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I'd argue that three distinct aircraft could have accomplished that goal better too (as they could be assembled in different places by different companies, with

I'd argue that three distinct aircraft could have accomplished that goal better too (as they could be assembled in different places by different companies, with different US-based suppliers). The F-35's initial "share parts" goal was good. But feature creep and overall complexity in the project weren't controlled, and now with hindsight we would have been better off with multiple task-specific aircraft even if that meant little parts sharing.

GekkePrutser 6y ago
I think in particular the Marines design was too much of a stretch from the start. VTOL just makes for a totally different aircraft. The differences between the land and carrier versions are much smaller.
- protomyth 6y ago
  Yeah. The F-4 was fine for the Navy and Air Force, but the VTOL was a step too far.
  - mgarfias 6y ago
    No, the f4 could do the job, but it wasn’t fine.
    - protomyth 6y ago
      Making more than 5,000 was probably good indicator of its value.
      - mgarfias 6y ago
        Read what Boyd had to say about it. It was of value to MD and GE, but a good fighter it wasn't. Nor was it a good bomb truck. It kinda did both, but not well. The DoD of course, followed it on with the F-111 (thanks McNamara!) that tried to do everything, but the only effective thing it really did was to cause the Soviets to build the MIG-23 and waste a bunch of cash on that.
      - ch_123 6y ago
        A lot of politics go into deciding what gets adopted, which leads to some very questionable aircraft getting adopted in large numbers. The F-104 was effectively forced onto a lot of European countries (particularly Germany) and mostly succeeded in killing lots of pilots.
        GekkePrutser 6y ago
        Indeed, they called it the lawn dart :D It was used in the netherlands too. I don't know why they even wanted an interceptor. I suppose the soviets were still a thing. But a handful of F-104s wouldn't have stopped them. In the Netherlands there was also a huge corruption scandal involving the queen's husband who was paid to lobby on Lockheed's behalf.
- MilStdJunkie 6y ago
  The underlying concept of the program(1) was bad from the start, but to top it off, the thing can't fight: (TL;DR: the plane is in a catch-22 of not having enough range when it carries enough weapons and not having enough weapons when it has enough range - you can't load dirty and fly high in contested airspace, you'll get shot right down, and if you load clean you won't have enough range to engage safely or the numbers to do so effectively) * 1000 NM radius is not enough for SE Asia, at all, certainly not for defended airspace. Flying dirty (unstealthed), it flies LOLO for terrain masking, and now you're lucky to get 500 NM. * persnickety: pre-chilled fuel; exotic conditioned electricals; 30,000 dollar CPFH + regionally specific MDF for the active LO systems * Can't stealth mount BRU-61 * Can't mount AARGM-ER/AGM-88G, AIM-260 JATM, JAGM-F, SPEAR 3, JSM, APKWS, AGM-183 ARRW, AGM-158C/D LRASM/JASSM-XR, SACM/CUDA/PEREGRINE, Hammer/Hatchet at all * Can't supersonic launch missiles because no supercruise * So now subtract 30% from your missile range - a lot of power to make a shock cone that fast. * 8 seconds (A), 16 seconds (B) and 43 seconds (C) over KPP requirement for missile sprint, during the run up to IOT&E and OPEVAL. This is super duper bad. * 4 AMRAAMS internal, and you need 3 to guarantee a kill in ECM environment. Take more than 4 and you fly low, halving the combat radius if you're lucky. * APG-81, MADL, stealth coatings were pirated in the late aughts, compromised * Offtopic, but they're not helping with the "Show The Flag" forward presence parades up and down the "Black Ditch". Free handout to PRC tech exploit teams hanging out on the trawlers sniffing all the ELINT. * Etc etc etc etc this could go on for some time, like the logistics system that's already forcing ground crews to cannibalize the few jets they have. (1) VTOL? VTOL!? Have you not noticed that the most practical form of VTOL is a hundred knot airframe WITH A GIANT FRICKIN FAN ON TOP? Also, since when is your fighter aircraft the most expensive one? They're supposed to be disposable for gods sakes.
maxerickson 6y ago
Yeah, even in the cynical view that it's a spending program, you can still end up with more or less capability and might as well shoot for more.
Jtsummers 6y ago
The F-35 was trying to share more than just parts, but an entire airframe. Sharing parts is "normal", LRUs are designed to standard forms (both in connectors as well as physical box size, shape, and weight) on purpose. This allows them to use the same box in a variety of aircraft to cover the common subsystems. A greater emphasis on these modular components being flexible enough to meet each mission need while permitting each service to get its own tailored airframe would have been the best option. Instead the F-35 program office has the population of a small town on its own who all have to coordinate in harmony (hah!) with each other and the customers who have very different actual wants and needs. Divide that into 3+ airframe program offices (of reasonable sizes) with proper focus on their customer, and one larger program office that oversees the various LRU and other components and this alternate F-35 family of aircraft could have been successful (at least some of them, even if, say, you end up trying to build 5 planes and only 3 really meet their goals, that's better than the F-35 which doesn't work for any of its users).
- tabtab 6y ago
  Even in the software design biz, factoring often looks easier on paper. Small-scale modules and components usually have a better reuse record in my observation because you can mix, match, change, and drop them as needed per project: you can date components without being forced to marry them. F-35 is a marriage made in Hell.
tablespoon 6y ago
>> While it might be a failure from the taxpayer's and military's point of view, it's a raving success for Congress and the contractors. The metrics for the latter are jobs, grandstanding, campaign donations, kickbacks, crony benefits, and mountains of cash, plus guaranteed more mountains ongoing until it's killed. > I wish this was the cynical view but it's more like reality of government procurement. > I'd argue that three distinct aircraft could have accomplished that goal better too (as they could be assembled in different places by different companies, with different US-based suppliers). Which I think is proof that the GP is wrong. If all Congress wanted to do was spend cash to create jobs, they could have done better than the F-35. I think Congress and the military were honestly trying to save money by building the F-35, by getting more bang for their buck by filling more roles with it. It's just that they failed at that. Some people can't help but assuming malice when incompetence is a far better explanation. Lockheed spread the work around to make it more politically difficult to kill, but that was for their own profit-seeking reasons.
- wisty 6y ago
  Reminds me of the Space Shuttle, which was meant to be a combination people mover, freighter, and a construction machine. All while being reusable. The US space program is only just recovering. Multiple roles is hard when your biggest enemy is weight.
  - dublin 6y ago
    Don't forget that after the cancellation of the earlier Space Station (the ISS came much later) the "Shuttle" had no place to shuttle things to. Even after decades, the Shuttle never came even remotely close to its cost, reuse, and turnaround time targets. On top of that, two of them blew up, accounting for 14 deaths, a figure that is 100% of all actual in-flight spaceflight deaths. By any rational measure, the Shuttle cannot be considered anything other than a failure.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      > 100% of all actual in-flight spaceflight deaths. How do you measure this? The USSR had deaths, including hitting the ground because parachutes didn’t open with Soyuz 1 and from faulty equipment causing asphyxiation during flight on Soyuz 11. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1
lostcolony 6y ago
>> and now with hindsight Just to point out, back then with foresight there were plenty of people saying "this is a bad idea". The GAO found numerous issues as early as 2005 with the F35 (even earlier, as the article mentions, if you go back to the JSF), and I feel like I haven't gone more than a year without seeing yet another report of problems.
caycep 6y ago
I kind of wonder if parts of the program would be useful, i.e. make a "platform" like the fighter plane version of React.js or Swift UI and manufacturers and plug and play a new airplane out of the tech developed for it?

GekkePrutser 6y ago

I think in particular the Marines design was too much of a stretch from the start. VTOL just makes for a totally different aircraft. The differences between the land and carrier versions are much smaller.

protomyth 6y ago
Yeah. The F-4 was fine for the Navy and Air Force, but the VTOL was a step too far.
- mgarfias 6y ago
  No, the f4 could do the job, but it wasn’t fine.
  - protomyth 6y ago
    Making more than 5,000 was probably good indicator of its value.
    - mgarfias 6y ago
      Read what Boyd had to say about it. It was of value to MD and GE, but a good fighter it wasn't. Nor was it a good bomb truck. It kinda did both, but not well. The DoD of course, followed it on with the F-111 (thanks McNamara!) that tried to do everything, but the only effective thing it really did was to cause the Soviets to build the MIG-23 and waste a bunch of cash on that.
    - ch_123 6y ago
      A lot of politics go into deciding what gets adopted, which leads to some very questionable aircraft getting adopted in large numbers. The F-104 was effectively forced onto a lot of European countries (particularly Germany) and mostly succeeded in killing lots of pilots.
      - GekkePrutser 6y ago
        Indeed, they called it the lawn dart :D It was used in the netherlands too. I don't know why they even wanted an interceptor. I suppose the soviets were still a thing. But a handful of F-104s wouldn't have stopped them. In the Netherlands there was also a huge corruption scandal involving the queen's husband who was paid to lobby on Lockheed's behalf.
MilStdJunkie 6y ago
The underlying concept of the program(1) was bad from the start, but to top it off, the thing can't fight: (TL;DR: the plane is in a catch-22 of not having enough range when it carries enough weapons and not having enough weapons when it has enough range - you can't load dirty and fly high in contested airspace, you'll get shot right down, and if you load clean you won't have enough range to engage safely or the numbers to do so effectively) * 1000 NM radius is not enough for SE Asia, at all, certainly not for defended airspace. Flying dirty (unstealthed), it flies LOLO for terrain masking, and now you're lucky to get 500 NM. * persnickety: pre-chilled fuel; exotic conditioned electricals; 30,000 dollar CPFH + regionally specific MDF for the active LO systems * Can't stealth mount BRU-61 * Can't mount AARGM-ER/AGM-88G, AIM-260 JATM, JAGM-F, SPEAR 3, JSM, APKWS, AGM-183 ARRW, AGM-158C/D LRASM/JASSM-XR, SACM/CUDA/PEREGRINE, Hammer/Hatchet at all * Can't supersonic launch missiles because no supercruise * So now subtract 30% from your missile range - a lot of power to make a shock cone that fast. * 8 seconds (A), 16 seconds (B) and 43 seconds (C) over KPP requirement for missile sprint, during the run up to IOT&E and OPEVAL. This is super duper bad. * 4 AMRAAMS internal, and you need 3 to guarantee a kill in ECM environment. Take more than 4 and you fly low, halving the combat radius if you're lucky. * APG-81, MADL, stealth coatings were pirated in the late aughts, compromised * Offtopic, but they're not helping with the "Show The Flag" forward presence parades up and down the "Black Ditch". Free handout to PRC tech exploit teams hanging out on the trawlers sniffing all the ELINT. * Etc etc etc etc this could go on for some time, like the logistics system that's already forcing ground crews to cannibalize the few jets they have. (1) VTOL? VTOL!? Have you not noticed that the most practical form of VTOL is a hundred knot airframe WITH A GIANT FRICKIN FAN ON TOP? Also, since when is your fighter aircraft the most expensive one? They're supposed to be disposable for gods sakes.

maxerickson 6y ago

Yeah, even in the cynical view that it's a spending program, you can still end up with more or less capability and might as well shoot for more.

Jtsummers 6y ago

The F-35 was trying to share more than just parts, but an entire airframe. Sharing parts is "normal", LRUs are designed to standard forms (both in connectors as well as physical box size, shape, and weight) on purpose. This allows them to use the same box in a variety of aircraft to cover the common subsystems. A greater emphasis on these modular components being flexible enough to meet each mission need while permitting each service to get its own tailored airframe would have been the best option. Instead the F-35 program office has the population of a small town on its own who all have to coordinate in harmony (hah!) with each other and the customers who have very different actual wants and needs. Divide that into 3+ airframe program offices (of reasonable sizes) with proper focus on their customer, and one larger program office that oversees the various LRU and other components and this alternate F-35 family of aircraft could have been successful (at least some of them, even if, say, you end up trying to build 5 planes and only 3 really meet their goals, that's better than the F-35 which doesn't work for any of its users).

tabtab 6y ago
Even in the software design biz, factoring often looks easier on paper. Small-scale modules and components usually have a better reuse record in my observation because you can mix, match, change, and drop them as needed per project: you can date components without being forced to marry them. F-35 is a marriage made in Hell.

tablespoon 6y ago

>> While it might be a failure from the taxpayer's and military's point of view, it's a raving success for Congress and the contractors. The metrics for the latter are jobs, grandstanding, campaign donations, kickbacks, crony benefits, and mountains of cash, plus guaranteed more mountains ongoing until it's killed. > I wish this was the cynical view but it's more like reality of government procurement. > I'd argue that three distinct aircraft could have accomplished that goal better too (as they could be assembled in different places by different companies, with different US-based suppliers). Which I think is proof that the GP is wrong. If all Congress wanted to do was spend cash to create jobs, they could have done better than the F-35. I think Congress and the military were honestly trying to save money by building the F-35, by getting more bang for their buck by filling more roles with it. It's just that they failed at that. Some people can't help but assuming malice when incompetence is a far better explanation. Lockheed spread the work around to make it more politically difficult to kill, but that was for their own profit-seeking reasons.

wisty 6y ago
Reminds me of the Space Shuttle, which was meant to be a combination people mover, freighter, and a construction machine. All while being reusable. The US space program is only just recovering. Multiple roles is hard when your biggest enemy is weight.
- dublin 6y ago
  Don't forget that after the cancellation of the earlier Space Station (the ISS came much later) the "Shuttle" had no place to shuttle things to. Even after decades, the Shuttle never came even remotely close to its cost, reuse, and turnaround time targets. On top of that, two of them blew up, accounting for 14 deaths, a figure that is 100% of all actual in-flight spaceflight deaths. By any rational measure, the Shuttle cannot be considered anything other than a failure.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    > 100% of all actual in-flight spaceflight deaths. How do you measure this? The USSR had deaths, including hitting the ground because parachutes didn’t open with Soyuz 1 and from faulty equipment causing asphyxiation during flight on Soyuz 11. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_1

lostcolony 6y ago

>> and now with hindsight Just to point out, back then with foresight there were plenty of people saying "this is a bad idea". The GAO found numerous issues as early as 2005 with the F35 (even earlier, as the article mentions, if you go back to the JSF), and I feel like I haven't gone more than a year without seeing yet another report of problems.

caycep 6y ago

I kind of wonder if parts of the program would be useful, i.e. make a "platform" like the fighter plane version of React.js or Swift UI and manufacturers and plug and play a new airplane out of the tech developed for it?