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For anyone else confused, it's 85 F-35s for $12B, not $85B It's also worth noting that these other aircraft are widely criticized as being excessively expensiv

by jjk166 5y ago

For anyone else confused, it's 85 F-35s for $12B, not $85B It's also worth noting that these other aircraft are widely criticized as being excessively expensive as well, mostly because of the exact same issues with the acquisition process. For example the CH-53K is supposed to cost half of that, but because only 9 are being purchased this year the fixed costs aren't as amortized as predicted. And that's really the crux of it: the F35 acquisition was always going to be an 11 figure program, but the leading digit could have been a 1 instead of a 4, the price tag is the right order of magnitude, but there were still hundreds of billions of dollars wasted due to mismanagement.

colechristensen 5y ago
You can say wasted due to mismanagement and not be wrong but also designing, building, and maintaining warplanes are among the most complex tasks humans have ever done, and I’ve been on plenty of teams that could barely manage a CRUD webapp so it’s not like being efficiently organized is easy and everywhere. It should be impressive that such a thing is possible at all. And, to be honest, it’s partially a jobs program to keep engineers employed and experienced in case there is a real need for immediate defense work.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  Is it really that complex? The best software engineers go to FAANG, not defense companies.
  - Zancarius 5y ago
    Aircraft engineering isn't all software though. There's a significantly non-trivial part that is hardware design (arguably the bulk of it), with incredibly tight tolerances, and often unique alloys. All of which can make or break a design. Even just a single component, like the engine, is a massive engineering undertaking. If the company developing the powerplant under-delivers the entire program can be a bust.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
    What do you base this assertion on?
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      Prices?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    And what does that say about society? If all of the companies in FAANG were to suddenly disappear, I think society would be better for it*. Sure, people "depend" on FB for comms etc blah blah, but the world functioned fine before them if not maybe slightly less convenient. Netflix, come on. It's just entertainment. Nothing more. Google? Maybe search could be built to work again. Amazon? Maybe people actually buy local again. Apple? So we don't have luxury devices that cost more than some people make in a year. *Obviously excluding the sudden loss of jobs. It's just a thought exercise.
    - jolux 5y ago
      It says that we haven’t seriously needed to actually defend ourselves in an extremely long time.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        I don't think that's true. It's more like we value people to spam other people with ads and other trivial minutia more than other things.
        jolux 5y ago
        when was the last time there was a credible threat against the United States that the defense industry was helpful in neutralizing?
        dylan604 5y ago
        Perhaps the reason for that is just having that defense industry.
        jolux 5y ago
        Sounds like they don't need any help from FAANG engineers then.
        5y ago
  - gameswithgo 5y ago
    You have been sorely misled
  - Nitrolo 5y ago
    Even if it was true that software engineers that don't work for FAANGs can't develop something complex (I doubt that's true, I'm sure there's plenty of skilled software engineers working at Lockheed Martin), FAANGs don't employ a lot of aerodynamicists, flight dynamicists, weapons engineers, material scientists, experts in radar technology etc. though, which is just a selection of the kind of specialists you need to develop a fighter jet.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    When the JSF program started, the only FAANG that existed yet was Apple. Only a small proportion of the program involves software, and at that they were, for example, designing VR/AR helmets as a feature. What people are talking about being an entire industry was tacked on as a minor feature. Imagine designing hardware where your single product is developed as computer tech advanced from 1993 to 2006 (program inception to first production flight, more or less) There was an estimate that the program employed a quarter of a million people, because of how spread out contracts like this are it's hard to really come up with a comparison. JSF is on a similar level of complexity of the entirety of Google, and has been in development about five years longer.
    - simonh 5y ago
      >the only FAANG that existed yet was Apple. Which back then was seriously on the ropes, with SJ coming back to turn it around. Nobody would have listed Apple as an industry leading company. How times change.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Unfortunately, some of the smartest mathematicians and engineers that I know work for the 'defense' (should be named 'department of war' or 'offense') departments. They believe - which you of course may or may not agree with - that they are doing something for their country, and that the lack of pay is proof of their sacrifice.
- aeturnum 5y ago
  > designing, building, and maintaining warplanes are among the most complex tasks humans have ever done Most people who do complex, difficult jobs estimate for the complexity and difficulty. This project is both years behind schedule and at roughly twice its initial budget. There are also regularly reports of serious flaws in its day-to-day operation. I believe it's fair to say both that the project is difficult and that this particular effort appears to have delivered a lower-quality product at higher costs and timelines than most of its peers. > it’s partially a jobs program to keep engineers employed and experienced in case there is a real need for immediate defense work. This is always true and they usually have better results.
  - SubjectToChange 5y ago
    I believe it's fair to say both that the project is difficult and that this particular effort appears to have delivered a lower-quality product at higher costs and timelines than most of its peers. What are the peers of the F-35?
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
      You could say the same for a toy car that I made when I was 5 out of play dough. That car has no peer. A more relevant question to ask is... in head on air to air combat, is there a plane that can match it or beat it?
    - SEJeff 5y ago
      There are none, obviously.
      - Retric 5y ago
        In most ways it’s a cheaper less capable version of the F-22 except it’s not significantly cheaper. The VTOL version of the F-35 has few direct competitors but then again it’s making serious sacrifices for VTOL capacity.
        5y ago
- jjk166 5y ago
  Yeah, but they're not blowing money on the hard, complex parts, most of the cost overruns have been due to poorly thought out "cost saving" measures, for example producing the factory tooling before the plane if finished being designed, only to have to go back and redo all of the work when the design changes. Indeed the impetus for the project was to reduce costs by moving everything to a single airframe, based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the cost of aircraft development. At the same time many decisions were made based on maintaining political support instead of efficiency, which was always going to increase cost. Yeah, this isn't the the first time a project was poorly managed, and it won't be the last, but this is not an example of competent people giving it their best shot. The claim that something is a jobs program is often used to justify not caring about waste, but that doesn't really make any sense. If your goal is to maintain a large pool of skilled individuals, it makes sense to do lots of highly efficient projects. When you do things efficiently, you can provide jobs to more engineers, and support a wider range of projects to maintain a more diverse skillset, plus you get more useful products out of the program.
- kaliszad 5y ago
  You know what is impressive? Getting the CSS of any non-trivial app right. /s More on a serious note, for the cost of one of these aircrafts, you can get more than 1/10th of their weight in gold. Either gold or the aircrafts are way too expensive, I think it is the latter. I wonder, what the Chengdu J-20 costs...

by jjk166 5y ago

colechristensen 5y ago

You can say wasted due to mismanagement and not be wrong but also designing, building, and maintaining warplanes are among the most complex tasks humans have ever done, and I’ve been on plenty of teams that could barely manage a CRUD webapp so it’s not like being efficiently organized is easy and everywhere. It should be impressive that such a thing is possible at all. And, to be honest, it’s partially a jobs program to keep engineers employed and experienced in case there is a real need for immediate defense work.

symlinkk 5y ago
Is it really that complex? The best software engineers go to FAANG, not defense companies.
- Zancarius 5y ago
  Aircraft engineering isn't all software though. There's a significantly non-trivial part that is hardware design (arguably the bulk of it), with incredibly tight tolerances, and often unique alloys. All of which can make or break a design. Even just a single component, like the engine, is a massive engineering undertaking. If the company developing the powerplant under-delivers the entire program can be a bust.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
  What do you base this assertion on?
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    Prices?
- dylan604 5y ago
  And what does that say about society? If all of the companies in FAANG were to suddenly disappear, I think society would be better for it*. Sure, people "depend" on FB for comms etc blah blah, but the world functioned fine before them if not maybe slightly less convenient. Netflix, come on. It's just entertainment. Nothing more. Google? Maybe search could be built to work again. Amazon? Maybe people actually buy local again. Apple? So we don't have luxury devices that cost more than some people make in a year. *Obviously excluding the sudden loss of jobs. It's just a thought exercise.
  - jolux 5y ago
    It says that we haven’t seriously needed to actually defend ourselves in an extremely long time.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I don't think that's true. It's more like we value people to spam other people with ads and other trivial minutia more than other things.
      - jolux 5y ago
        when was the last time there was a credible threat against the United States that the defense industry was helpful in neutralizing?
        dylan604 5y ago
        Perhaps the reason for that is just having that defense industry.
        jolux 5y ago
        Sounds like they don't need any help from FAANG engineers then.
        5y ago
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  You have been sorely misled
- Nitrolo 5y ago
  Even if it was true that software engineers that don't work for FAANGs can't develop something complex (I doubt that's true, I'm sure there's plenty of skilled software engineers working at Lockheed Martin), FAANGs don't employ a lot of aerodynamicists, flight dynamicists, weapons engineers, material scientists, experts in radar technology etc. though, which is just a selection of the kind of specialists you need to develop a fighter jet.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  When the JSF program started, the only FAANG that existed yet was Apple. Only a small proportion of the program involves software, and at that they were, for example, designing VR/AR helmets as a feature. What people are talking about being an entire industry was tacked on as a minor feature. Imagine designing hardware where your single product is developed as computer tech advanced from 1993 to 2006 (program inception to first production flight, more or less) There was an estimate that the program employed a quarter of a million people, because of how spread out contracts like this are it's hard to really come up with a comparison. JSF is on a similar level of complexity of the entirety of Google, and has been in development about five years longer.
  - simonh 5y ago
    >the only FAANG that existed yet was Apple. Which back then was seriously on the ropes, with SJ coming back to turn it around. Nobody would have listed Apple as an industry leading company. How times change.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Unfortunately, some of the smartest mathematicians and engineers that I know work for the 'defense' (should be named 'department of war' or 'offense') departments. They believe - which you of course may or may not agree with - that they are doing something for their country, and that the lack of pay is proof of their sacrifice.
aeturnum 5y ago
> designing, building, and maintaining warplanes are among the most complex tasks humans have ever done Most people who do complex, difficult jobs estimate for the complexity and difficulty. This project is both years behind schedule and at roughly twice its initial budget. There are also regularly reports of serious flaws in its day-to-day operation. I believe it's fair to say both that the project is difficult and that this particular effort appears to have delivered a lower-quality product at higher costs and timelines than most of its peers. > it’s partially a jobs program to keep engineers employed and experienced in case there is a real need for immediate defense work. This is always true and they usually have better results.
- SubjectToChange 5y ago
  I believe it's fair to say both that the project is difficult and that this particular effort appears to have delivered a lower-quality product at higher costs and timelines than most of its peers. What are the peers of the F-35?
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    You could say the same for a toy car that I made when I was 5 out of play dough. That car has no peer. A more relevant question to ask is... in head on air to air combat, is there a plane that can match it or beat it?
  - SEJeff 5y ago
    There are none, obviously.
    - Retric 5y ago
      In most ways it’s a cheaper less capable version of the F-22 except it’s not significantly cheaper. The VTOL version of the F-35 has few direct competitors but then again it’s making serious sacrifices for VTOL capacity.
      - 5y ago
jjk166 5y ago
Yeah, but they're not blowing money on the hard, complex parts, most of the cost overruns have been due to poorly thought out "cost saving" measures, for example producing the factory tooling before the plane if finished being designed, only to have to go back and redo all of the work when the design changes. Indeed the impetus for the project was to reduce costs by moving everything to a single airframe, based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the cost of aircraft development. At the same time many decisions were made based on maintaining political support instead of efficiency, which was always going to increase cost. Yeah, this isn't the the first time a project was poorly managed, and it won't be the last, but this is not an example of competent people giving it their best shot. The claim that something is a jobs program is often used to justify not caring about waste, but that doesn't really make any sense. If your goal is to maintain a large pool of skilled individuals, it makes sense to do lots of highly efficient projects. When you do things efficiently, you can provide jobs to more engineers, and support a wider range of projects to maintain a more diverse skillset, plus you get more useful products out of the program.
kaliszad 5y ago
You know what is impressive? Getting the CSS of any non-trivial app right. /s More on a serious note, for the cost of one of these aircrafts, you can get more than 1/10th of their weight in gold. Either gold or the aircrafts are way too expensive, I think it is the latter. I wonder, what the Chengdu J-20 costs...