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WONTFIX. See F35-13174 "Add timeout for supersonic flight at high altitude" for details. Interesting that they called out the materials problem, and specifica

WONTFIX. See F35-13174 "Add timeout for supersonic flight at high altitude" for details. Interesting that they called out the materials problem, and specifically the duration of research time necessary to develop and test new materials. I currently work for a company specifically targeted at shortening R&D cycles for materials companies. It's an interesting AI application - materials data tends to be small, and sparse, because each data point is expensive to generate. But you have the benefit of physical properties being bounded in the real world, where we already know certain relationships. So you need a way to inject ground truth into your model(s) so that you aren't trying to have your model re-learn the boiling point of water.

nuisance-bear 6y ago
Supersonic cruise was an explicit design requirement for the F35, and it has been achieved using materials developed in the 1990s for the F22. Your problem set sounds super cool, and it would be nice if DOD had a functioning acquisition process that would allow people with interesting tech to out-compete companies whose boards are stacked with current and former public officials. But alas, that's not the world we live in. The sad thing is, there are probably dozens of proto Kelly Johnson's out there. But they've made defense industries so intolerable that none of them work there.
- flerchin 6y ago
  I don't think supersonic cruise was a requirement. F35 has to use afterburners to get supersonic.
  - hollerith 6y ago
    Drag increases significantly as the speed approaches Mach 1.0 (which is why commercial airliners stay below about Mach 0.8), but decreases significantly after that. So, just because a plane needs afterburners to attain supersonic speed doesn't mean it needs them to remain in supersonic flight. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Qualitive_variation_of_cd_with_mach_number.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Qualitiv...
- data_acquired 6y ago
  Is it the case that the nature of projects in the defence industry is such that companies are prone to consolidation into a few large contractors? In the case of pharma, given the length of time and billions needed to go from drug discovery to market means that only large companies can effectively do R&D. Is it similar for defence i.e., long development times mean only a few large companies can effectively compete? Or is the creation of oligopolies that don't allow for competition a very conscious aspect of government defence policy?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - michaelt 6y ago
    It's extremely easy for the government to accidentally create monopoly suppliers. If Amazon signs a 5 year contract to get all their delivery trucks from Ford, GM isn't going to go out of business; and when they're re-negotiating the contract in 5 years time there'll still be a vibrant competitive market. But if you make tanks or jet fighters or railroad rails, you might only have one customer. And if your only customer signs a 5 year deal with someone else, you're out of business.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Most of the consolidation has happened though because of ever more expensive weapons programs. A B52 is a lot dumber than an F35 and costs way less. Similar trends took place in commercial aviation. There aren’t successful entrants into this market despite a lot of state backing, because it is now very hard and expensive to create an aircraft that matches the performance and efficiency of the latest models of Boeing and Airbus.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- baybal2 6y ago
  F22 also has a limit on how long the RAM rubber can hold, and relies on constant RAM inspections, and repairs. F35, as an aircraft created more than a decade later, is supposed to have a much better RAMs.
daniel-cussen 6y ago
Oh that AI application sounds fantastic for symbolic-regression brute-forcing with the algo I'm getting ready to publish. It has no minimum amount of data. It can solve relationships with a single data point if it's exact enough.
selimthegrim 6y ago
Citrine?
- dangerlibrary 6y ago
  Yep
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Nice, I’d love to know what the day to day is like. They responded to my data engineering application with “We do not currently support the state you live in (Louisiana) for remote work”
    - dangerlibrary 6y ago
      I am surprised to hear that living in Louisiana was a barrier - we have remote workers in a large number of states. Not sure if we are still hiring in Data Engineering, but it probably wouldn't hurt to reach out and reapply if this was pre/early-COVID. It's a good company to work for - excellent learning / growth culture and a lot of very smart people who don't have cookie cutter software backgrounds.
      - selimthegrim 6y ago
        I can try and ping my contact there again- my email is my HN name at gmail. I did express my willingness to eventually relocate as well. I think I did put in a re-app for DS recently.

nuisance-bear 6y ago

Supersonic cruise was an explicit design requirement for the F35, and it has been achieved using materials developed in the 1990s for the F22. Your problem set sounds super cool, and it would be nice if DOD had a functioning acquisition process that would allow people with interesting tech to out-compete companies whose boards are stacked with current and former public officials. But alas, that's not the world we live in. The sad thing is, there are probably dozens of proto Kelly Johnson's out there. But they've made defense industries so intolerable that none of them work there.

flerchin 6y ago
I don't think supersonic cruise was a requirement. F35 has to use afterburners to get supersonic.
- hollerith 6y ago
  Drag increases significantly as the speed approaches Mach 1.0 (which is why commercial airliners stay below about Mach 0.8), but decreases significantly after that. So, just because a plane needs afterburners to attain supersonic speed doesn't mean it needs them to remain in supersonic flight. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Qualitive_variation_of_cd_with_mach_number.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Qualitiv...
data_acquired 6y ago
Is it the case that the nature of projects in the defence industry is such that companies are prone to consolidation into a few large contractors? In the case of pharma, given the length of time and billions needed to go from drug discovery to market means that only large companies can effectively do R&D. Is it similar for defence i.e., long development times mean only a few large companies can effectively compete? Or is the creation of oligopolies that don't allow for competition a very conscious aspect of government defence policy?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- michaelt 6y ago
  It's extremely easy for the government to accidentally create monopoly suppliers. If Amazon signs a 5 year contract to get all their delivery trucks from Ford, GM isn't going to go out of business; and when they're re-negotiating the contract in 5 years time there'll still be a vibrant competitive market. But if you make tanks or jet fighters or railroad rails, you might only have one customer. And if your only customer signs a 5 year deal with someone else, you're out of business.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Most of the consolidation has happened though because of ever more expensive weapons programs. A B52 is a lot dumber than an F35 and costs way less. Similar trends took place in commercial aviation. There aren’t successful entrants into this market despite a lot of state backing, because it is now very hard and expensive to create an aircraft that matches the performance and efficiency of the latest models of Boeing and Airbus.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
baybal2 6y ago
F22 also has a limit on how long the RAM rubber can hold, and relies on constant RAM inspections, and repairs. F35, as an aircraft created more than a decade later, is supposed to have a much better RAMs.

daniel-cussen 6y ago

Oh that AI application sounds fantastic for symbolic-regression brute-forcing with the algo I'm getting ready to publish. It has no minimum amount of data. It can solve relationships with a single data point if it's exact enough.

selimthegrim 6y ago

Citrine?

dangerlibrary 6y ago
Yep
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Nice, I’d love to know what the day to day is like. They responded to my data engineering application with “We do not currently support the state you live in (Louisiana) for remote work”
  - dangerlibrary 6y ago
    I am surprised to hear that living in Louisiana was a barrier - we have remote workers in a large number of states. Not sure if we are still hiring in Data Engineering, but it probably wouldn't hurt to reach out and reapply if this was pre/early-COVID. It's a good company to work for - excellent learning / growth culture and a lot of very smart people who don't have cookie cutter software backgrounds.
    - selimthegrim 6y ago
      I can try and ping my contact there again- my email is my HN name at gmail. I did express my willingness to eventually relocate as well. I think I did put in a re-app for DS recently.