5 ms·

I haven't been paying any specific attention to F-35 news, but I can only ever recall reading negative press. I know this particular project has been extra tro

I haven't been paying any specific attention to F-35 news, but I can only ever recall reading negative press. I know this particular project has been extra troubled, but is that the norm for new military vessels/vehicles?

dragonwriter 8y ago
It's the norm for new instances of categories which are nearing the end of their viability because costs of protecting them against the current threat environment dwarfs utility; the F-35 also fell victim to a flawed strategy to mitigate the costs inherent to that situation by a common project for many different roles.
666lumberjack 8y ago
I'm not an expert by any means, but as far as I know a lot of the issues are partially attributable to the fact the F-35 is trying to do everything for everyone. If that's true then I imagine planes that try to do one thing well have fewer issues on average.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  When you realize that the point of the F35 is to be a realistic Iron-man suit for the pilot, then you realize what is really going on. There are some issues of pork-spending as well. A lot of representatives who weren't on board with the project got jobs delivered to their districts instead. (IE: Build the engine in this state, so that the citizens you represent get a job-creator in their region). Sure, politics is a bit dirty, but that's how you get things done today. It doesn't seem like the most efficient project, but it has to be a project that everyone supports monetarily. F35, for all of its faults, won't have any issues financially due to how politics were played. But a lot of people are uncomfortable with how politics works at all.
jki275 8y ago
It's very much the norm. The JSF is the safest program that's ever been fielded -- the Osprey had multiple crashes and fatalities at this stage of its development. Government procurement needs an overhaul, and this program has been badly over budget and time, but it is delivering a successful product.
- xvf22 8y ago
  > It's very much the norm. The JSF is the safest program that's ever been fielded -- the Osprey had multiple crashes and fatalities at this stage of its development. Is that per flight hour or some other metric? Care to provide a link?
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    The F-35 is at over 100,000 flight hours[1], and the Osprey is at around 400,000. The Osprey hit 100k hours in 2001[2], by which point it had 6 crashes and 34 deaths, most of which were in the United States [3]. The V-22 deaths have been mostly passengers, so technically it's not a fair comparison since the F-35 only seats one. However, this was the first F-35 crash and it has had zero deaths, making the number of people on the plane a moot point. [1]: https://www.f35.com/news/detail/lockheed-martin-f-35s-surpass-100000-flight-hours-system-development-and-de https://www.f35.com/news/detail/lockheed-martin-f-35s-surpas... [2]: http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/123109/a-look-at-china%E2%80%99s-active-defense-strategy.html http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/123... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_V-22_Osprey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involv...
    - xvf22 8y ago
      While I very much acknowledge the Osprey program failures, the claim was that the JFS is the safest program ever fielded.
      - jki275 8y ago
        Well it's a JSF, not a JFS, and similar comparisons can be made to the Harrier, the F16, and F18. I don't have the numbers in front of me at the moment but they're roughly as bad as the MV-22 numbers (in terms of class A mishaps, not personnel casualties as they're single seat/dual seat aircraft) based on my recollection. MV-22's numbers are a bit inflated in terms of casualties due to a single crash that killed about 12 people as I recall. The fact that the JSF has 100k flight hours and one total aircraft loss and 0 fatalities is unheard of.
astrodust 8y ago
It's the norm for any new generation fighter, but the F-35 is easily the most complex platform ever developed. Debugging the F-22 took over a decade, and there's still intermittent problems. That was a platform started in 1981 and tested in 1997. The F-35 by virtue of having reinvented everything from the helmet to the engine is in for a lot more trouble. It started in 1992 and had a first flight in 2006, ten years after the F-22's first. If the F-22 is any benchmark the F-35 has another decade of trouble, possibly more.
SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
There's a film called The Pentagon Wars that seems to describe the exact same issues in regards to the Bradley fighting vehicle, so while I can't say if it's the norm, it certainly isn't unique.
- RHSeeger 8y ago
  That film pretty much sense the lens through which I view all government spending. It's a fantastic watch, and I highly recommend it.
smacktoward 8y ago
Yes it is, for American weapons systems at least. And it has been so for many decades now. It's extremely common for the first version of a new weapons system to have major (or even disastrous) flaws that only get ironed out in later revisions at great expense. Here's one example. Today's median American soldier's primary weapon is the M4 carbine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine), which by all accounts is a solid piece of kit that has acquitted itself well in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the M4 is the end of a long line of revisions made to an older weapon, the M16 rifle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle), which first rolled out during the Vietnam War. And the first version of the M16 was so bad it got a lot of soldiers killed. See, rifles have a lot of moving parts, which typically means they have to be well-maintained -- periodically stripped down into parts, and then all the parts individually cleaned and lubed -- or else they start to malfunction. Maintaining their weapon was a standard part of a soldier's job; not something anyone enjoyed doing, but something they did because they didn't want their rifle to fail on them in combat. But Colt, the makers of the M16, advertised it as a revolution in small arms -- a "self-cleaning" rifle that used Space Age materials to remove the need for all that fussy work. And so, when the Defense Department rolled out the M16 to the troops in Vietnam, it didn't bother to issue any of the usual cleaning tools along with them. Which meant that a lot of soldiers found themselves in an awkward spot when it turned out that Colt's testing processes for the "self-cleaning" M16 hadn't really accounted for the rough jungle conditions of Vietnam. M16s started jamming all over, frequently so seriously that the entire weapon was rendered useless; and even if the soldiers carrying them had wanted to start cleaning them to try and prevent those jams, they lacked the tools they'd need to do so. So soldiers started getting killed, shot down in battle while frantically struggling to un-jam their bricked rifles. The situation got so bad that it prompted a Congressional investigation, which found a host of reliability problems with the M16. Colt went back to work and created a revised version, the M16A1, which mostly resolved those issues. The M16A1, notably, was not advertised as self-cleaning. And when it finally rolled out, it came not only with a set of cleaning tools, but with a comic book-style manual by the famous comic artist Will Eisner explaining exactly how to use them (which you can read here: http://www.astrotx.com/M-16A1%20Rifle.pdf http://www.astrotx.com/M-16A1%20Rifle.pdf). And then there were even more revisions developed; the M16 remained the Army's standard rifle through the early 2000s. And then it was replaced by the M4, which was just a shorter, lighter, even more further developed M16. So eventually the government was able to throw enough money at a terrible weapon to turn it into a decent one. It's a shame so many grunts had to die along the way, of course. But hey, Colt got paid twice! You know?

dragonwriter 8y ago

It's the norm for new instances of categories which are nearing the end of their viability because costs of protecting them against the current threat environment dwarfs utility; the F-35 also fell victim to a flawed strategy to mitigate the costs inherent to that situation by a common project for many different roles.

666lumberjack 8y ago

I'm not an expert by any means, but as far as I know a lot of the issues are partially attributable to the fact the F-35 is trying to do everything for everyone. If that's true then I imagine planes that try to do one thing well have fewer issues on average.

dragontamer 8y ago
When you realize that the point of the F35 is to be a realistic Iron-man suit for the pilot, then you realize what is really going on. There are some issues of pork-spending as well. A lot of representatives who weren't on board with the project got jobs delivered to their districts instead. (IE: Build the engine in this state, so that the citizens you represent get a job-creator in their region). Sure, politics is a bit dirty, but that's how you get things done today. It doesn't seem like the most efficient project, but it has to be a project that everyone supports monetarily. F35, for all of its faults, won't have any issues financially due to how politics were played. But a lot of people are uncomfortable with how politics works at all.

jki275 8y ago

It's very much the norm. The JSF is the safest program that's ever been fielded -- the Osprey had multiple crashes and fatalities at this stage of its development. Government procurement needs an overhaul, and this program has been badly over budget and time, but it is delivering a successful product.

xvf22 8y ago
> It's very much the norm. The JSF is the safest program that's ever been fielded -- the Osprey had multiple crashes and fatalities at this stage of its development. Is that per flight hour or some other metric? Care to provide a link?
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  The F-35 is at over 100,000 flight hours[1], and the Osprey is at around 400,000. The Osprey hit 100k hours in 2001[2], by which point it had 6 crashes and 34 deaths, most of which were in the United States [3]. The V-22 deaths have been mostly passengers, so technically it's not a fair comparison since the F-35 only seats one. However, this was the first F-35 crash and it has had zero deaths, making the number of people on the plane a moot point. [1]: https://www.f35.com/news/detail/lockheed-martin-f-35s-surpass-100000-flight-hours-system-development-and-de https://www.f35.com/news/detail/lockheed-martin-f-35s-surpas... [2]: http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/123109/a-look-at-china%E2%80%99s-active-defense-strategy.html http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/123... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_V-22_Osprey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involv...
  - xvf22 8y ago
    While I very much acknowledge the Osprey program failures, the claim was that the JFS is the safest program ever fielded.
    - jki275 8y ago
      Well it's a JSF, not a JFS, and similar comparisons can be made to the Harrier, the F16, and F18. I don't have the numbers in front of me at the moment but they're roughly as bad as the MV-22 numbers (in terms of class A mishaps, not personnel casualties as they're single seat/dual seat aircraft) based on my recollection. MV-22's numbers are a bit inflated in terms of casualties due to a single crash that killed about 12 people as I recall. The fact that the JSF has 100k flight hours and one total aircraft loss and 0 fatalities is unheard of.

astrodust 8y ago

It's the norm for any new generation fighter, but the F-35 is easily the most complex platform ever developed. Debugging the F-22 took over a decade, and there's still intermittent problems. That was a platform started in 1981 and tested in 1997. The F-35 by virtue of having reinvented everything from the helmet to the engine is in for a lot more trouble. It started in 1992 and had a first flight in 2006, ten years after the F-22's first. If the F-22 is any benchmark the F-35 has another decade of trouble, possibly more.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago

There's a film called The Pentagon Wars that seems to describe the exact same issues in regards to the Bradley fighting vehicle, so while I can't say if it's the norm, it certainly isn't unique.

RHSeeger 8y ago
That film pretty much sense the lens through which I view all government spending. It's a fantastic watch, and I highly recommend it.

smacktoward 8y ago

Yes it is, for American weapons systems at least. And it has been so for many decades now. It's extremely common for the first version of a new weapons system to have major (or even disastrous) flaws that only get ironed out in later revisions at great expense. Here's one example. Today's median American soldier's primary weapon is the M4 carbine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine), which by all accounts is a solid piece of kit that has acquitted itself well in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the M4 is the end of a long line of revisions made to an older weapon, the M16 rifle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle), which first rolled out during the Vietnam War. And the first version of the M16 was so bad it got a lot of soldiers killed. See, rifles have a lot of moving parts, which typically means they have to be well-maintained -- periodically stripped down into parts, and then all the parts individually cleaned and lubed -- or else they start to malfunction. Maintaining their weapon was a standard part of a soldier's job; not something anyone enjoyed doing, but something they did because they didn't want their rifle to fail on them in combat. But Colt, the makers of the M16, advertised it as a revolution in small arms -- a "self-cleaning" rifle that used Space Age materials to remove the need for all that fussy work. And so, when the Defense Department rolled out the M16 to the troops in Vietnam, it didn't bother to issue any of the usual cleaning tools along with them. Which meant that a lot of soldiers found themselves in an awkward spot when it turned out that Colt's testing processes for the "self-cleaning" M16 hadn't really accounted for the rough jungle conditions of Vietnam. M16s started jamming all over, frequently so seriously that the entire weapon was rendered useless; and even if the soldiers carrying them had wanted to start cleaning them to try and prevent those jams, they lacked the tools they'd need to do so. So soldiers started getting killed, shot down in battle while frantically struggling to un-jam their bricked rifles. The situation got so bad that it prompted a Congressional investigation, which found a host of reliability problems with the M16. Colt went back to work and created a revised version, the M16A1, which mostly resolved those issues. The M16A1, notably, was not advertised as self-cleaning. And when it finally rolled out, it came not only with a set of cleaning tools, but with a comic book-style manual by the famous comic artist Will Eisner explaining exactly how to use them (which you can read here: http://www.astrotx.com/M-16A1%20Rifle.pdf http://www.astrotx.com/M-16A1%20Rifle.pdf). And then there were even more revisions developed; the M16 remained the Army's standard rifle through the early 2000s. And then it was replaced by the M4, which was just a shorter, lighter, even more further developed M16. So eventually the government was able to throw enough money at a terrible weapon to turn it into a decent one. It's a shame so many grunts had to die along the way, of course. But hey, Colt got paid twice! You know?