10 ms·

While the US does have a problem with building civil engineering projects today, that dynamic isn't really what happened with the F-35. The root of the F-35 pr

While the US does have a problem with building civil engineering projects today, that dynamic isn't really what happened with the F-35. The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun on cost and time table. Ash Carter fixed that by telling Lockheed if they didn't agree to his new contract he'd kill the entire thing. And oh hey what a surprise suddenly the marginal cost of a new F-35 started hitting the target numbers. The aircraft itself is apparently excellent at what it does, but that doesn't erase just how much grift was involved in this program for decades. The other big thing driving the Air Force to heavily restructure it's approach is they know they just can't have these decades long development programs. They want to be able to iterate much faster. It's all still classified, but apparently the first few attempts at this more agile approach are in fact actually working, like with the NGAD program.

sayhar 6y ago
Thank you for bringing a structural, informed approach to this. I'm getting a little tired of the tendency to handwave blame "cultural decline" rather than actual looking into the policies and details.
- yrgulation 6y ago
  Aren't policy and details a product of culture? If a group of people, be it a team or nation, dont have have a solid culture then surely they cant achieve solid results. And indeed it would appear that gradually there is a decline in achieving great results from countries that have historically achieved such results. Dont get me wrong, the US is still doing great, but maybe when the rest of the world keeps raising red flags then criticism should be taken on board as not all is ill intentioned.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - _carbyau_ 6y ago
    This is where I failed to understand the idea of a "Developing Nation". Aren't they all?
    - aww_dang 6y ago
      Yes. What exactly is being 'developed'? When the institutions using this phrase are regressive, it is not only a misnomer but an excuse.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Are they? "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence'
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Thanks for the kind words. I'm just someone sitting in their armchair with a lot of curiosity, but I do try to work hard to understand the world in cause and effect structure, for topics like this.
- N1H1L 6y ago
  Even more important to understand that we humans as a species are extraordinarily poor at understanding complex systems. Larger, older organizations will become complex over time, and complexity increases at higher than linear rates. This is why a lean, happy startup at 50 employees often becomes an unmanageable disaster at 200 employees. Human societies have become incredibly more complex over time, and development of communication has contributed to it. The point I am trying to make here is that this is not cultural decline, but rather a society that has grown incredibly more complex, while we humans have not learnt how to deal with it.
bumby 6y ago
>The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun I’m fond of the saying “once you understand people’s incentives, you understand everything” as it applies to contracting. I will add, however, that fixed price contracts have their own problems as it relates to cutting corners. E.g., it can put downward pressure on retaining talent and performing best practices because it incentivizes under-bidding and then cutting corners to make a profit. E.g., “you cobbled together some VBA in a spreadsheet once 20 years ago and will work for pennies? Congratulations, you’re our new head of software development!” A lot of the problems can be attributed to poor contract/spec management and poor oversight. Part of the key is having good requirements and also the contractual teeth/intestinal fortitude to hold contractors feet to the fire
- HelloMcFly 6y ago
  This is quite similar to one of my favorite saying that comes from my background in psychology: "When the mouse presses the lever, don't blame the mouse."
  - myself248 6y ago
    Oooo, that's profound. I ran across an interesting one earlier, understanding Maslow's Needs by negative example: We usually say that, when someone has food and shelter and safety, when they have friends and feel a sense of belonging, they can pursue higher stuff. And we know at some level that if someone is starving, they will do anything to find food -- civilized behavior goes out the window in that mode. But we forget that if someone has no friends and doesn't feel a sense of belonging, they will also stop at nothing to rectify THAT. Suddenly so much conspiracy stuff makes sense.
    - goatinaboat 6y ago
      understanding Maslow's Needs by negative example Those are usually called “hygiene factors” in the literature.
      - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bpodgursky 6y ago
The next-gen bomber program (B-21) as far as I'm aware is also going well. Fast purchase of an a platform intentionally only incrementally more advanced than the current model.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  Does it have a human pilot? Any combat aircraft project with a human on board should be stopped. It has no hope of long term parity of a drone controlled airplane without having to cart around meat bags with limited speed and turning power.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    Human pilot optional. I would argue that physical humans are not the limiting factor in bomber performance, and the thought of a Kubernetes cluster autonomously flying around with nukes scares the fuck out of me. In addition to the philosophical implications there's also political reasons to go with a hybrid approach.
    - dplavery92 6y ago
      > the thought of a Kubernetes cluster autonomously flying around with nukes scares the fuck out of me I get this, but I also wonder if the same kind of bugs or unintended behavior in a software system aren't just as likely in the protocols, procedures, and chains of command we build for humans to deploy that weaponry. You've got AI doomsday (a la "War Games") on one hand, and bureaucratic doomsday ("Doctor Strangelove") on the other.
      - vkou 6y ago
        The bureaucratic doomsday of Doctor Strangelove happens because the Russians have built their own 'Dead Hand' retaliatory 'AI'.
        dplavery92 6y ago
aerostable_slug 6y ago
You can see some openly available artifacts of earlier efforts at the more agile approach to highly complex cyberphysical systems with programs like DARPA's Adaptive Vehicle Make (RIP). Though AVM was killed by sequestrations, the work continued in other programs — and of course there was a lot of learning taken from various unclassified programs to behind the green door, so to speak.
ASalazarMX 6y ago
> apparently the first few attempts at this more agile approach are in fact actually working, like with the NGAD program. For the clueless like me, NGAD doesn't stand for "Not Give A Damn", but for "Next-Generation Air Dominance"; or less pompously, a sixth-generation jet fighter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_fighter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_fighter
partiallypro 6y ago
It's not just the US, it's the West in general. Even Germany, look at the Berlin airport boondoggle.
tootie 6y ago
It also sounds like they made a lot of thoroughly unreasonable requests for a completely modular platform that could outperform everything in all branches of military at once.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  It also sounds like they made a lot of thoroughly unreasonable requests for a completely modular platform that could outperform everything in all branches of military at once. The concept of modularity is a sound one. Imagine this: You buy an F35 and it comes with 2 sets of wings. It has a empty bay just behind the pilot, and it also comes with a lift engine and a spare fuel tank, and a tailhook that can be easily slotted into place if you want it. A trained ground crew, in a couple of hours, can swap parts around and turn it into an A, B or C variant, and then into another one for its next mission. The problem is that the materials needed to create such a F35 kit don't exist and won't for the foreseeable future. So what you end up with is 3 similar looking aircraft that happen to share the same name and have a vague resemblance but have surprisingly little in common, for triple the price.
  - chipsa 6y ago
    The idea of having one aircraft be able to become any of the other variants isn't actually that great. Air Force planes don't operate from carriers, and Navy planes don't need to operate from very small fields. The common bits are actually really useful to have in common. The radar is expensive to develop. The optical sensors are too. Engines are expensive, and the F135 engine is like 1/6 of the aircraft's cost. Development is a bit more expensive, because you have 3 airframes with slightly different characteristics, but much of it the same between the three as far as systems that go inside. It's definitely not 3x the price to develop the 3 different variants. And they're buying new F-35s for cheaper than a new F-16.
    - goatinaboat 6y ago
      The idea of having one aircraft be able to become any of the other variants isn't actually that great. Air Force planes don't operate from carriers, and Navy planes don't need to operate from very small fields. I disagree, there have been cases where it could have been very useful. For example in the 1980s the RAF were operating the Harrier for the close support role (from austere forward airfields) and the RN were operating the Sea Harrier for air defence, but when the Falklands War kicked off, RAF aircraft were brought onto the carriers. The RAF were also operating the Tornado for long-range bombing and another variant of Tornado for air defence, plus the Jaguar. That's 4 different aircraft that could be merged into a "kit" F35 if it were possible to do so.
Judgmentality 6y ago
> The aircraft itself is apparently excellent at what it does I have heard the opposite from a test pilot who has flown it. He fucking hates it.
- ageyfman 6y ago
  Users, amiright?
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    I actually laughed. Thank you.
- jki275 6y ago
  A lot of highly qualified people who have flown it say otherwise. https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/f-35-faces-most-critical-test-180971734/ https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/f-35-faces-mos... Chip Berke is an F22 and F35 test pilot, and the first F35 Squadron commander. He's probably the most qualified person on the planet to talk about fifth gen aircraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0&t=203s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0&t=203s
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    Admittedly my sample size is 1 so I'm not pretending my anecdata is conclusive, but you have to be wary of what people will say publicly about politically motivated projects. EDIT: Although to be fair, I wrote that before looking at your links, I feel like that context is important (although I stand by my statement).
    - jki275 6y ago
      Sure, that's definitely fair. The F35 has been badly politicized, but it has also been the victim of an absolute shitload of criticism from people who want it to be something it was never intended to be and are unhappy that the F22 was cancelled early. If it were just that Colonel Berke liked the plane, it would be one thing. He really explains it in detail in the video. I'll admit I wasn't quite sold on the the plane years ago, but once I saw this video it pretty thoroughly changed my mind. I realize the video is a bit long, and I almost never post links to videos -- but this one is well worth the watch.
GVIrish 6y ago
> The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun on cost and time table. Ash Carter fixed that by telling Lockheed if they didn't agree to his new contract he'd kill the entire thing. And oh hey what a surprise suddenly the marginal cost of a new F-35 started hitting the target numbers. A cost-plus contract is a contributor, but not the root of why the JSF program went astray. The fundamental flaw of the F-35 is that they tried to make one air frame for 3 very different sets of requirements. By doing so they compromised all three variants yet failed to achieve the cost savings they thought they would get from that approach. Equally as important is the fact that it was politically engineered to be almost uncancelable. The future of US and allied air power was staked on this one platform so all of the stakeholders had very high motivation to keep pushing on long after it wasn't prudent to do so. Then there's the fact the DoD and Congress removed some of the normal procurement guard rails to try to shorten the timeline, but also made it more difficult to cancel. "Concurrent development" with the JSF meant that series production began before all testing and evaluation was done. This meant that when problems were found there were costly retrofits. It also means that the multitude of serious shortcomings were found after production had began, making it more difficult to justify stopping the program. Then consider that production of parts for the F-35 is spread out across over 40 states (I wanna say it was 47). Then there's the part where the DoD allowed the contractor to write a significant portion of the requirements. It's no wonder things went sideways. > The aircraft itself is apparently excellent at what it does, but that doesn't erase just how much grift was involved in this program for decades. But that's the problem, it is not excellent at what it does. When you read the DOT&E reports about its mission capabilities there are numerous serious defects and limitations to what the aircraft can do. Granted, some of those issues are getting addressed, but the costs of the program makes it harder to justify. Ultimately the whole reason for the F-35 to exist was that the high parts commonality and the very high production numbers would save big money on costs. It failed to do that.
- caycep 6y ago
  I think this sort of self-perpetuating bureaucracy bloat has characterized most post-war weapons development in the Pentagon. The F-16 was an exception and success from what I understand, because of what another poster above refers to as spec management (I presume). i.e. it had a small group of proponents who had both extensive pilot experience and also the engineering/management chops to understand clearly what they wanted aeronautically, and were good at running a "rebel" program within the giant DoD bureaucracy to keep that project coherent and focused...until the very end when it did pick up a bit of bloat when it necessarily was exposed to other parts of the DoD. I think in order to be successful, they probably have to implement some sort of "small teams" approach; I'd imagine a lot of tech developed for JSF/F-35 can be rapidly rolled into a 5th gen+ fighter without reinventing the wheel...but they'd need to firewall the project into small focused teams who really know what they'd want to build.
neurotech1 6y ago
Sec. Ash Carter [0] did some really good work at reforming the pentagon, especially acquisitions, both as Deputy SecDef and later returning as SecDef. He also served as Under Secretary for Acquisitions (AT&L) Sec. David Norquist [1] was another Deputy SecDef who helped reign in DoD costs. He also served as Comptroller before DepSecDef. There was whispers that he did actually fire people for wasting DoD funds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Carter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Carter [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Norquist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Norquist
tored 6y ago
F-35 is far from excellent and it had many engineering problems like massive software problems, fire hazards, structural weakness, engine problems, heating, high noise, low range, etc. It failed to replace existing fleet of fighters, like the F-16, and on ground support, like the A10. That is not excellence. All of the engineering problems of the F-35 have been well known from the early days of the project, I know because I have studied closely ever since Norway decided to buy it. But the massive propaganda from the weapons industry has clouded this debate from the start. F-35 is a huge fiasco on multiple levels - policy, contracting, diplomacy, engineering, warfare, etc Reason why it is even bigger failure than the F-22 is that the US decided to sell the F-35 overseas. This exposed the project to more scrutiny and increased the stakes. Can’t be hidden away like the embarrassing F-22. If US decide to build a new fighter aircraft I predict it will be a failure too.
- greedo 6y ago
  The only thing embarrassing about the F-22 was the decision to terminate production at 187 aircraft. The F-22 was and is an excellent aircraft, perhaps a bit ahead of its time in terms of need, but to call it an embarrassment doesn't have much accuracy.
  - xnyan 6y ago
    > The F-22 was and is an excellent aircraft I love jets and the F-22 is both my favorite fighter and likely the best air superiority fighter in the world, so I get where you are coming from, but it is not an excellent aircraft for the current USAF mission when you look at it as a whole. Not only is the procurement cost of an F-22 extremely high, operationally it has been plagued by issues that hare only partially elevated by a maintenance program that even by fighter jet standards is considered expensive and frequent. The stealth coating in particular is very finnicky and has to be worked up constantly. Approximately half of F-22 are non-op at any given time, even getting training time is extremely difficult. The F-22 is like an exotic sportscar. Nobody denies that if it's in the air and functional, it's a great performer, but we would never make the bugatti veyron the standard patrol car for all police - not only would it be mindbogglingly expensive, durability and high maintenance would make it impractical, not to mention overkill in most situations. To make another car analogy, it would be like buying a Ford F350 for picking up your groceries once a week.

sayhar 6y ago

Thank you for bringing a structural, informed approach to this. I'm getting a little tired of the tendency to handwave blame "cultural decline" rather than actual looking into the policies and details.

yrgulation 6y ago
Aren't policy and details a product of culture? If a group of people, be it a team or nation, dont have have a solid culture then surely they cant achieve solid results. And indeed it would appear that gradually there is a decline in achieving great results from countries that have historically achieved such results. Dont get me wrong, the US is still doing great, but maybe when the rest of the world keeps raising red flags then criticism should be taken on board as not all is ill intentioned.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- _carbyau_ 6y ago
  This is where I failed to understand the idea of a "Developing Nation". Aren't they all?
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    Yes. What exactly is being 'developed'? When the institutions using this phrase are regressive, it is not only a misnomer but an excuse.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Are they? "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence'
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
Thanks for the kind words. I'm just someone sitting in their armchair with a lot of curiosity, but I do try to work hard to understand the world in cause and effect structure, for topics like this.
N1H1L 6y ago
Even more important to understand that we humans as a species are extraordinarily poor at understanding complex systems. Larger, older organizations will become complex over time, and complexity increases at higher than linear rates. This is why a lean, happy startup at 50 employees often becomes an unmanageable disaster at 200 employees. Human societies have become incredibly more complex over time, and development of communication has contributed to it. The point I am trying to make here is that this is not cultural decline, but rather a society that has grown incredibly more complex, while we humans have not learnt how to deal with it.

bumby 6y ago

>The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun I’m fond of the saying “once you understand people’s incentives, you understand everything” as it applies to contracting. I will add, however, that fixed price contracts have their own problems as it relates to cutting corners. E.g., it can put downward pressure on retaining talent and performing best practices because it incentivizes under-bidding and then cutting corners to make a profit. E.g., “you cobbled together some VBA in a spreadsheet once 20 years ago and will work for pennies? Congratulations, you’re our new head of software development!” A lot of the problems can be attributed to poor contract/spec management and poor oversight. Part of the key is having good requirements and also the contractual teeth/intestinal fortitude to hold contractors feet to the fire

HelloMcFly 6y ago
This is quite similar to one of my favorite saying that comes from my background in psychology: "When the mouse presses the lever, don't blame the mouse."
- myself248 6y ago
  Oooo, that's profound. I ran across an interesting one earlier, understanding Maslow's Needs by negative example: We usually say that, when someone has food and shelter and safety, when they have friends and feel a sense of belonging, they can pursue higher stuff. And we know at some level that if someone is starving, they will do anything to find food -- civilized behavior goes out the window in that mode. But we forget that if someone has no friends and doesn't feel a sense of belonging, they will also stop at nothing to rectify THAT. Suddenly so much conspiracy stuff makes sense.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    understanding Maslow's Needs by negative example Those are usually called “hygiene factors” in the literature.
    - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bpodgursky 6y ago

The next-gen bomber program (B-21) as far as I'm aware is also going well. Fast purchase of an a platform intentionally only incrementally more advanced than the current model.

brianwawok 6y ago
Does it have a human pilot? Any combat aircraft project with a human on board should be stopped. It has no hope of long term parity of a drone controlled airplane without having to cart around meat bags with limited speed and turning power.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  Human pilot optional. I would argue that physical humans are not the limiting factor in bomber performance, and the thought of a Kubernetes cluster autonomously flying around with nukes scares the fuck out of me. In addition to the philosophical implications there's also political reasons to go with a hybrid approach.
  - dplavery92 6y ago
    > the thought of a Kubernetes cluster autonomously flying around with nukes scares the fuck out of me I get this, but I also wonder if the same kind of bugs or unintended behavior in a software system aren't just as likely in the protocols, procedures, and chains of command we build for humans to deploy that weaponry. You've got AI doomsday (a la "War Games") on one hand, and bureaucratic doomsday ("Doctor Strangelove") on the other.
    - vkou 6y ago
      The bureaucratic doomsday of Doctor Strangelove happens because the Russians have built their own 'Dead Hand' retaliatory 'AI'.
      - dplavery92 6y ago

aerostable_slug 6y ago

You can see some openly available artifacts of earlier efforts at the more agile approach to highly complex cyberphysical systems with programs like DARPA's Adaptive Vehicle Make (RIP). Though AVM was killed by sequestrations, the work continued in other programs — and of course there was a lot of learning taken from various unclassified programs to behind the green door, so to speak.

ASalazarMX 6y ago

> apparently the first few attempts at this more agile approach are in fact actually working, like with the NGAD program. For the clueless like me, NGAD doesn't stand for "Not Give A Damn", but for "Next-Generation Air Dominance"; or less pompously, a sixth-generation jet fighter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_fighter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_fighter

partiallypro 6y ago

It's not just the US, it's the West in general. Even Germany, look at the Berlin airport boondoggle.

tootie 6y ago

It also sounds like they made a lot of thoroughly unreasonable requests for a completely modular platform that could outperform everything in all branches of military at once.

goatinaboat 6y ago
It also sounds like they made a lot of thoroughly unreasonable requests for a completely modular platform that could outperform everything in all branches of military at once. The concept of modularity is a sound one. Imagine this: You buy an F35 and it comes with 2 sets of wings. It has a empty bay just behind the pilot, and it also comes with a lift engine and a spare fuel tank, and a tailhook that can be easily slotted into place if you want it. A trained ground crew, in a couple of hours, can swap parts around and turn it into an A, B or C variant, and then into another one for its next mission. The problem is that the materials needed to create such a F35 kit don't exist and won't for the foreseeable future. So what you end up with is 3 similar looking aircraft that happen to share the same name and have a vague resemblance but have surprisingly little in common, for triple the price.
- chipsa 6y ago
  The idea of having one aircraft be able to become any of the other variants isn't actually that great. Air Force planes don't operate from carriers, and Navy planes don't need to operate from very small fields. The common bits are actually really useful to have in common. The radar is expensive to develop. The optical sensors are too. Engines are expensive, and the F135 engine is like 1/6 of the aircraft's cost. Development is a bit more expensive, because you have 3 airframes with slightly different characteristics, but much of it the same between the three as far as systems that go inside. It's definitely not 3x the price to develop the 3 different variants. And they're buying new F-35s for cheaper than a new F-16.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    The idea of having one aircraft be able to become any of the other variants isn't actually that great. Air Force planes don't operate from carriers, and Navy planes don't need to operate from very small fields. I disagree, there have been cases where it could have been very useful. For example in the 1980s the RAF were operating the Harrier for the close support role (from austere forward airfields) and the RN were operating the Sea Harrier for air defence, but when the Falklands War kicked off, RAF aircraft were brought onto the carriers. The RAF were also operating the Tornado for long-range bombing and another variant of Tornado for air defence, plus the Jaguar. That's 4 different aircraft that could be merged into a "kit" F35 if it were possible to do so.

Judgmentality 6y ago

> The aircraft itself is apparently excellent at what it does I have heard the opposite from a test pilot who has flown it. He fucking hates it.

ageyfman 6y ago
Users, amiright?
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  I actually laughed. Thank you.
jki275 6y ago
A lot of highly qualified people who have flown it say otherwise. https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/f-35-faces-most-critical-test-180971734/ https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/f-35-faces-mos... Chip Berke is an F22 and F35 test pilot, and the first F35 Squadron commander. He's probably the most qualified person on the planet to talk about fifth gen aircraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0&t=203s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0&t=203s
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  Admittedly my sample size is 1 so I'm not pretending my anecdata is conclusive, but you have to be wary of what people will say publicly about politically motivated projects. EDIT: Although to be fair, I wrote that before looking at your links, I feel like that context is important (although I stand by my statement).
  - jki275 6y ago
    Sure, that's definitely fair. The F35 has been badly politicized, but it has also been the victim of an absolute shitload of criticism from people who want it to be something it was never intended to be and are unhappy that the F22 was cancelled early. If it were just that Colonel Berke liked the plane, it would be one thing. He really explains it in detail in the video. I'll admit I wasn't quite sold on the the plane years ago, but once I saw this video it pretty thoroughly changed my mind. I realize the video is a bit long, and I almost never post links to videos -- but this one is well worth the watch.

GVIrish 6y ago

> The root of the F-35 program's problems is a cost plus style contract that gave Lockheed every incentive to overrun on cost and time table. Ash Carter fixed that by telling Lockheed if they didn't agree to his new contract he'd kill the entire thing. And oh hey what a surprise suddenly the marginal cost of a new F-35 started hitting the target numbers. A cost-plus contract is a contributor, but not the root of why the JSF program went astray. The fundamental flaw of the F-35 is that they tried to make one air frame for 3 very different sets of requirements. By doing so they compromised all three variants yet failed to achieve the cost savings they thought they would get from that approach. Equally as important is the fact that it was politically engineered to be almost uncancelable. The future of US and allied air power was staked on this one platform so all of the stakeholders had very high motivation to keep pushing on long after it wasn't prudent to do so. Then there's the fact the DoD and Congress removed some of the normal procurement guard rails to try to shorten the timeline, but also made it more difficult to cancel. "Concurrent development" with the JSF meant that series production began before all testing and evaluation was done. This meant that when problems were found there were costly retrofits. It also means that the multitude of serious shortcomings were found after production had began, making it more difficult to justify stopping the program. Then consider that production of parts for the F-35 is spread out across over 40 states (I wanna say it was 47). Then there's the part where the DoD allowed the contractor to write a significant portion of the requirements. It's no wonder things went sideways. > The aircraft itself is apparently excellent at what it does, but that doesn't erase just how much grift was involved in this program for decades. But that's the problem, it is not excellent at what it does. When you read the DOT&E reports about its mission capabilities there are numerous serious defects and limitations to what the aircraft can do. Granted, some of those issues are getting addressed, but the costs of the program makes it harder to justify. Ultimately the whole reason for the F-35 to exist was that the high parts commonality and the very high production numbers would save big money on costs. It failed to do that.

caycep 6y ago
I think this sort of self-perpetuating bureaucracy bloat has characterized most post-war weapons development in the Pentagon. The F-16 was an exception and success from what I understand, because of what another poster above refers to as spec management (I presume). i.e. it had a small group of proponents who had both extensive pilot experience and also the engineering/management chops to understand clearly what they wanted aeronautically, and were good at running a "rebel" program within the giant DoD bureaucracy to keep that project coherent and focused...until the very end when it did pick up a bit of bloat when it necessarily was exposed to other parts of the DoD. I think in order to be successful, they probably have to implement some sort of "small teams" approach; I'd imagine a lot of tech developed for JSF/F-35 can be rapidly rolled into a 5th gen+ fighter without reinventing the wheel...but they'd need to firewall the project into small focused teams who really know what they'd want to build.

neurotech1 6y ago

Sec. Ash Carter [0] did some really good work at reforming the pentagon, especially acquisitions, both as Deputy SecDef and later returning as SecDef. He also served as Under Secretary for Acquisitions (AT&L) Sec. David Norquist [1] was another Deputy SecDef who helped reign in DoD costs. He also served as Comptroller before DepSecDef. There was whispers that he did actually fire people for wasting DoD funds. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Carter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Carter [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Norquist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Norquist

tored 6y ago

F-35 is far from excellent and it had many engineering problems like massive software problems, fire hazards, structural weakness, engine problems, heating, high noise, low range, etc. It failed to replace existing fleet of fighters, like the F-16, and on ground support, like the A10. That is not excellence. All of the engineering problems of the F-35 have been well known from the early days of the project, I know because I have studied closely ever since Norway decided to buy it. But the massive propaganda from the weapons industry has clouded this debate from the start. F-35 is a huge fiasco on multiple levels - policy, contracting, diplomacy, engineering, warfare, etc Reason why it is even bigger failure than the F-22 is that the US decided to sell the F-35 overseas. This exposed the project to more scrutiny and increased the stakes. Can’t be hidden away like the embarrassing F-22. If US decide to build a new fighter aircraft I predict it will be a failure too.

greedo 6y ago
The only thing embarrassing about the F-22 was the decision to terminate production at 187 aircraft. The F-22 was and is an excellent aircraft, perhaps a bit ahead of its time in terms of need, but to call it an embarrassment doesn't have much accuracy.
- xnyan 6y ago
  > The F-22 was and is an excellent aircraft I love jets and the F-22 is both my favorite fighter and likely the best air superiority fighter in the world, so I get where you are coming from, but it is not an excellent aircraft for the current USAF mission when you look at it as a whole. Not only is the procurement cost of an F-22 extremely high, operationally it has been plagued by issues that hare only partially elevated by a maintenance program that even by fighter jet standards is considered expensive and frequent. The stealth coating in particular is very finnicky and has to be worked up constantly. Approximately half of F-22 are non-op at any given time, even getting training time is extremely difficult. The F-22 is like an exotic sportscar. Nobody denies that if it's in the air and functional, it's a great performer, but we would never make the bugatti veyron the standard patrol car for all police - not only would it be mindbogglingly expensive, durability and high maintenance would make it impractical, not to mention overkill in most situations. To make another car analogy, it would be like buying a Ford F350 for picking up your groceries once a week.