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The Fighter Jet That’s Too Pricey to Fail
Last week, the new head of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Adam Smith, said in an interview that the F-35 fighter jet was a “rathole” draining money. He said the Pentagon should consider whether to “cut its losses.” That promptly set off another round of groaning about the most expensive weapon system ever built, and questions about whether it should — or could — be scrapped. (www.nytimes.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
You nailed it with your example of syncing all the integrated comm systems. Coming from the maintenance and training side of the house, I can cite several examples of interoperability issues with legacy range training systems as well as coalition aircraft and shipboard systems. This does not even touch the LVC challenges all services faced with their own integration issues. It is akin to hitting a moving target at night with a slingshot while riding a bicycle! These challenges were apparent as late as 2017 and were far from being resolved. I feel there wasn't enough communication between all the vested partners. One can blame industry or government, there is plenty to go around. The answer to avoid these problems isn't apparent even in retrospect. Perhaps a single oversight coordinator, a super program integrator that oversees the government program manager and the contractor or more input and initiation from end users and customers (always a sound choice). Lastly, has anyone ever explained why the F-22 wasn't a good choice for America over the F-35? What can the 35 do that the 22 could not do with upgrades? The savings captured could have bolstered legacy F-15 and F/A-18 aircraft sustainment another 10 years or more!
good question. It was too expensive... so they decided to develop an even more expensive plane that was supposed to do it 'all'. So now we have a plane that can do 'everything' but isn't great any anything. They should have stuck with the f22/f18's, maybe buy the newer upgraded models and focused on drones for the rest. We'd be much more ahead of the rest and saved a shitload of $$$
Don't forget the supply chain management system issues. cluster f....
LM should have been much more strict in dictating how the various systems talk to each other. But I can't say this is unique. There's quite a few it project in the graveyard due to similar issues. It's not easy.
LM should have been much more strict in dictating how the various systems talk to each other. But I can't say this is unique. There's quite a few it project in the graveyard due to similar issues. It's not easy.
Does anyone remember McNamara's one-size-fits-all F-111 that was supposed to be the total answer to all jet fighter/bomber/interceptor/etc. needs for Navy/Air Force/Marines/etc.?
It started off being too heavy to hit the boat.
It started off being too heavy to hit the boat.
Good point! I think the concept of any joint weapon for all services is a great cast savings and ease of integration to the troops. Look at the F-4 and A-7, both used by USAF/USN. The problem with McNamara's idea is he backed the wrong type of aircraft to push onto the services. just my opinion.
And I think he was too inflexible and tried to just force the issue instead of changing the program.
15 years ago, when the plane was brand new and not yet in regular production, it was discovered the the avionics and control systems, coming from more than a dozen different vendors, couldn't talk to each other. Technically speaking, they had designed a communication bus (more like a local network), but didn't define a synchronization protocol that would keep the various boxes from interfering with each other's communication. Each vendor defined its own mechanism, which weren't interoperable or compatible. The prime (LM) had clearly failed to establish such a protocol early on.
DoD asked ONR (the Office of Naval Research) to get a few academic folks like me on series of long conference calls between LM and the vendors to try to sort this out. Weeks of marathon conversations got things moving in the right direction. And, of course, added significant delays while the protocol was defined and then each vendor had a chance to implement their version of the protocol (each with different hardware, operating system and programming language).
And, of course, there followed a period of interoperability testing.
And that's just the computers. There were fuel tank, air frame cracking, tail hook, and O2 system issues.
I have a lot of respect for the actual design, but the haphazard management of the project and resulting cost overruns brought this plane to operation way too late.