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Pentagon halts F-35 deliveries over contractual dispute
- jfoutz 9y agoA little longer and less paywalled version https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lockheed-f35-exclusive/exclusive-pentagon-stops-accepting-lockheed-f-35-jets-over-repair-cost-dispute-idUSKBN1HI304 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lockheed-f35-exclusive/ex...
- JoachimSchipper 9y agoYes, quite a bit more informative. Seems Lockheed made an error, but the government didn't detect that error and accepted the planes. I can see why that would lead to a dispute...
- sschueller 9y agoYet foreign governments are buying this turd [1]. Thankfully the F35 is so overpriced it is probably not in the final list for the next Swiss fighter plane purchase. [2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw [2] https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/fuenf-kampfjet-typen-in-der-uebersicht-ld.1327181 https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/fuenf-kampfjet-typen-in-der-ueber...
- varjag 9y agoIt's a great plane. The best multirole fighter any airforce can procure, by far.
- sschueller 9y agoA tool that can do everything will never be as good as a tool that is design to do just one task. Jack of all trades, master of none.
- varjag 9y agoNorwegian pilots are quite positive about the first deliveries. In all air combat training scenarios, F-35s blow F-16s out of the skies. Russia still has no meaningful way to interdict F-35. Their 5gen fighter is still early prototype, and the S-400 munition upgrade capable to tackle F-35 is still in development with multiple setbacks. You may loathe American military industrial complex and point out the cost of the programme, sure, but it's the best aircraft in the skies for now. With some headroom.
- lloeki 9y ago> In all air combat training scenarios, F-35s blow F-16s out of the skies. F-16s, sure, and we keep hearing about this, but I wonder how they fare against more modern fighters though, such as Rafale, Eurofighter, or whatever. Rafale had the reputation to be an overpriced, goal-missing† multirole beast, but apparently the U.S.A would not let France take that crown for too long, and boy does it seem they beat the crap out of us on that front now. † especially when it wasn't able to land on the Charles de Gaulle carrier in early years of development.
- coldcode 9y agoNo one in their right mind would risk such an expensive plane in a fight vs an inferior plane that costs 1/10 the amount. Tigers in the WW2 could blow Shermans up by the truckload but there were many trucks full waiting behind and the Tiger cost a fortune and made no difference in the war in the end. In any case there will never again be a war vs a country with a similar plane that doesn't turn nuclear first.
- varjag 9y agoNo, if you are invaded, you do with what you have. And it sure nicer to have F-35 than MiG-21 when the push comes to shove.
- sschueller 9y agoDepends who is invading. There is no chance the F35 will fly if the US invades you.
- fsloth 9y ago"It's a great plane. The best multirole fighter any airforce can procure, by far." I think for national armies which are funded by tax payer money the total cost of ownership should be a significant factor when considering what to buy. And should factor in the definition of "best". I don't know much about aerial warfare. Aren't fighter jets just glorified missile launching platforms nowadays, especially for defensive purposes? What does the extra cost buy for the end user in terms of actual features they are going to use? I suppose the keyfactor of a multirole aircraft is radar that allows tracking and fire control for both aerial and ground targets and a selection of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles that go with it. What am I missing?
- josefresco 9y ago> Aren't fighter jets just glorified missile launching platforms nowadays This is one of the huge strengths of this platform. The ability manage a battlefield, including other fighters/bombers/ground troops as well as remote forces.
- varjag 9y agoIf cost is the core objective, consider having no military expenditures at all. All military gear is expensive, depreciating assets not contributing to productivity and tying up resources that can be used elsewhere. Ukraine did just that prior to 2014. Otherwise, your weapons should be a practical deterrent to an aggressor.
- fsloth 9y agoI wholly agree on requiring a deterrent, but the total operative capability of the defensive force is much more important than individual hardware components. I wasn't claiming a modern fighter is not a critical part of this equation. I was merely asking what does actually "best" mean in this case. If I get you on my fire control radar and you get me on yours and we both fire missiles, it seems to me the missile and the radar is far more important part of this equation than the avionics platform where they are. So, practical tactical features...
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- nabla9 9y agoIt does not matter how good the fighter is if it can't fly enough sorties for reasonable price. The problem is maintenance costs availability rate. F-35 is a hangar queen.
- varjag 9y agoIt absolutely does matter. This is not municipal bus fleet, capabilities have to match the threats. The costs are however much more manageable than what early critical pieces stipulated.
- mistermann 9y agoWhat threats are you referring to?
- varjag 9y agoOther warplanes and air defence systems commonly deployed. In case of Norway here, it's the assets of Russian 45th Air Force and Air Defence Army.
- mistermann 9y agoThe US was lagging behind Norway in air warfare capabilities? I've always been under the impression that they were a world leader.
- varjag 9y agoPardon?
- mistermann 9y ago>> It does not matter how good the fighter is if it can't fly enough sorties for reasonable price. > It absolutely does matter. This is not municipal bus fleet, capabilities have to match the threats. Who was the US not matching in capability, such that they needed to develop a new fighter (with incredibly high maintenance costs) to compete?
- LoSboccacc 9y agomeanwhile, across thousand years of history, best tools mattered marginally. get the job done cheap is what traditionally won wars. so there's that.
- varjag 9y agoThe history is full of examples where superior weapons won wars.
- LoSboccacc 9y agobattles, at most. wars are inevitably won by production and logistic.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hn0 9y agoIndeed. You can probably operate 4 or 5 SAAB Gripens for the cost of one F35, even though they are individually inferior.
- varjag 9y agoGripens were in fact in final round talks vs F35 for Norway's tender. Costs were not too dissimilar.
- hn0 9y agoThat’s interesting, I’ve read articles stating the operational costs were supposed to be much lower than the F35. In my country there’s now pushback against the F35 but there seems to be a push to obtain them irregardless of criticisms. This makes me wonder if there’s political maneuvering by the US to keep the militaries linked.
- dingaling 9y agoIt's also as big as and heavier than an F-4 Phantom II, which for many countries was too big and expensive back in the 1970s. Traditionally US allies could choose from the hi or lo options according to their budget; F-4 vs F-5, F-15 vs F-16. But if a nation now wants to buy something US-compatible for the next 50 years they now have to stump up for the big F-35 since the lo tier has effectively been discontinued ( and the hi-hi tier is the unexportable F-22 ). So we have the likes of Denmark buying 27, basing 7 in the USA for training and having about 10 operational out of maintenance. Why bother?
- linkmotif 9y ago> F-15 vs F-16 I was under the impression that the main difference between these was not price, but the kind of mission they are designed for. Like you don’t get one or the other because of budget, but because of your aerial combat needs.
- arethuza 9y agoAnd the UK has carriers in various stages of completion that are only capable of operating this one aircraft as they don't have any catapults.
- the-dude 9y agoThe Netherlands buys them, much too my chagrin. But hey, we have nukes and I think we are forced to buy F35 to carry them. The pretense that the decision to buy was democratic was all smoke-and-mirrors imho. There was no way not to buy.
- hn0 9y agoBelgium as well. Geopolitical and commercial ties to our great liberator I suppose.
- lloeki 9y agoRafale is nuke-capable (F3 standard) since 2008. Dunno if the nuke-capable version is exported though (the F in F3 stands for "France")
- the-dude 9y agoIt is about being compatible with US nukes and their systems.
- lloeki 9y agoGood point. This was more about wondering whether France was willing to export nuke capability than anything else though.
- the-dude 9y agoI am confused : my google-fu says Rafael is Israeli. What is the French connection?
- detritus 9y agoNone here - you mistranscribed :) Rafale and Rafaele are two different beasts - one is the name of a plane made by Dassault industries, the other is an Israeli defence company.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Rafale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Rafale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Advanced_Defense_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Advanced_Defense_System...
- bhouston 9y agoWhy hasn't there been a focus on multi-role fighter drones? Is there a responsiveness problem or a contextual awareness issue? I would think that most of the cost of this F-35 is dealing with the problems caused by putting human in the middle. Having multirole drones would lower the cost a lot, and it would actually likely increase its theoretical effectiveness because you wouldn't have a pilot scared for their life in it. It would be so scary to go up against a drone multirole fighter, it could pull off the craziest multi-G moves, and it would be fearless. There must be some technological reason we have moved to this yet.
- bonesss 9y agoWhy not drones instead of the F-35? They started the F-35 project in '92. And if we're gonna play "why not" with the F-35, why not 3 frames for 3 roles as all the aviation experts and real world economics suggest? Drones of this capacity are coming in on the sides, are inevitable if the shit ever hits the fan, and provide tons of advantages. In addition to crazy manoeuvres and no issue being a kamakazi missile you've got machine learning enhancements and teams of remote pilots able to step in fresh to help. They also integrate well with existing forces. In essence, though, some of the kinds of roles for the F-35 are roles we still want human eyeballs for the forseeable future. The drone model is untested as the default solution, so we "need" the aircraft anyways, and the end-product will be some proper SkyNet stuff people are likely to have problems with. The tech is evolving, but the weapons program answer is that we need both solutions and the F-35 program is unkillable.
- ShorsHammer 9y agoOpen source autonomous flight: https://github.com/andybarry/flight https://github.com/andybarry/flight The F-35 is already ancient, engineering data is likely compromised by potential adversaries and it mainly exists to create jobs in marginal electorates. If WWIII ever comes, the old ways will be forced to face modern reality.
- greydius 9y agoDrones have a very real weakness: they rely on a radio signal. But that aside, the F-35 program was never really about building a fighter jet. It was designed from the beginning as a way to funnel 100s of billions of dollars into the defense industry and to keep that money flowing for decades.