4 ms·

You can say that about nearly every government-contractor designed hardware (or service cough the healthcare site cough).

ant6n 8y ago
Weren't the planes the F-35 replaces also government-contractor designed hardware? One trillion is quite a lot of money...
richmarr 8y ago
Not every piece of procured hardware is a massive compromise, designed to replace many types of previous model with wildly varying purposes. It's supposed to replace the A10 as a close air support craft, at the same time as taking primary responsibility for air superiority. These are wildly different sets of requirements, so different that even doing custom models of the same airframe isn't enough to fix it. The air superiority models are hindered by the fact that the airframe was designed to support vertical lift fans to support the VTOL use case that the Marines wanted. It's a collossal shitshow. I'd keep my nose out of it as a US problem, but the UK government has committed to buying these.
- dingaling 8y ago
  > It's supposed to replace the A10 as a close air support craft So was the A-16 ( no error ) with the Pave Claw cannon pods. It had a brief outing in the Gulf War and the A-10 prevailed. Probably the same will happen with the F-35 until the A-10 finally falls apart. I wouldn't hold it against the F-35 at this point, there are plenty of more critical issues with that project.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >Not every piece of procured hardware is a massive compromise, No but most, if not all, government projects of hardware like this usually have all sorts of cost inflation due to the fact they use companies/contractors that have made it their business to extract every last cent out of taxpayers. It's why companies like SpaceX are important for the future of space travel, they're offering considerably cheaper alternatives to old-school government contractors because they aren't billing you 100$ for a 1$ widget, they're billing you 11$ for a 6$ widget.
  - asdsa5325 8y ago
    > government projects of hardware like this usually have all sorts of cost inflation due to the fact they use companies/contractors that have made it their business to extract every last cent out of taxpayers Clearly you are not familiar with the government contractor world. It's actually the opposite. Government contracts are regularly audited and contractor's profit margins are tightly capped. The major money leakage is when the government buys products from companies where the majority of revenues are not from government contracting. Those companies don't have to follow the same laws about profit margins.
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      Then explain how the private space industry is doing things for considerably cheaper companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
      - asdsa5325 8y ago
        Lockheed and Boeing are very much involved in space. They just don't build rockets like SpaceX, because they take lower risk projects to avoid being propped up by investors. FYI, one of the biggest space companies is Orbital ATK (now owned by NG).
Arnt 8y ago
I think you may not realise the size of the F35 black hole. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... there are only six countries in the world whose total state budget is bigger than the F35 budget. The F35 is equivalent to two or three months of the total expenses of the US federal budget, depending on what you count as expense. You can't say that about every expensive gadget. Even if you tried you couldn't have ten such projects per year. There's only one word to describe the F35, and the word is awesome.
asdsa5325 8y ago
Don't dumb this down. A fighter jet is an incredibly complex machine. It's not easy to make. Comparing this to the Obamacare site is ridiculous.

ant6n 8y ago

Weren't the planes the F-35 replaces also government-contractor designed hardware? One trillion is quite a lot of money...

richmarr 8y ago

Not every piece of procured hardware is a massive compromise, designed to replace many types of previous model with wildly varying purposes. It's supposed to replace the A10 as a close air support craft, at the same time as taking primary responsibility for air superiority. These are wildly different sets of requirements, so different that even doing custom models of the same airframe isn't enough to fix it. The air superiority models are hindered by the fact that the airframe was designed to support vertical lift fans to support the VTOL use case that the Marines wanted. It's a collossal shitshow. I'd keep my nose out of it as a US problem, but the UK government has committed to buying these.

dingaling 8y ago
> It's supposed to replace the A10 as a close air support craft So was the A-16 ( no error ) with the Pave Claw cannon pods. It had a brief outing in the Gulf War and the A-10 prevailed. Probably the same will happen with the F-35 until the A-10 finally falls apart. I wouldn't hold it against the F-35 at this point, there are plenty of more critical issues with that project.
ryanmercer 8y ago
>Not every piece of procured hardware is a massive compromise, No but most, if not all, government projects of hardware like this usually have all sorts of cost inflation due to the fact they use companies/contractors that have made it their business to extract every last cent out of taxpayers. It's why companies like SpaceX are important for the future of space travel, they're offering considerably cheaper alternatives to old-school government contractors because they aren't billing you 100$ for a 1$ widget, they're billing you 11$ for a 6$ widget.
- asdsa5325 8y ago
  > government projects of hardware like this usually have all sorts of cost inflation due to the fact they use companies/contractors that have made it their business to extract every last cent out of taxpayers Clearly you are not familiar with the government contractor world. It's actually the opposite. Government contracts are regularly audited and contractor's profit margins are tightly capped. The major money leakage is when the government buys products from companies where the majority of revenues are not from government contracting. Those companies don't have to follow the same laws about profit margins.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    Then explain how the private space industry is doing things for considerably cheaper companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
    - asdsa5325 8y ago
      Lockheed and Boeing are very much involved in space. They just don't build rockets like SpaceX, because they take lower risk projects to avoid being propped up by investors. FYI, one of the biggest space companies is Orbital ATK (now owned by NG).

Arnt 8y ago

I think you may not realise the size of the F35 black hole. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... there are only six countries in the world whose total state budget is bigger than the F35 budget. The F35 is equivalent to two or three months of the total expenses of the US federal budget, depending on what you count as expense. You can't say that about every expensive gadget. Even if you tried you couldn't have ten such projects per year. There's only one word to describe the F35, and the word is awesome.

asdsa5325 8y ago

Don't dumb this down. A fighter jet is an incredibly complex machine. It's not easy to make. Comparing this to the Obamacare site is ridiculous.