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My feeling is that the F-35 is "too big to fail". They needed to blame the pilot, and certainly didn't need anyone familiar with the defects of the plane in a p

My feeling is that the F-35 is "too big to fail". They needed to blame the pilot, and certainly didn't need anyone familiar with the defects of the plane in a prominent command or as a general. So they fire the guy, and promote someone else that can be relied on to say that the F-35 has no more defects than any other plane had at this point in the program, and we can trust the US military industrial complex to deliver the F-47 in a similar fashion. At the same time, you send a message: eject when your plane is misbehaving and you'll end your career. Sure, there's a risk that someone won't eject when they should, but there's also a chance that you'll be able to cover up another malfunction when the pilot nurses the plane back to base. Did Pizzo say anything disparaging about the F-35? I doubt it. But when you've got billions of dollars of revenue/potential embarrassment on the line, you don't take chances.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> My feeling is that the F-35 is "too big to fail" Allies cancelling orders may force Washington’s hand: the cost of additional jets, parts, et cerera skyrocket if spread over fewer planes.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  That is only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed, and the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. US has killed the allies trust. Had these two events not happened, and most likely sales would not have been cancelled regardless of the F-35 issues.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    > the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. Could you provide some references to this? A quick search only turned up denials that such a kill switch exists.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-reportedly-suspended-support-for-the-electronic-warfare-systems-installed-on-the-ukrainian-air-forces-f-16-fighter-jets/ https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor...
    - benterix 2y ago
      The name is imprecise and causes endless semantic discussions, what happened is lack of updates that render the aircraft vulnerable. Some will argue it's the same, some will disagree.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed Sure. My point is it does become small enough to fail if its effective price to taxpayers doubles due to allies cancelling orders. > remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets Source?
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-reportedly-suspended-support-for-the-electronic-warfare-systems-installed-on-the-ukrainian-air-forces-f-16-fighter-jets/ https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor... One of many.
  - daemoens 2y ago
    No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.
    - XorNot 2y ago
      Yeah this is both bad but also being heavily misreported: the US can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software effectively disables critical functionality which can effectively render a platform useless. Up till now, there was no demonstrated risk of this happening - but that's a broken trust which won't be repaired for generations, if ever.
      - guappa 2y ago
        > the US can't shutdown hardware remotely And you know this because you've personally audited those planes?
        XorNot 2y ago
        If people are going to declare there's definitely a kill switch, then the burdens on them to provide proof. The story being reported as a "kill switch" does not include this capability existing or being used.
        guappa 2y ago
        I think they're saying there might be one, and we no longer trust the USA to believe there isn't one (and I can't really understand why we ever did, USA has been an unreliable ally even before trump). You made the extraordinary claim that the USA has no kill switch. Where's the proof to your claim?
        randomcarbloke 2y ago
        What an absurd argument to justify the baseless idea. American-made systems are present in most western developed military hardware, there might be backdoors or killswitches in any of it.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    My tinfoil hat theory is perversely US probably wants LESS foreign F35 orders. US accounts for 80% of long term F35 procurement (~2500/3100). Capitalization / replacement of airframes across US forces is at attrocious levels. If anything US better off absorbing 100% of next 20 years of LH production, and get full F35 buy years earlier, i.e. by late 2030 instead of projected 2045s sharing with partners. Especially now LH seems to have finally sorted out Tech Refresh 3. US probably wants LH to focus on upgrading/delivering US airframes and get as much US airframes to TR3 and then block4 standards. IIRC airforce general said he would not want take pre TR3 F35s to Pacific fight. If US is serious about countering PRC in decade of concern, they need all the airframes.
    - pyrale 2y ago
      If we follow your logic, they would still want the orders ; they would simply look for ways to avoid fulfilling them.
      - maxglute 2y ago
        For a 1-2 years, maybe, as seen with JP, but for 10+ years? That's ~200+ airframes. LH already have TR3 backlogs, and TBH if you follow the LH TR / F35 SaaS drama (LH contract essentially held DoD hostage), I'm would not be surprised if DoD doesn't want to slap LH with less global orders so they can solely focus on US program.
- atmosx 2y ago
  A common misconception - often echoed on this site - is that NATO allies and the U.S. operate on equal terms. They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen. Even today, with all this talk around NATO, there’s a massive U.S. military presence at NATO bases across Europe. These forces are, in effect, under U.S. control, stationed in countries like Germany and Italy. And if Germany suddenly decided it wanted them gone - well, it’s not their call. TL;DR: Life on the empire’s periphery might be comfortable, but you don’t get to choose your enemies - and you still have to pay your dues, or else.
  - rat87 2y ago
    Those massively military bases exist to protect Europe. The countries can of course choose to tell soldiers to fuck off but now is not a particularly good time for that. The real danger is that Trump abandons our allies because a dictator flattered him
  - mcv 2y ago
    > They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen. How do you imagine that will work? The US may have to lower the price more than they can afford to. Some countries have already cancelled their F-35 orders. You can't force someone to buy what they don't want.
    - ggm 2y ago
      The implications are that non financial or indirect financial leverage would be used to make you "want" to complete purchase.
      - benterix 2y ago
        Well that period seems to be ending right in front of our eyes.
    - chgs 2y ago
      > You can't force someone to buy what they don't want. The opium wars would disagree
Aeolun 2y ago
It’s bizzare to think that high command in the US is that shortsighted.
- ARandomerDude 2y ago
  Defense companies with workers in congressional districts and bribe politicians – I mean, make campaign contributions in exchange for huge contracts. Congress oversees the military. The officers who don't help politicians get what they want don't get promoted. The officers who do, get rank, status, book deals, and lucrative jobs at defense companies after they retire. It's disgusting but it's not that hard to figure out how it happens.
- atmosx 2y ago
  True. However, did you notice the emojis used in relation to the leaked Huthi attack? It’s difficult to place confidence in individuals wielding significant power when they conduct themselves like adolescents.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    I can hardly blame them for that when my own communication is full of emojis. I mean, I blame them for literally everything else, but not that.
  - gorgoiler 2y ago
    This doesn’t feel fair. The standards we have for how elected officials conduct themselves is very different from what we expect from non-political career civil servants, General Officers, and the like. At our most charitable, we ought to recognize that in a democracy elected officials are plucked from the ranks of the general public. The qualifications for office are that you are the most popular person in the room, not the smartest, or the most professional.
    - Propelloni 2y ago
      I agree on everything you wrote! However, I hope citizens vote for the persons they think are going to do the best job. Obviously, it is a gamble, to wit the current administration, but I'm sure, on election day, most voters of the USA thought that the current president would do the best job. Many learn now they were mistaken, but this happens. That's the beauty of democracy, we can vote the incompetents out.
pjmlp 2y ago
Ironically every time someone proudly assert the existence of F-35 C++ coding standard [0], I am not sure if they actually understand the impact. The software mess from F-35 would it be even worse without the standard, or has the existence of the standard hardly improved the coding practices as usually gets told. Not that the answer to this philosophical question solves the issues for everyone affected by the F-35 software problems. [0] - http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  One fun thing about “too big” projects like the F-35 is that the project management overheads cause a kind of recursive overhead, like the rocket equation, but applied to technical outcomes instead of orbital velocity. Any change isn’t “just” the change, it now has to got through review boards, subcontractors, liaisons, integration reviews, etc… The result is that the F-35 computers are being “upgraded” (lol) to the same compute power as a first-gen Apple Watch… starting this year and finishing who-knows-when. Meanwhile the F-16 which is “not as important” has already been upgraded with the same kind of chips as modern GPUs and has orders of magnitude more performance than the “flying computer” the the F-35 was supposed to be. Weep for the poor C++ developers forced to shoehorn modern software into a computer that isn’t yet as powerful as a battery-powered consumer device most people have upgraded three times already.
  - FpUser 2y ago
    >"Weep for the poor C++ developers forced to shoehorn modern software into a computer that isn’t yet as powerful as a battery-powered consumer device most people have upgraded three times already." You might be surprised by what kind of functionality can be squeezed out of "weak" CPU when programmers know how to work on hardware with limited resources.
    - jiggawatts 2y ago
      Having written 4KB assembly demos for BBS sites back in the 80s and 90s, I would not be surprised at all. What does surprise me is a $110M plane that is being upgraded at the low-low-cost of a mere $300K each to this: https://www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/high-performance-integrated-core-processor-icp https://www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/high-performance-i... Yes, that "High-Performance Integrated Core Processor" is pulling 4.5 kW to produce as much computer power as a typical PC in the late 1990s!
stevage 2y ago
I'm always surprised about this line of thinking. Surely an active duty pilot is going to keep his mouth shut, whereas as we see, as a retired one he's happy to talk to the papers.
- dcow 2y ago
  On top of that, the person I want flying more of the same plane is one who’s experienced piloting it during major failure conditions. Instead they retire the experienced guy and put some other fresh hotshot in the seat.
  - NikkiA 2y ago
    But he made the gold turkey look bad.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
The F-35 was designed for export. The F-22 wasn’t and I suspect the F-47 is not either. There are different objectives at work here. The F-35 is technically capable but even that is subject to export controls despite being purpose-built for export. A lot of European companies have a large stake in the success of the F-35 in its various versions because they are building it for European customers.
- ashoeafoot 2y ago
  What european companies built the F35? Especially what part of the software is from Europe ?
  - blobbers 2y ago
    BAE systems is responsible for about 15% of production, things from rear fuselage etc. Rolls-Royce builds the LiftSystem for the F-35B variant. Martin-Baker builds the ejection seats for all F-35s. Leonardo builds the wing sets. Rheinmetall is planning to build fuselage for a large number. Kongsberg developed the Joint Strike Missile meant to be carried inside the fuselage to maintain stealth profile while engaging targets at long ranges.
- blobbers 2y ago
  This is a really interesting 'first thought'. "Designed for export" Not the typical mindset of someone wanting true superiority through military power. Makes you think twice. The F35 is expensive, keeps the defense apparatus going, and ultimately gets paid for by other countries. F22 barely reached production, so F47 will be interesting.
  - jandrewrogers 2y ago
    The F-35 is cheap for what it is capable of. F-22 and F-47 are immaterial. And the export F-35 is nerfed to some extent. The unfortunate reality, which the US is exploiting, is that Europe would struggle to produce an equivalent of the nerfed F-35, never mind one that hadn’t been nerfed. As a consequence, the US can sell nerfed F-35s all day. There aren’t many alternatives currently. 4.5 gen aircraft aren’t competitive in a serious conflict and everyone knows it. Even the US has to contend with that reality.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> My feeling is that the F-35 is "too big to fail" Allies cancelling orders may force Washington’s hand: the cost of additional jets, parts, et cerera skyrocket if spread over fewer planes.

pjmlp 2y ago
That is only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed, and the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. US has killed the allies trust. Had these two events not happened, and most likely sales would not have been cancelled regardless of the F-35 issues.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > the remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets. Could you provide some references to this? A quick search only turned up denials that such a kill switch exists.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-reportedly-suspended-support-for-the-electronic-warfare-systems-installed-on-the-ukrainian-air-forces-f-16-fighter-jets/ https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor...
  - benterix 2y ago
    The name is imprecise and causes endless semantic discussions, what happened is lack of updates that render the aircraft vulnerable. Some will argue it's the same, some will disagree.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > only happening thanks to the way US view on the world has changed Sure. My point is it does become small enough to fail if its effective price to taxpayers doubles due to allies cancelling orders. > remote kill switch used against Ukrainian jets Source?
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-reportedly-suspended-support-for-the-electronic-warfare-systems-installed-on-the-ukrainian-air-forces-f-16-fighter-jets/ https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2025/03/10/the-u-s-has-repor... One of many.
- daemoens 2y ago
  No such kill switch exists, the US stopped providing electronic warfare intelligence that made the jets more survivable. The stoppage of all military aid was significantly more damaging.
  - XorNot 2y ago
    Yeah this is both bad but also being heavily misreported: the US can't shutdown hardware remotely, but loss of access to proprietary software effectively disables critical functionality which can effectively render a platform useless. Up till now, there was no demonstrated risk of this happening - but that's a broken trust which won't be repaired for generations, if ever.
    - guappa 2y ago
      > the US can't shutdown hardware remotely And you know this because you've personally audited those planes?
      - XorNot 2y ago
        If people are going to declare there's definitely a kill switch, then the burdens on them to provide proof. The story being reported as a "kill switch" does not include this capability existing or being used.
        guappa 2y ago
        I think they're saying there might be one, and we no longer trust the USA to believe there isn't one (and I can't really understand why we ever did, USA has been an unreliable ally even before trump). You made the extraordinary claim that the USA has no kill switch. Where's the proof to your claim?
        randomcarbloke 2y ago
        What an absurd argument to justify the baseless idea. American-made systems are present in most western developed military hardware, there might be backdoors or killswitches in any of it.
- maxglute 2y ago
  My tinfoil hat theory is perversely US probably wants LESS foreign F35 orders. US accounts for 80% of long term F35 procurement (~2500/3100). Capitalization / replacement of airframes across US forces is at attrocious levels. If anything US better off absorbing 100% of next 20 years of LH production, and get full F35 buy years earlier, i.e. by late 2030 instead of projected 2045s sharing with partners. Especially now LH seems to have finally sorted out Tech Refresh 3. US probably wants LH to focus on upgrading/delivering US airframes and get as much US airframes to TR3 and then block4 standards. IIRC airforce general said he would not want take pre TR3 F35s to Pacific fight. If US is serious about countering PRC in decade of concern, they need all the airframes.
  - pyrale 2y ago
    If we follow your logic, they would still want the orders ; they would simply look for ways to avoid fulfilling them.
    - maxglute 2y ago
      For a 1-2 years, maybe, as seen with JP, but for 10+ years? That's ~200+ airframes. LH already have TR3 backlogs, and TBH if you follow the LH TR / F35 SaaS drama (LH contract essentially held DoD hostage), I'm would not be surprised if DoD doesn't want to slap LH with less global orders so they can solely focus on US program.
atmosx 2y ago
A common misconception - often echoed on this site - is that NATO allies and the U.S. operate on equal terms. They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen. Even today, with all this talk around NATO, there’s a massive U.S. military presence at NATO bases across Europe. These forces are, in effect, under U.S. control, stationed in countries like Germany and Italy. And if Germany suddenly decided it wanted them gone - well, it’s not their call. TL;DR: Life on the empire’s periphery might be comfortable, but you don’t get to choose your enemies - and you still have to pay your dues, or else.
- rat87 2y ago
  Those massively military bases exist to protect Europe. The countries can of course choose to tell soldiers to fuck off but now is not a particularly good time for that. The real danger is that Trump abandons our allies because a dictator flattered him
- mcv 2y ago
  > They don’t. If the U.S. wants to sell 100 F-35s to European nations, it will happen. How do you imagine that will work? The US may have to lower the price more than they can afford to. Some countries have already cancelled their F-35 orders. You can't force someone to buy what they don't want.
  - ggm 2y ago
    The implications are that non financial or indirect financial leverage would be used to make you "want" to complete purchase.
    - benterix 2y ago
      Well that period seems to be ending right in front of our eyes.
  - chgs 2y ago
    > You can't force someone to buy what they don't want. The opium wars would disagree

Aeolun 2y ago

It’s bizzare to think that high command in the US is that shortsighted.

ARandomerDude 2y ago
Defense companies with workers in congressional districts and bribe politicians – I mean, make campaign contributions in exchange for huge contracts. Congress oversees the military. The officers who don't help politicians get what they want don't get promoted. The officers who do, get rank, status, book deals, and lucrative jobs at defense companies after they retire. It's disgusting but it's not that hard to figure out how it happens.
atmosx 2y ago
True. However, did you notice the emojis used in relation to the leaked Huthi attack? It’s difficult to place confidence in individuals wielding significant power when they conduct themselves like adolescents.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  I can hardly blame them for that when my own communication is full of emojis. I mean, I blame them for literally everything else, but not that.
- gorgoiler 2y ago
  This doesn’t feel fair. The standards we have for how elected officials conduct themselves is very different from what we expect from non-political career civil servants, General Officers, and the like. At our most charitable, we ought to recognize that in a democracy elected officials are plucked from the ranks of the general public. The qualifications for office are that you are the most popular person in the room, not the smartest, or the most professional.
  - Propelloni 2y ago
    I agree on everything you wrote! However, I hope citizens vote for the persons they think are going to do the best job. Obviously, it is a gamble, to wit the current administration, but I'm sure, on election day, most voters of the USA thought that the current president would do the best job. Many learn now they were mistaken, but this happens. That's the beauty of democracy, we can vote the incompetents out.

pjmlp 2y ago

Ironically every time someone proudly assert the existence of F-35 C++ coding standard [0], I am not sure if they actually understand the impact. The software mess from F-35 would it be even worse without the standard, or has the existence of the standard hardly improved the coding practices as usually gets told. Not that the answer to this philosophical question solves the issues for everyone affected by the F-35 software problems. [0] - http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf

jiggawatts 2y ago
One fun thing about “too big” projects like the F-35 is that the project management overheads cause a kind of recursive overhead, like the rocket equation, but applied to technical outcomes instead of orbital velocity. Any change isn’t “just” the change, it now has to got through review boards, subcontractors, liaisons, integration reviews, etc… The result is that the F-35 computers are being “upgraded” (lol) to the same compute power as a first-gen Apple Watch… starting this year and finishing who-knows-when. Meanwhile the F-16 which is “not as important” has already been upgraded with the same kind of chips as modern GPUs and has orders of magnitude more performance than the “flying computer” the the F-35 was supposed to be. Weep for the poor C++ developers forced to shoehorn modern software into a computer that isn’t yet as powerful as a battery-powered consumer device most people have upgraded three times already.
- FpUser 2y ago
  >"Weep for the poor C++ developers forced to shoehorn modern software into a computer that isn’t yet as powerful as a battery-powered consumer device most people have upgraded three times already." You might be surprised by what kind of functionality can be squeezed out of "weak" CPU when programmers know how to work on hardware with limited resources.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Having written 4KB assembly demos for BBS sites back in the 80s and 90s, I would not be surprised at all. What does surprise me is a $110M plane that is being upgraded at the low-low-cost of a mere $300K each to this: https://www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/high-performance-integrated-core-processor-icp https://www.l3harris.com/all-capabilities/high-performance-i... Yes, that "High-Performance Integrated Core Processor" is pulling 4.5 kW to produce as much computer power as a typical PC in the late 1990s!

stevage 2y ago

I'm always surprised about this line of thinking. Surely an active duty pilot is going to keep his mouth shut, whereas as we see, as a retired one he's happy to talk to the papers.

dcow 2y ago
On top of that, the person I want flying more of the same plane is one who’s experienced piloting it during major failure conditions. Instead they retire the experienced guy and put some other fresh hotshot in the seat.
- NikkiA 2y ago
  But he made the gold turkey look bad.

jandrewrogers 2y ago

The F-35 was designed for export. The F-22 wasn’t and I suspect the F-47 is not either. There are different objectives at work here. The F-35 is technically capable but even that is subject to export controls despite being purpose-built for export. A lot of European companies have a large stake in the success of the F-35 in its various versions because they are building it for European customers.

ashoeafoot 2y ago
What european companies built the F35? Especially what part of the software is from Europe ?
- blobbers 2y ago
  BAE systems is responsible for about 15% of production, things from rear fuselage etc. Rolls-Royce builds the LiftSystem for the F-35B variant. Martin-Baker builds the ejection seats for all F-35s. Leonardo builds the wing sets. Rheinmetall is planning to build fuselage for a large number. Kongsberg developed the Joint Strike Missile meant to be carried inside the fuselage to maintain stealth profile while engaging targets at long ranges.
blobbers 2y ago
This is a really interesting 'first thought'. "Designed for export" Not the typical mindset of someone wanting true superiority through military power. Makes you think twice. The F35 is expensive, keeps the defense apparatus going, and ultimately gets paid for by other countries. F22 barely reached production, so F47 will be interesting.
- jandrewrogers 2y ago
  The F-35 is cheap for what it is capable of. F-22 and F-47 are immaterial. And the export F-35 is nerfed to some extent. The unfortunate reality, which the US is exploiting, is that Europe would struggle to produce an equivalent of the nerfed F-35, never mind one that hadn’t been nerfed. As a consequence, the US can sell nerfed F-35s all day. There aren’t many alternatives currently. 4.5 gen aircraft aren’t competitive in a serious conflict and everyone knows it. Even the US has to contend with that reality.