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The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets that we can use to win wars. Similar to how NASA's purpose is not to mak

by fooker 6mo ago

The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets that we can use to win wars. Similar to how NASA's purpose is not to make large rockets that send things to orbit for cheap. It is to investigate new technologies (i.e. how do we control a thousand drones) and preserve domain knowledge in a large number of engineers spanning multiple generations. If all these engineers go work at $BIG_TECH optimizing ad revenue for watching short videos, we'll have to rediscover basics the next time. When we have to fight the next serious war, we are not going to primarily use F-35 jets built twenty years ago, it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. If it can not be made cheap enough, whatever contractors involved are going to be nationalized. All major wars between comparable powers were fought with technology hot off the assembly lines, not billion dollar prototype models developed twenty years ago to bomb caves in deserts. If you look at it from this angle, all the idiosyncrasies make sense. There's of course the inefficiency of defense contractors skimming off profits at multiple layers, but if you find a solution to that while preserving productivity, you'd win the economics nobel tomorrow.

ceejayoz 6mo ago
> When we have to fight the next serious war, we are not going to primarily use F-35 jets, it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. If it can not be made cheap enough, whatever contractors involved are going to be nationalized. That is, to some extent, what the F-35 is; the mass-produced plane that incorporates what we learned from the F-117 and F-22 and whatnot. We've already made 10x as many as the F-22's production run.
- fooker 6mo ago
  Mass produced means something very different when it comes to wars between comparable powers. There are barely more than a thousand F-35s, the number of US aircrafts used in WW2 was about 300,000. If China produces 100 times or 1000 times their current numbers (and they can), marginal differences in capability are not going to matter.
  - jandrewrogers 6mo ago
    Quantity has been replaced by precision. In WW2 the US would send a 1,000 bombers to hit a target and still miss. That's why they needed so many. Now a single attack jet can hit multiple targets with very high probability.
    - fooker 6mo ago
      Maybe you should read the article? Quantity is back in the game again thanks to drones, right now we would lose without escalating to a nuclear war.
      - jandrewrogers 6mo ago
        Cheap drones are extremely limited in the kinds of targets they can reach and damage while evading air defenses. I understand this domain well. Upgrading drones so that they have sufficient range and carry a sufficiently capable warhead and have a decent probability of surviving a modern air defense environment has been done many times by many countries. The price always comes in ~$1M/drone. It doesn't matter who builds it. Those economics get expensive fast for a weapon system you can't reuse. Much cheaper drones either have no useful range or are susceptible to even cheaper defenses; in either case they don't do any meaningful damage. That point on the price-performance curve wasn't picked at random by competent weapon designers. Even the Ukrainian FP-5 is ~$0.5M, and it is significantly less capable than some western weapons with a similar profile. The US has assumed drone swarm attacks would be a thing for decades and has both tested and fielded many systems purpose-built for those scenarios.
        fooker 6mo ago
        > The price always comes in ~$1M/drone. You're off by an order of magnitude. Russian jet powered versions of the Iranian drones cost less than 100k. Chinese ones reportedly are a third of the cost for the same capabilities, but are not being sold at scale.
      - angry_octet 6mo ago
wmf 6mo ago
The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets ... It is to investigate new technologies I thought the F-22 investigated the technologies and the F-35 is the mass-produced version. When we have to fight the next serious war ... it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. Not if every jet takes 20 years to develop. If it can not be made cheap enough, whatever contractors involved are going to be nationalized. Which would accomplish nothing since the rot is so deep.
- fooker 6mo ago
  > I thought the F-22 investigated the technologies and the F-35 is the mass-produced version. Sure, I'd think of it as a mass^2 produced version then ;) > Not if every jet takes 20 years to develop. Think of F-35 variants, not entirely new platforms. If I have to guess, one reduced to a barebones autonomous version built for the purpose to commanding drone swarms and dealing with incoming drone swarms.
- jandrewrogers 6mo ago
  The F-35 was designed to be a partially-nerfed export version of some of the capabilities in the F-22. It was anticipated that the large production rate would significantly reduce the unit costs, which seems to have panned out. They probably shouldn't have tried to produce three significantly different variations of the same design, since that added materially to the development cost. The 6th gen platforms appear to be coming in at significantly reduced cost relatively to what they are replacing, which was a major objective.

by fooker 6mo ago

ceejayoz 6mo ago

> When we have to fight the next serious war, we are not going to primarily use F-35 jets, it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. If it can not be made cheap enough, whatever contractors involved are going to be nationalized. That is, to some extent, what the F-35 is; the mass-produced plane that incorporates what we learned from the F-117 and F-22 and whatnot. We've already made 10x as many as the F-22's production run.

fooker 6mo ago
Mass produced means something very different when it comes to wars between comparable powers. There are barely more than a thousand F-35s, the number of US aircrafts used in WW2 was about 300,000. If China produces 100 times or 1000 times their current numbers (and they can), marginal differences in capability are not going to matter.
- jandrewrogers 6mo ago
  Quantity has been replaced by precision. In WW2 the US would send a 1,000 bombers to hit a target and still miss. That's why they needed so many. Now a single attack jet can hit multiple targets with very high probability.
  - fooker 6mo ago
    Maybe you should read the article? Quantity is back in the game again thanks to drones, right now we would lose without escalating to a nuclear war.
    - jandrewrogers 6mo ago
      Cheap drones are extremely limited in the kinds of targets they can reach and damage while evading air defenses. I understand this domain well. Upgrading drones so that they have sufficient range and carry a sufficiently capable warhead and have a decent probability of surviving a modern air defense environment has been done many times by many countries. The price always comes in ~$1M/drone. It doesn't matter who builds it. Those economics get expensive fast for a weapon system you can't reuse. Much cheaper drones either have no useful range or are susceptible to even cheaper defenses; in either case they don't do any meaningful damage. That point on the price-performance curve wasn't picked at random by competent weapon designers. Even the Ukrainian FP-5 is ~$0.5M, and it is significantly less capable than some western weapons with a similar profile. The US has assumed drone swarm attacks would be a thing for decades and has both tested and fielded many systems purpose-built for those scenarios.
      - fooker 6mo ago
        > The price always comes in ~$1M/drone. You're off by an order of magnitude. Russian jet powered versions of the Iranian drones cost less than 100k. Chinese ones reportedly are a third of the cost for the same capabilities, but are not being sold at scale.
    - angry_octet 6mo ago

wmf 6mo ago

The primary purpose of something like the F-35 program is not producing a bunch of jets ... It is to investigate new technologies I thought the F-22 investigated the technologies and the F-35 is the mass-produced version. When we have to fight the next serious war ... it's going to be something built on a similar platform in larger numbers to specifically address challenges of that era. Not if every jet takes 20 years to develop. If it can not be made cheap enough, whatever contractors involved are going to be nationalized. Which would accomplish nothing since the rot is so deep.

fooker 6mo ago
> I thought the F-22 investigated the technologies and the F-35 is the mass-produced version. Sure, I'd think of it as a mass^2 produced version then ;) > Not if every jet takes 20 years to develop. Think of F-35 variants, not entirely new platforms. If I have to guess, one reduced to a barebones autonomous version built for the purpose to commanding drone swarms and dealing with incoming drone swarms.
jandrewrogers 6mo ago
The F-35 was designed to be a partially-nerfed export version of some of the capabilities in the F-22. It was anticipated that the large production rate would significantly reduce the unit costs, which seems to have panned out. They probably shouldn't have tried to produce three significantly different variations of the same design, since that added materially to the development cost. The 6th gen platforms appear to be coming in at significantly reduced cost relatively to what they are replacing, which was a major objective.