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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]
We bought ourselves a Prius, we're stuck with it, now we have to drive it....
So, the F-35 joins the AH-56A, the C-5A, the B-1 and the B-52 in the Boondoggle list.
As an engineer I helped develop software for the F-35 (JSF) platform when working for a sub-prime contractor. This was in the early 2000's when the development phase was just getting going in earnests. We burned thru our 900 million contract pretty quickly and had to plead for another round of funding ( 300 million or so I believe). It was such a boondoggle and waste but typical for defense contactors. To give credit where it's due F-35 is a Very complex weapons/sensor platform. My take is that it is overly complex for most missions so the Ferrari analogy seems right. Modernized A10's, F-16', super hornets and UAV's in large numbers are about all one would need for attack and fighter aircraft. VSTOl capabilities are a huge waste( helicopters anyone) as is Marine air in my opinion (as is the Marie amphibious assault capabilities - when was the last time we had a war that we needed to "hit the beach". Our precious tax dollars could be better spent on 21st century weapon systems.
The more complex something is, the more things there are to fail. How an aircraft that was envisioned to share 70% of its parts over the 3 armed forces variants and only achieved <25%, plus $36,000 hourly average maintenance costs is bad design. VTOL is a waste in fighters unless like in WW2 where refueling/rearming airfields were bombed heavily in Europe, it was investigated as a possibility over rebuilding airfields continuously.
It goes 2 ways. Government has this endless pot of gold (taxdollars) but contractors burn thru this expecting more rounds of funding to be automatically awarded. I've worked in this sector, making money as a contractor is a LOT easier.
The F-35 Lightning II is an example of "designing the plane you're flying it."
It's an awful idea, it's an awful critical design theory, and it has produced an awful plane. US DoT&E says the plane is defective. The USAF says the plane is defective. The US Navy's aircraft carriers can't launch and recover them. The Marines can't operate them in cold weather conditions.
The list of critical design faults and deficiencies is staggering for something that's being fielded today.
Or, you know, read the report.: https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2020/dod/2020f35jsf.pdf
It's an awful idea, it's an awful critical design theory, and it has produced an awful plane. US DoT&E says the plane is defective. The USAF says the plane is defective. The US Navy's aircraft carriers can't launch and recover them. The Marines can't operate them in cold weather conditions.
The list of critical design faults and deficiencies is staggering for something that's being fielded today.
Or, you know, read the report.: https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2020/dod/2020f35jsf.pdf