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Pierre Sprey (F-16's designer) on the F-35 "The F-35 was born of an exceptionally dumb piece of airforce PR spin" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw ht

• sz4kerto 12y ago
  Good interview. Problems he's mentioning is basically true for any complex engineering problem: - stakeholders with different agendas building a common product does not work well - one size does not fit all Same is true for software, etc.
  • mercurial 12y ago
    Also known as "design by committee".
• coldcode 12y ago
  He's right about so many things. Especially what is the F-35 good at: "spending money". The whole idea of multi service multi mission fighters is laughable, like saying you only need one programming language to write everything imaginable. Having worked on the F-16 I still think it's an amazing plane with a great track record of doing exactly what it was designed to do.
• commandar 12y ago
  A lot of what's made the F-35 such a disaster is the Marines' obsession with VTOL/STOVL capability. That requirement and the desire for commonality between the A/B/C models meant that all F-35s had to be designed around a fuselage wide enough to accommodate the lifting fan of the F-35B. That had a direct impact on the reduced maneuverability of the aircraft, pilot visibility, etc. War is Boring over at Medium has a lot of great coverage of the F-35 program and all the huge missteps and disasters along the way. https://medium.com/war-is-boring https://medium.com/war-is-boring (When I've recommended them before, I've had someone point out that their coverage is quite biased against the F-35. This is true. That bias does not mean, however, that they're wrong).