry is not blameless. It's industry bribes that cause this stuff in the first place. We need corporate money out of politics. Now.

It's also our fault. We allow Congress to continue with this ridiculous system of seniority and committees where senators and representatives gain disproportionate power to the rest of their respective bodies of supposedly equal stature. That has to end as well.

Re:Nothing but a scam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if we want to get into the history, I blame it on the "Fighter Mafia" that pushed the Lightweight Fighter design that gave rise the the F-16, designed to beat up on Mig-21's in the skys over Vietnam. In many ways the F-35 is a stealth F-16 or stealth AV-8, while simultaneously going against almost everything the Fighter Mafia held dear. It is a stupid design from concept. Why a single engine fighter? Because one engine is cheaper than two, but the PW135 costs more than twice as much as an F-110 (without double the thrust). Why is it so small? So you can have a STOVL version. Why a STOVL version? So you can be close to the FLOT or near shore on amphibs. Why is it stealthy? So you can penetrate modern IADS (from close to the FLOT, from an amphib???). Why doesn't it have a HUD and rely on an unreliable and expensive helmet? To save 5lbs for STOVL.

So who do we get to fire? Nobody, because it went through the system. We need less bureaucracy and more accountability. It all went through the JROP and 5500 acquisition system, all designed to prevent purchasing another $600 toilet seat...except it doesn't. It just ensures that when you do buy a $600 toilet seat that it's going to cost you another $500 of "process" and in the end no one will be held accountable because "process" provides cover.

Re:Nothing but a scam.

[rocket rancher]

Actually you were more right the first time when saying the problem was created by Congress. It isn't the industry's fault at all and certainly isn't the CEO's faults. Congress said thou shalt build one plane to rule them all. One plane to find them, one plane to bring them all in and in the darkness bind them.

The way the US gets new weapon systems is a straight-forward, three step process.

Step one: Congress announces the defense budget for the fiscal year.

Step two: The DoD announces the requirements for new weapons systems.

Step three: The DoD reviews bids and awards the contract.

The US defense industry spends tens of millions of dollars ($74M in 2015) making sure that they have somebody in a position to influence every step in this process. You are definitely right about the pathological requirements, but their source is the industry itself. Here's how you get expensive fails like the F-35, by the numbers.

Step one: Help paranoid Republicans and hawkish Democrats sell Congress on the (false) idea that we face a serious threat from somebody, anybody. The Russians can do this, the Chinese can do that, and fucking ISIS is gonna eat our lunch. Yay, the pool of funds available to fund the DoD stays the same, or gets larger. Step one, check.

Step two: You can ignore the rest of my post, if you just understand this part right here. Tell the DoD what they want to hear. Need a plane that can dogfight, land without a runway, and deliver a metric fuck-ton of bombs halfway around the planet without being seen by radar? We can do that, we promise! Step two, check.

Step three: Hire ex-generals and ex-admirals who know whose ear to whisper in when the DoD is evaluating bids. It is way cheaper, for example, to convince a former aide or deputy who took over for you when you "retired" to down check a competitor's evaluation than it is to actually earn an up check on your company's evaluation by actually providing a provably superior product (largely because step two above hosed any chance of actually meeting contract requirements.) Step three, check.

If you ever have a chance to attend the Paris Air Show, do so. That will remove any doubt you have about how the defense industry influences every step of the acquisition process, not only for the US DoD but every defense ministry on the planet. So, in a bucket, it's the industry's fault we have programs like the F-35, and nobody elses. BTW, you know there is a problem with the F-35 if *Wikipedia* uses it as an example of a boondoggle.

Re:Nothing but a scam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this ''-1 acronym soup''.

That first attempt at a sentence broke my brain.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fragment, the commas, the pain, and now the irony.

It's working perfectly

[CanadianMacFan]

It's fleecing the supporting governments for all the money they can provide at an amazing rate.

Oh, as a plane? No, it's an utter failure so far. Lucky the thing flies.

Re:It's working perfectly

[Livius]

Lucky the thing flies.

Actually that part is bad. It won't crash if it doesn't leave the ground.

Reality Check

[sycodon]

Estimated to cost approximately $16.7 billion over the aircraft's 56-year lifespan, the logistics software system is considered one of the three major components that make up the F-35, along with the airframe and engine.

Unlike the airframe and engine, however, the software is not built into the plane itself. Instead, it runs on ground computers to support operations, mission planning, maintenance and sustainability.

So...
1. Unlike when you take your car to the shop, they won't be able to have the plane tell them what's wrong.
2. If CSC updates the servers and breaks it (like the usually do to ours), there are no backups.

The "Brain" is actually the pilot and the software that displays threats, targets and kills them is apparently working correctly.

Re:Reality Check

[Anonymous Coward]

The "computer" is more like the scan tool and database behind it and logistics system and all of that, and the GAO dropped it's veneer of independence about a decade ago. They find the outcome they want to find, physics be damned.

Re:Reality Check

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't pumping money out the CSC for this too are they?
And somebody expected it to get finished?

Misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

The aircraft's brain isn't broken (well, okay maybe it is but that has nothing to do with this story). ALGS is a ground support system that handles tracking of maintenance items and aircraft unique data as well as some other things. So, is it possible that the fleet could be grounded because of this? Maybe but not for long as the services can work around it, but the work around will be labor intensive, prone to error, and expensive. The "brain" of the aircraft is something else entirely.

1 trillion dollar boondoggle

[plopez]

which is closer to the actual TOC. It will be remembered as what destroyed the American Empire.

Here, use mine

[spiritplumber]

http://obex.parallax.com/objec...

* where small means ten missiles and bombs

[raymorris]

> drop a small but significant load of weapons and get out.

More specifically, armament can include:
eight AIM-120s and two AIM-9s (air-to-air load)
six 2,000 lb (910 kg) bombs, two AIM-120s and two AIM-9s (air-to-ground)

Each 2,000 USAF bomb can penetrate up to 15 inches of metal or 11 ft of concrete, depending on the height from which it is dropped, and cause lethal fragmentation to a radius of 1200 feet.

Small by USAF standards, but sufficient for each plane to take out several hardened structures on each flight.

Re:* where small means ten missiles and bombs

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the missile then not the plane, and there is a good debate for cruise missiles being more effective. Then the actual pilots can fly even farther away and just point the laser according to the visuals. Next generation will be able to fly and identify targets without external painting.

Re:* where small means ten missiles and bombs

[Harlequin80]

By small I meant compared to the weapons load out of a b-52. In an ideal world you would be able to put the load out of a b52 in position over the enemy fast and stealthy. Of course the stratofortress is anything but fast or stealthy. So you need to make compromises on carrying capacity to get it into position. Hence the f-35.

what a waste

[whoozwah]

400 billion. what a fuckin waste. for what? war machines. we're through folks. it's too late to turn this ship around. It's pretty clear that the human organism is too weak willed to properly handle the concept of ego. our destruction is guaranteed.

How many F-35s???

[Anonymous Coward]

The article seems to be written by a numbskull, well it was done at CNN so there's that... anyway, how many F-35 aircraft have been built yet? Certainly not 2500, there are barely enough to constitute an initial operational squadron.

Re:How many F-35s???

[Anonymous Coward]

The number is over 100 now, but I don't think it's as high as 150 yet. There are numerous units using the aircraft for various testing and training purposes, and the USMC has cleared IOC. The USAF will likely clear IOC later this year.

Government spending is okay....

[Anonymous Coward]

as long as it goes to the military-industrial complex. Think of how much could have been done with all the money wasted on the F-35.

Stealth cruise missiles are launched from planes

[raymorris]

If a cruise missile is the best choice for a particular stealth strike mission, you'd probably use the AGM-158 JASSM. The AGM-158 can be delivered by:

B-1 Lancer
B-2 Spirit
B-52 Stratofortress
F-15E Strike Eagle
F-16 Fighting Falcon
F/A-18 Hornet
F-35 block future

Most of would negate the missile's low-observable advantage, of course. For stealth, there are far fewer options.

Something like the Tomahawk is well-suited to smaller unoccupied structures or ships that are within range of a naval vessel, where it's okay if they see it coming three hours ahead of time (and you don't mind waiting for it to get there). An Ohio class submarine with 154 Tomahawk missiles on board can lay waste to a city. If you want to strike sooner, or"stealthier, the F-35 flies twice as fast as the Tomahawk. Obviously the fighter is also capable of destroying enemy vehicles, including enemy planes. You don't fire a cruise missle at a plane.

70,000 pounds of weapons AND hit records

[raymorris]

No doubt, the B-52's ability to deliver 70,000 pounds of munitions AND hit singles and is quite a bit more bulk firepower than the F-35.

I just wanted to point out that it's capability IS enough to be pretty devastating- I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end. The problems the program has had, which are real, are also grossly over-hyped, imho. Therefore it's worth pointing out that it is a capable platform (albeit expensive) .

Re:70,000 pounds of weapons AND hit records

[Harlequin80]

I agree. But then I have always seen fighter craft in a similar light to aircraft carriers. In and off themselves they are not particularly potent. But they allow you to project force an incredible distance. The aircraft carrier needs its group to keep it alive, the F-35 uses stealth, speed and an onboard human to keep it alive. People seem to look at the F-35 like it was a gun or a missile rather than seeing it as a way to get a gun or missile on target.

400 billion

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

For 400 billion dollars they could have bought about 1,330 F-15 Strike Eagles.

Yes, yes, I know the F-35 is supposed to be more advanced, blah blah blah. Except it's a piece of shit that can't fly, can't turn, can't fight, and won't do half the shit it's supposed to do. It won't start in hot weather and apparently doesn't worko well in the rain either.

On the other hand, if you fill the sky with 1000 F-15 Strike Eagles, there ain't gonna be a goddamn thing that lives through that onslaught (and you'd still have 400 waiting in the hangars). Hell, probably just 100 F-15 Strike Eagles acting in concert would solve any conceivable airborne opposition, even today.

Shit, for 400 billion dollars you could buy 1000 F-15 Strike Eagles and the fucking airfield to launch them from, with enough left over for a few mil-spec hammers or toilet seats.

The F-35 has the distinction of being the most expensive boondoggle in recorded history. In comparison, Bernie Madoff only bilked his clients out of $65 billion or so.

Re:400 billion

[cfalcon]

Well, the "expensive" part is correct. But claiming it "can't fly, can't fight" is just not true.

Re:400 billion

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Well, the "expensive" part is correct. But claiming it "can't fly, can't fight" is just not true.

A lot of people disagree:

Pentagon’s big budget F-35 fighter ‘can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run’
http://blogs.reuters.com/great...

The F-35 may have big problems fighting at long range
http://www.businessinsider.com...

The $400 Billion Military Jet That Can't Fly in Cloudy Weather
http://www.alternet.org/fail-4...

RAND Corp: F35 Can’t Turn, Can’t Climb, Can’t Run
http://www.stopthef35.com/rand...

Air Force Admits: Our New Stealth Fighter Can’t Fight
http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...

The F-35 Can't Beat The Plane It's Replacing In A Dogfight: Report
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.c... ...and so on.

Re:400 billion

[wienerschnizzel]

Except that it can turn and fight and run.

Re:400 billion

[cfalcon]

Your first and fourth links are both really derived from the same 2008 computer simulation. A fuller discussion is here:
https://zbigniewmazurak.wordpr...
I think the fifth link falls into this bucket as well.

You second link ALSO refers to the same 2008 RAND corporation one, and it also simply waves away stealth by assuming that the F -35 would be detected by ground based radar, or that the infrared signature on it would automatically betray it.

The third article has a sensational headline, and doubles down with this quote:
"The F-35 isn't even close to fully operational - it can fly only on sunny days. It can't fly at night. And it can't fly in clouds or near lightning. We know this because the Pentagon tells us so, in a report written for the Secretary of Defense by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, J. Michael Gilmore, dated February 15, 2013."

Curious phrasing. Since they have to cite the "written report" to have any weight, why not link directly to it? Is a hyperlink too fucking hard for the author? He certainly has no problem providing one when something lets him editorialize.

Well, here's the report:
http://pogoarchives.org/straus...
And here's the quote:

"The Block 1A training syllabus used during the OUE was limited by the current restrictions of the aircraft. Aircraft operating limitations prohibit flying the aircraft at night or in instrument meteorological conditions, hence pilots must avoid clouds or other weather. However, the student pilots are able to simulate instrument flight in visual meteorological conditions to practice basic instrument procedures. These restrictions are in place because testing has not been completed to certify the aircraft for night and instrument flight."

Note also the title of this report: "F -35A Ready for Training Operational Utility Evaluation"

This report was talking about the first stages of training pilots. It happened before the plane had been tested for all the conditions, and talked about what the workaround was at the time. Hey, did they ever get to that testing? http://www.livescience.com/496...

Your last link is discussed here:
https://fightersweep.com/2548/...
And was on slashdot initially here:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
And then again here:
https://slashdot.org/story/16/...

Your links are sensational. Certainly, they are all over the internet, but most of them source the same few out-of-context facts. The fact that the authors have to really dig to find facts which they then portray sans-quote and most assuredly sans-context sorta shows that they have some kind of editorial vision that they were going to enact. Taking training reports and pretending that the restrictions in place for them are fundamental restrictions on the jet, extensive reliance on a 2008 computer simulation- these guys obviously have a bone to pick. Neutral headlines and reports don't get clicks though.

RIP F-35

[argStyopa]

Even if it WORKED, the software, hardware, and design techs in the F-35 are so completely compromised by Russian and likely Chinese espionage that the only thing delaying their rollout of a comparable craft is money (Russians) and some of the fundamental building techs (China).

It doesn't matter, we're nearing the end of the manned fighter aircraft anyway.

Autonomic Logistics Information System

[Anonymous Coward]

Autonomic Logistics Information System or ALIS is a promise of an be-all ends-all integrated logistics system that LM sold the Pentagon on, convincing the powers that be that some magical computerized maintenance and logistics monitoring system would somehow reduce the need for spare parts inventory and physical maintenance on real aircraft and engines. That somehow, knowing exactly when a port flap actuator is going to wear is somehow going to teleport that part to the USS Neverdock in the South China Sea and thereby eliminate the need for sparing. Good integrated logistics is fine, but military operations are often in remote locations and the pace of operations are not always predictable. You just can't cheap out on sparing. Now we have a system that is so integrated that the airplane pretty much can't fly without it. Oh, and it sucks and is unreliable.

"Brain????"

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so. The affected system is an external logistical and diagnostic system. While its sheer stupidity that there is a single point of failure with regards to maintenance, the onboard systems are not affected.

What is more important is how, knowing that this system was not designed to be scalable is a travesty. But, given that the all only he 2000 or so units, they probably planned for a redundancy system with manual or automatic failover. Given the cost of the system, it's time to make somebody accountable for a piss poor design.

Re: Stealth cruise missiles are launched from plan

[Anonymous Coward]

A single tomahawk can be equipped with a conventional or nuclear warhead. The lower weight of the nuclear variet translates to significantly greater range. An Ohio submarine can, if nuke equipped, lay waste to more than one city.

Getting Desperate

[inhuman_4]

These F-35 FUD writers are getting desperate.

They call it the "brains" of the plane. It isn't. The brains are the sensor fusion computers. This is the Autonomic Logistics Information System. Key word: Logistics. It's a maintenance system. They say the whole program is a failure because the fancy maintenance system could ground the fleet. Except most of the USAF flies just fine without this type of system. Oh, and the problem isn't that it doesn't work, it is working. It's that it hasn't been thoroughly tested. Why? Because it's still in testing. Then they complain that there is no backup system if it doesn't work.

So they cry that the program is too expensive. Then cry some more because there is no redundant replacement for a non-critical system. Of course if there were a backup system they would be complaining that the program spent millions on duplicated efforts. It's just stupid.

Re:Getting Desperate

[Anonymous Coward]

These F-35 FUD writers are getting desperate.

They call it the "brains" of the plane. It isn't. The brains are the sensor fusion computers. This is the Autonomic Logistics Information System. Key word: Logistics. It's a maintenance system. They say the whole program is a failure because the fancy maintenance system could ground the fleet. Except most of the USAF flies just fine without this type of system. Oh, and the problem isn't that it doesn't work, it is working. It's that it hasn't been thoroughly tested. Why? Because it's still in testing. Then they complain that there is no backup system if it doesn't work.

Yep. Most of the USAF fleet flies just fine without this type of system. Point being: without this type of system.

Key word: Logistics: Who in hell's name designed a logistics system that can ground a plane? If it would be a 'simple' logistics system it would be fine. It shouldn't even need to be used in flight. Why can it send messages to the pilot?

Boondoggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the f35 just a front for some other new super secret fighter project? Hopefully it is, and all that money is really being funneled into building something that actually works.

wat

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost 2,500 of the world's most advanced warplanes, with a total price tag of $400 billion,

I'm not sure they're that advanced. How will they stand up in a dogfight against an F-15? Oh, fuck. They don't. How will they do at neutralizing a surface to air threat. Oh, fuck. They don't.

The F-35 is the systemd, pulseaudio, and networkmanager of the air force, navy, and whoever the fuck else is committed to that fucking abomination. I wouldn't be surprised if Poettering wrote the flight computer.

Fucking come on people. I'm a millennial by a few hours, and I can fucking see what's wrong here. What is your fucking problem? I'd never fucking play Civ like this, unless I was intentionally trying to fucking lose. There is no strategy that this represents. Who the hell builds inferior units that take an extraordinary amount of hammer over 50+ some odd fucking turns. I don't fucking get it.

--Tsubasa

Captcha: lotion. It puts the lotion on the skin or it gets the hose again. My woman suit is very comfortable, thank you. I am now a Donald Trump voter because of his remarkably level-headed view of my demographic. In fact, I'll wash my woman suit with a cucumber body wash tomorrow morning again. It feels so good. My woman suit's skin never itches any more. Everybody with a woman suit needs to use Trump body washes. That is all. ~peace

The one that got away...

[transami]

Boeing X-32

More $$ to fix it now

[RubberDogBone]

Typical of many weapons programs, the contractors underbid and then "happened to have" massive cost overruns and exceeded the budget by billions, and now, the defective planes they made for all that extra dollars will now need even more fixes and repairs and upgrades to make them actually work at all, which is even MORE dollars.

Somebody at Lockheed just got a raise and promotion out of this.

Re:where small means 0 missiles and 2 small bombs

[SomeoneFromBelgium]

If you want to run in stealth mode, you can only use the internal weapons bays ==> F-35 can only carry two 1,000 lb bombs but without any missiles to defend itself. Or it can carry a single 1,000 lb bomb and two (2) missiles. Is that significant?

If you use the full weapons load like you propose: there goes your stealth. There goes your 'clean airframe' that makes the F-35 perform at least somewhat like the current generation.and make it even slower than it already is and will increase drag, reducing speed and range (just like the current generation of planes)
So in that case (with the full weaponsload) one might be better of with any other aircraft that is faster and more manouverable (since stealth is out of the equasion). Preferably one that does super cruising to get the weapons in range and get out as quickly as possible without being intercepted.

PKD

[jan_koch]

Wait... Shouldn't that have been "Vast Autonomic Logistics Information System"?

Agile?

[Imazalil]

I'm guessing some mid-level manager somewhere decided that Agile is the hot new thing and that their team better use it for everything. They just didn't explain it to top brass properly. :-)

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Next Question.

military-industrial complex

[axd1967]

I believe that the F-35 is a problem (1) too reliant on a much too complex maintenance system (2) wanting to do all in one (multi role) (3) a product of the military-industrial complex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex) - but now I see I'm not the first one with that idea. wonder why...