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F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production
- curious_cat_163 3y ago> “Earlier today, the Milestone Decision Authority, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, Dr. William A. LaPlante, approved the Milestone C / Full Rate Production (MSC/FRP) of the F-35 Lightning II aircraft with the signing of an Acquisition Decision Memorandum (ADM) after a meeting with the Defense Acquisition Board (DAB).” The language could very well be from some dark humor novel making fun of three letter acronyms. Definitely reminds me parts of Catch-22.
- loloquwowndueo 3y agoHey at least they expand the acronyms!
- gerdesj 3y agoThat is normal and the acronym comes second: Boaty McBoat Face (BMcBF) Now I can use BMcBF and you have all the information you need to work out what I'm on about. I'm pretty sure that "Usage and abusage" encourages that format. The only slightly controversial aspect of my example is M vs Mc. Mc is already an abbreviation, so should it be repeated intact? For me, Mc is complicated enough as a contraction and abbreviation to warrant deployment in full, as I have done.
- dylan604 3y ago> That is normal sadly, as time goes by, this is becoming less of a norm. people just spit out acronyms because they are so used to, but fail to take a second that someone less familiar might actually be reading it. in previous discussions, this receives some support as "it's targeted a like minded readers" or "they're not professional writers" or "it's just a blog" blah blah. for tweets, i'm surprised we still you vowels. for longer form posts, it would be nice to still be readable.
- gerdesj 3y agoWell, you and I will stick to what we know and see how it goes! The world has a nasty habit of changing around us. I note that, sadly: grammar, punctuation and basic prose construction seem to be wandering off into the mist and getting lost.
- pjscott 3y agoThe Department of Defense (DoD) is, amusingly, Just Like That (JLT).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- FredPret 3y agoDHN MFO TLA? * dark humor novel making fun of three letter acronyms
- longdustytrail 3y agoI see where you’re coming from. But it’s a fascinating window into the nitty gritty of managing a 20+ year, $1 trillion+ government construction project. Some of those silly seeming acronyms, like MSC for “milestone C”, probably are included because people who actually work on and around this project have naturally adopted them. I bet there are senior level employees in and outside the government who's whole career has been spent on this one project. To those people, MSC and ADM are like k8s and MVC
- Perceval 3y agoI once worked at the Pentagon, and my co-workers noted that I wasn't really a Pentagon employee until I could string together a sequence of no less than five acronyms back-to-back in a sentence and still have it make sense. My five were "JS J5 GCP VEO IPR."
- hagbard_c 3y agoAt least in the Dutch army even the Dutch word for 'acronym' has its own acronym: afko which is short for afkorting which means acronym.
- rgmerk 3y agoThe F-35 first flew in late 2006, and they've debugged it enough to get it into full production...17 years later. In the private sector, you'd no longer be able to buy the components it's built out of. Ridiculous.
- newzisforsukas 3y ago> In the private sector, you'd no longer be able to buy the components it's built out of. Hmm? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-130_Hercules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-130_Hercules
- mschuster91 3y agoThat long availability is part of why anything aerospace, marine or heavy industry costs an arm and a leg. With dozens of millions of dollars apiece at stake and an expected service time of many decades, the economics make sense.
- nicce 3y agoWouldn't components get cheaper over the long term? Manufacturing must get better during the years and old tech should not be that secret anymore. 30 years to optimise the manufacturing line to make the same components? What I am missing?
- bombcar 3y agoQuantities aren’t high enough. Which is one of the reasons the military likes using civilian ammo.
- alistairSH 3y agoMilitary aircraft have production runs they can span many years (F-16 production turns 50 this year).
- bombcar 3y agoThe B-52 has been operating long enough to have grandkids flying it: https://www.minot.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/264580/three-generations-of-b-52-airmen/ https://www.minot.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/264580...
- bee_rider 3y agoIt is wild that they’ve turned this project around from the avatar of wasteful defense spending, to the jet that everybody wants.
- tragiclos 3y agoSeems like victory through attrition. It might be the only modern fighter produced for export in the Western world.
- actionfromafar 3y agoThe price is starting to look right, too. I'm still shocked by this.
- harshreality 3y agoCost per flight hour is still much higher than its slightly less capable competitors. I don't know what the argument is for that. Maybe that sim training will be a larger percentage of training in the future, and therefore operating costs don't matter so much? Take whatever jet has the best capabilities, period? I think what that misses is that maintenance of real aircraft will atrophy without constant pilot feedback. Of course mechanics can follow the maintenance guidelines, but so much of that, historically, is guided, modified, and improved by experience from wear and tear from actual use.
- dralley 3y ago> slightly less capable What competitor is even close to "slightly less capable"? The main driver of the cost is maintaining stealth coatings. On that front it has no real competitors.
- actionfromafar 3y agoI guess it depends on how much one values stealth. I'm just an armchair-most-things, but it seems to me that there are many situations stealth doesn't matter as much as effective robot range, turn-around time and ease of logistics.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoI love to admire war machines on "hacker" "news" it is such an important part of our site's culture. Technology is always morally neutral, of course, even (or especially?) if it is explicitly designed to cause death and misery.
- ipaddr 3y agoWars are meant to end misery and suffering.
- lokar 3y agoThat is always the claim of one side of each war, more often both.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWars can be meant to end misery and suffering. Not always. And they always cause misery and suffering, even if they are just.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pjscott 3y agoThe US, and the allies to which it exports F-35s, are overwhelmingly a net force for peace in the world. There’s a reason why the phrase “Pax Americana” is so well-known. You can think of these as war machines, since they’re literally machines made for use in war — but you can also think of them as war prevention machines, causing would-be aggressors to think twice before, like, invading Singapore or some such unpleasantness.
- ein0p 3y ago>> force for peace The entire Middle East begs to differ.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
- leashless 3y agohttps://www.aspistrategist.org.au/jet-fighter-costs-a-complex-problem/ https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/jet-fighter-costs-a-comple... In 20 years they'll manufacture just one plane, and it'll cost a trillion dollars, if current trends continue to hold. Also it'll the weight of an aircraft carrier.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoThis Much was made of the fact that, once modern western equipment arrives in UK, it will wipe the floor with soviet union relics that serve in the Russian army. Instead, it has hardly made a difference. The difference in price, even of simple non-mobile artillery pieces, is huge. Because they are so expensive, we cannot field as much equipment, and we've been telling ourselves that our modern equipment is worth multiple unit of the other side. Now I am starting to think we've just been deluding ourselves, and in reality we are just outgunned and the military complex is a huge graft.
- credit_guy 3y agoIn this context, by UK do you mean Ukraine? Because I can't see how the United Kingdom would make sense. Anyway, assuming it was Ukraine, then, yes, the western equipment made a lot of difference. In the first months of the war it was the Javelins, and the NLAWs. Then it was the HIMARS. Then the anti-air defenses, like the Patriot. All these things absolutely made a difference. The problem is that there was not more of those. But that was by design. You could say that not in a thousand years would Putin actually use nukes. But I bet you said he would not invade Ukraine until the day he did. Right now Ukraine is still standing, and Putin did not use nukes. It could be better, but it could be worse, much worse.
- leashless 3y agoLet us not forget: before this war, Russians went on holiday in Odesa. Ukrainians went on holiday in St. Petersburg. It's not a genocidal war of annihilation. It's not WW2 redux. It's not Holodomor 2.0. I do not think everybody realises how low the stakes of this conflict really are.
- lijok 3y agoCan someone explain what purpose a manned fighter jet serves in the age of UCAV? I understand with the F35 specifically it’s turned into a jobs programme, but why not turn it unmanned?
- roenxi 3y agoLogically, if it was unmanned, wouldn't that result in less jobs?
- CobaltFire 3y agoPart of the design brief for the F-35 is to be a battlefield C&C for drones in the future. So the pilot would be the controlling authority in the battle space for allowing weapons free, etc. No idea if that will come true, but it was absolutely one capability briefed. I'm not a project participant, but I was peripheral both during development and early operational stages .
- dylan604 3y agoWhy? We already have AWACS that essentially serves as C&C for fighter squadrons. Although, I could see how it might proceed as you suggest. Allow AWACS to direct squadrons into areas of interest and keep the bigger picture in mind while allowing the squadron level pilots to C&C the drones and focus on the details of which targets to engage. All from a nicely air conditioned "cockpit" from Sunnyvale
- nradov 3y agoThe UCAVs produced under the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (aka "loyal wingman") program will eventually be controllable from a variety of manned platforms including E-2/E-3/E-7 AWACS aircraft. But in a potential conflict with China they will be forced to hang back out of easy data link range due to the escalating AAM threat. https://www.twz.com/massive-pl-17-air-to-air-missile-seen-on-chinese-j-16-fighters https://www.twz.com/massive-pl-17-air-to-air-missile-seen-on... Remote piloting generally isn't a viable approach for near-peer conflicts. The communication links are too vulnerable, and even when they're working the latency is too high.
- MR4D 3y agoThe future is missiles, drones, and the F-35.
- gobins 3y agoI wonder how F-35 compares to J-35 in terms of stealth. From the new generation of fighter jets coming out, looks like all the armaments are being loaded in internal bays. Interesting that all these designs are starting to converge and look very similar.
- Perceval 3y agoNothing out there from foreign competitors compares to the F-35. And keep in mind that the F-35 isn't nearly as good as the F-22, B-2, or B-21. You'll have to keep your eyes out for the forthcoming 6th Gen fighter (literally, because you really won't see that one on radar).
- sharts 3y agoWho cares. Wasteful spending. Why isn’t it electric and solar?
- 1letterunixname 3y ago[flagged]
- ADent 3y agoAnd yet they have not delivered once since last year. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2024/01/23/upgraded-f-35-deliveries-slipping-to-fall-2024-lockheed-says/ https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2024/01/23/upgraded-f-3...