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The functioning or non-functioning of the logistics system for the F-35 is largely irrelevant, as just demonstrated Lockheed is paid whether it works or not; an
by yborg 7y ago
The functioning or non-functioning of the logistics system for the F-35 is largely irrelevant, as just demonstrated Lockheed is paid whether it works or not; and non-functioning is much safer for the program, as non-flying F-35s are safe from combat and accidents. In fact, low availability just provides an excuse for the Air Force to demand additional budget for aircraft. This isn't so much a combat system as a corporate welfare program.
In practice, the US has already demonstrated that its primary airpower projection is via unmanned systems, the manned combat aircraft is the mounted cavalry c. 1920.
- divbyzer0 7y ago(with my tin-foil hat securely fastened) I've always had a suspicion that the generous piles of cash thrown at the F-35 program was really going to two programs: 1) A well-publicised cover (F-35) 2) A secret Skunk Works project like F-117, SR-71 But a corporate welfare program as you suggest is more likely.
- ptero 7y agoReal work is (comparably) cheap. With F35 budget well over a trillion dollars this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c.
- wolfgke 7y ago> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c. Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation?! Let me give three quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunkworks_project&oldid=920062373 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunkworks_projec...: "A skunkworks project is a project developed by a relatively small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation." "Everett Rogers defined skunkworks as an "enriched environment that is intended to help a small group of individuals design a new idea by escaping routine organizational procedures."" "[T]he term [skunkworks] was generalized to apply to similar high-priority R&D projects at other large organizations which feature a small elite team removed from the normal working environment and given freedom from management constraints.". In this sense, the projects you are talking about surely cannot be skunkwork projects, but are just ordinary cooperate projects with a huge conservative cooperate-bureaucratic structure.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- stan_rogers 7y agoYes, and that's exactly what the post you are responding to said. Read it again: it says that the money is far more than skunkworks could possibly spend, so it's far more likely that the evaporating money is being boiled away by ordinary bureaucratic waste with nothing to show for it.
- wolfgke 7y agoI am no native speaker of English, but at > Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. to me, "it" seems to refer to "[s]kunk work" and referring to skunk work with respect to "max manpower" does not sound like skunk work to me, but throwing lots of cooperate ressources (instead of a small elite team) at the project.
- ptero 7y agoThe poster you are responding to is correct. Sorry, I could have been clearer in wording and "it"s. Skunkworks is great, but works while it is small and nimble. Fund it fully. But this could cost billions, tens of billions at most. Not trillions that have been spent on F-35.
- mkl 7y ago"It" here refers to "F35 budget". The punctuation is not ideal; I think it would be clearer something like this: > With the F35 budget well over a trillion dollars (this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower), it is a bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.
- stan_rogers 7y agoThe word "Skunk" does not start a new sentence. It is in the middle of this phrase: "this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain". I'll agree that the punctuation isn't ideal; that phrase should have been preceded by a comma.
- chipsa 7y agoPay attention to the time frame for that trillion dollars: 55 years.
- mikorym 7y agoThis is always an exciting question... You know, it's nice to daydream about all kinds of secret and mysterious projects. But I think another question is more about necessity, and I think necessity is what fuels a lot of politics around these kind of military projects. People pull towards both extremes and end up somewhere in the middle, which is maybe the mean of perceived necessity. If the US is clever (NSA: this is your queue) it would find a way to use the current difficult political climate to focus on what they are supposed to do (I guess preventing war maybe) and in a relevant way for the times. The Russians basically did this with internet trolls. They took something simple (and amusing at times) and weaponised it. I guess one would hope enough people that are both clever and uhm, ethical, work for the three-letter organisations.
- Patient0 7y agonitpick: in this context, you would want to use the word "cue" not "queue". "cue" => signal for an actor to go on stage or whatever. "queue" => orderly line of people waiting to buy a movie ticket.
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y agoIt's such a good corporate welfare program that it produced an actual good aircraft.
- nabla9 7y agoIt's more worker/voter welfare than corporate welfare. Socialism for the middle class. Lockheed Martin's long term profit margin is around 6-7 percent (recently above 9%). Lockheed pays more wages than it makes profits. If you count the whole value chain, with contractors and their subcontractors, it's probably something like 50% total worker compensation (wages, benefits), 10% profits, 10% cost of capital, rest is taxes, real estate, energy and raw materials.
- divbyzer0 7y agoTrickle-down economics?
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoWhy not have both? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Aurora#U.S._sighting_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Aurora#U.S._sighting_c... (Evidence of something moving around Mach 5 at high altitude, rattling the rocks, captured by seismic equipment since the 90ies. Overton Window has now been open long enough for Lockheed Martin to tentatively present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_SR-72 as something new.)
- chiefalchemist 7y agoNo tinfoil hat required. Not only was this guy a famous general, he was the POTUS as well. The Military Industrial Complex is very real. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QXjBVC233s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QXjBVC233s The Afghanistan Papers - which dropped off the mainstream media's radar almost instantly - is further evidence it's alive and well. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...
- exikyut 7y agoWell said. But now I wonder: if this is just so much smoke, mirrors and rose-tinted narratives of potentiality... when will the bubble pop? And what might cause that? And what might the pop (or maybe explosion) look like? My curiosity is mostly just idle/morbid musing - this seems much like watching a moth encounter a candle.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ppf 7y agoI see two scenarios - the US military running out of money, or the F35 becoming necessary against an existential threat. I don't see either of those happing to the mainland US anytime soon. I'm just pissed that my own country is wasting endless money on this absurd boondoggle, where it represents a significantly larger fraction of our GDP.
- jacobush 7y agoI guess nothing special at all, just the next big project.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago> airpower projection is via unmanned systems I'm unconvinced by this assessment, for one they haven't had symmetrical warfare in a long time and a pilot is way harder to jam. for another long range laser ciws systems are getting more and more effective and if you armor cheap unmanned system they stop being cheap. but ultimately they have limited payload option and you can always pack more countermeasures than the enemy pack missiles so it's yet unclear what the best option is in a defended/contested airspace
- imtringued 7y agoHonestly non fully autonomous UAVs are going to drop like flies if they encounter a F-35. People seem to fail to understand that the F-35 is also an advanced ECM platform. What is that drone going to do once its connection to the remote base is cut?
- TeMPOraL 7y agoHome in on the loudest RF source and try to ram it?
- LoSboccacc 7y agothey don't have the engine and maneuverability to reach that speed. if they had, you'd have to have the same kind of logistic and complexity as a fighter craft, negating most of the above points about drones. missiles don't have the same restrictions because they don't have to have anything in the way of performance as loiter time or target search system or payloads. what you're thinking of are Anti Radiation missiles such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-27_(air-to-air_missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-27_(air-to-air_missile) but that ties with the point being made originally, you have to sacrifice payload, or go bigger to have more payload options, or go sideway and have air superiority drones sweep the area before, and it all ties into the "this stuff hasn't been tested in symmetric warfare so who knows" argument.
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- mrtksn 7y agoIf that's the case, sounds like a very peaceful solution for the world. The alternative is pushing for actual armed conflicts where actually working machines are killing actual people for corporate welfare.
- CapricornNoble 7y ago>>In practice, the US has already demonstrated that its primary airpower projection is via unmanned systems, the manned combat aircraft is the mounted cavalry c. 1920. 1. The US hasn't had to overcome a first-rate Integrated Air Defense System since the 1970s. UAVs, while hard to detect due to their small RCS, have extremely poor overall survivability. It's part of what makes them so cheap. 2. The US is rarely flying drones against an adversary with robust Electronic Attack capabilities. They're pretty useless if their datalinks to their Ground Control Station are jammed and you don't have HARMs on-hand to suppress/neutralize/destroy the jamming source. 3. The future of air power is likely to be a mix of manned fighters with UAVs as wingmen or forward-deployed scouts/sensor platforms, and then further in the rear big (manned) "bombers" with deep magazines throwing missiles into the fight from far away, handing off target tracking to the manned fighter. Even something like an F-15 Strike Eagle or a Su-34 could fulfill that latter role with the right electronics suite and ordnance upgrades...
- mschuster91 7y ago> 2. The US is rarely flying drones against an adversary with robust Electronic Attack capabilities. They're pretty useless if their datalinks to their Ground Control Station are jammed and you don't have HARMs on-hand to suppress/neutralize/destroy the jamming source. GPS jamming can be made vastly more difficult by special antenna configurations, and additionally I'd hope that military drones have precise IMUs and star trackers to serve as fallback.
- whatshisface 7y agoIf history is any indication, the future of air power will be three years of absolutely terrible strategies after the next war starts, where the wrong weapons are being manufactured and the right weapons are being deployed incorrectly, then followed by one month of sanity which sets the military doctrine for the next two decades of peace, to remain in place as it becomes obsolete again...
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