2 ms·

It's not just about g-forces, it's about high temperatures, heating/cooling cycles, vibrations, humidity, EMP resistance, etc. etc. It's cool that your drone c

It's not just about g-forces, it's about high temperatures, heating/cooling cycles, vibrations, humidity, EMP resistance, etc. etc. It's cool that your drone can do 13 G's, but the more realistic scenario is doing 5-6 Gs over and over and over and over and over again, sitting out in the sun for weeks, sitting on the deck of a carrier in the tropics, getting launched off a carrier, getting shaken around and exposed to salty air, sitting a few feet from a high power radar - you get the point. Also, god forbid, but these things are designed to drop nukes, so that has to be taken into consideration as well.

jiggawatts 3y ago
This is standard in a huge range of off-the-shelf consumer products, such as automotive electronics. They also are expected to operate under a huge temperature range, high humidity, etc... Military hardware isn't magic unobtanium that exists in some parallel plane with unique physical conditions. The choices being made for the F-35 have much more to do with government tender processes, military red tape, corruption, and general government incompetence than physics or engineering. PS: It turns out I had misread the L3Harris info page. That spec isn't for the existing F-35 computers that are now about 20 years old, but for the TR-3 upgrade which will start rolling out in mid-2024!!! These new "flying supercomputers" will be 16x faster than before. This is equivalent to upgrading from a 1994 Intel Pentium to an Apple Watch Series 1 from 2015. L3Harris is delivering just 1,000 units of these multi-kilowatt monstrosities for a low-low price of $300 million.
- freetanga 3y ago
  Let me guess… do you work at Boeing?
- relativ575 3y ago
  > The choices being made for the F-35 have much more to do with government tender processes, military red tape, corruption, and general government incompetence than physics or engineering. Say who? what were the competing solutions and how did F-35 go with the selection?
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    The competing solutions were offered only by other bloated MIC corporations with similar habits of feeding from the government pork barrel. I've been on both sides of this tendering process, and it's absurd how horrifically inefficient it makes things. Small, agile, and capable vendors are literally excluded from the process and can't even begin to meet the criteria for acceptance. But... that's the point. It's not about cost-efficiency or product quality, but about keeping a few well-connected companies happy. Try to look at things from the perspective of someone like Elon Musk, or a leader you admire from any FAANG or successful modern company. Now tell them with a straight face that you're going to keep using computer hardware from the 1990s for 20+ years without an upgrade because... the paperwork is too hard. You'd be laughed at, and then booted from the organisation for gross incompetence. In the military, that's normal way things are done. Imagine running Facebook, Google, or Amazon on 20 year old hardware. Picture that for a second. Or if you want space-rated flight hardware, imagine SpaceX using something from the 1990s for Falcon 9 rockets because of red-tape. You're rationalising nonsense. You're trying to tell me that it's good and proper that America and its allies are going to war with planes that have flight hardware that is equivalent to what I wear on my wrist to tell me the time, but uses 100,000x the power, takes up 500x the volume, and costs 1,000x as much.
    - iancmceachern 3y ago
      The needs of these systems are radically different. We don't need ever more speed in processing, this isn't games. Things like ultra reliable down to the nanosecond timing, etc. are important for these applications, not raw computing power. You fundamentally don't understand some things about the application, therefore are presenting solutions that seem smart on the surface but are actually fundamentally flawed and non starters.
      - jiggawatts 3y ago
        > The needs of these systems are radically different. Different to what? Desktop PCs? Commercial avionics? Space-rated computers? Military fighter jet avionics from other planes? The future upgrade to the F-35 is orders of magnitude worse at every metric than everything else in any of those categories. For example, the latest F/18 has a computer that is several hundred times faster. It’s also a “networked” fighter jet with sensor integration, etc… So what’s different about the F-35 avionics that justifies $300K per unit for the computer power of an outdated Apple Watch!? From where I’m sitting it’s purely corruption and incompetence. You’re saying it’s something else. Okay, what is it?

jiggawatts 3y ago

This is standard in a huge range of off-the-shelf consumer products, such as automotive electronics. They also are expected to operate under a huge temperature range, high humidity, etc... Military hardware isn't magic unobtanium that exists in some parallel plane with unique physical conditions. The choices being made for the F-35 have much more to do with government tender processes, military red tape, corruption, and general government incompetence than physics or engineering. PS: It turns out I had misread the L3Harris info page. That spec isn't for the existing F-35 computers that are now about 20 years old, but for the TR-3 upgrade which will start rolling out in mid-2024!!! These new "flying supercomputers" will be 16x faster than before. This is equivalent to upgrading from a 1994 Intel Pentium to an Apple Watch Series 1 from 2015. L3Harris is delivering just 1,000 units of these multi-kilowatt monstrosities for a low-low price of $300 million.

freetanga 3y ago
Let me guess… do you work at Boeing?
relativ575 3y ago
> The choices being made for the F-35 have much more to do with government tender processes, military red tape, corruption, and general government incompetence than physics or engineering. Say who? what were the competing solutions and how did F-35 go with the selection?
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  The competing solutions were offered only by other bloated MIC corporations with similar habits of feeding from the government pork barrel. I've been on both sides of this tendering process, and it's absurd how horrifically inefficient it makes things. Small, agile, and capable vendors are literally excluded from the process and can't even begin to meet the criteria for acceptance. But... that's the point. It's not about cost-efficiency or product quality, but about keeping a few well-connected companies happy. Try to look at things from the perspective of someone like Elon Musk, or a leader you admire from any FAANG or successful modern company. Now tell them with a straight face that you're going to keep using computer hardware from the 1990s for 20+ years without an upgrade because... the paperwork is too hard. You'd be laughed at, and then booted from the organisation for gross incompetence. In the military, that's normal way things are done. Imagine running Facebook, Google, or Amazon on 20 year old hardware. Picture that for a second. Or if you want space-rated flight hardware, imagine SpaceX using something from the 1990s for Falcon 9 rockets because of red-tape. You're rationalising nonsense. You're trying to tell me that it's good and proper that America and its allies are going to war with planes that have flight hardware that is equivalent to what I wear on my wrist to tell me the time, but uses 100,000x the power, takes up 500x the volume, and costs 1,000x as much.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    The needs of these systems are radically different. We don't need ever more speed in processing, this isn't games. Things like ultra reliable down to the nanosecond timing, etc. are important for these applications, not raw computing power. You fundamentally don't understand some things about the application, therefore are presenting solutions that seem smart on the surface but are actually fundamentally flawed and non starters.
    - jiggawatts 3y ago
      > The needs of these systems are radically different. Different to what? Desktop PCs? Commercial avionics? Space-rated computers? Military fighter jet avionics from other planes? The future upgrade to the F-35 is orders of magnitude worse at every metric than everything else in any of those categories. For example, the latest F/18 has a computer that is several hundred times faster. It’s also a “networked” fighter jet with sensor integration, etc… So what’s different about the F-35 avionics that justifies $300K per unit for the computer power of an outdated Apple Watch!? From where I’m sitting it’s purely corruption and incompetence. You’re saying it’s something else. Okay, what is it?