SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The US Air Force's 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona today cancelled "local flying operations" for F-35A fighters after five incidents in which pilots "experienced hypoxia-like symptoms," an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement. Hypoxia is a deficiency in oxygen reaching the body through the circulatory system.
"In order to synchronize operations and maintenance efforts toward safe flying operations we have cancelled local F-35A flying," said 56th Fighter Wing commander Brigadier General Brook Leonard. "The Air Force takes these physiological incidents seriously, and our focus is on the safety and well-being of our pilots. We are taking the necessary steps to find the root cause of these incidents."
The cancellation of F-35A operations is currently restricted to Luke Air Force Base, the primary pilot training base for the F-35A. The Air Force also trains F-35A pilots at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The 56th Fighter Wing's squadrons at Luke train pilots from the US Air Force as well as from other nations buying the F-35A, including Norway, Italy, and Australia. All the pilots training at Luke will be briefed on the incidents and on the procedures the pilots affected used to successfully restore oxygen and land the aircraft safely, a 56th Fighter Wing spokesperson said. The 56th's Air Operations Group will also hold a forum with pilots to discuss their concerns.
Source: ArsTechnica
According to Wikipedia:
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole fighters. The fifth-generation combat aircraft is designed to perform ground attack and air defense missions. It has three main models: the F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant, the F-35B short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) variant, and the F-35C carrier-based Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) variant. On 31 July 2015, the United States Marines declared ready for deployment the first squadron of F-35B fighters after intensive testing. On 2 August 2016, the U.S. Air Force declared its first squadron of F-35A fighters combat-ready.
The F-35 development program has been plagued with cost overruns and delays. Current estimated costs per unit vary from $95m for the F35-A to $120m for the F35-B and F35-C.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:00PM (15 children)
I mean, if they can't make systems work properly for $100 million per unit, you know these things are lemons.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Monday June 12 2017, @09:24PM (13 children)
Cost is also a strategic flaw of the F-35. It's so costly to operate that pilots will necessarily receive less in-air training hours than other aircraft, and other country's pilots. They'll be less experienced, and less competitive. And simulator time is not a substitute for the real thing.
We probably would have been better off doing another round of upgrades to the F-15/16/18 and A-10.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday June 12 2017, @09:56PM (3 children)
Yeah, but on the upside, the ridiculous cost ensures that the US government will continue to transfer ungodly sums of money from the public treasury to Lockheed Martin and its subsidiaries. And that was the whole point of the exercise.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:41AM (1 child)
100 $100M planes or 1000 $10M planes the profits the same but pilot survival is higher in the latter.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:39AM
Your math is a little bit to simple. You have to factor in *WHO* gets the money, and how much they get. The F35 has it's very own system of graft and corruption, and going back to the older, more proven aircraft would have cut some important people out of the loop. It's easy to hide a lot of money laundering in a newer program, where you can claim research and development. It's a lot tougher to launder money in an older, established system where everyone has a very good idea what the real costs are.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday June 13 2017, @05:12AM
Yep, and that's why all military procurement is done in two phases, "it's too early to tell" and "it's too late to stop".
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @10:15PM (8 children)
That's weird; one of the big arguments I've seen when people defend the F-35 is that the maintenance costs are a fraction of those for older jets (just like modern cars need a fraction of the maintenance of 70s cars). Of course, the up-front cost is higher, but maintenance costs and downtime are big factors for the military, and supposedly the F-35 excels here.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Monday June 12 2017, @10:23PM (6 children)
Cost per hour of operation is what counts.
The Air Force generals are showing their financial illiteracy by attempting to kill the A10. The F35 is so expensive to operate [businessinsider.com] that, by using the A10 when they can, the air force would be able to procure and have available for active use more F35s. Instead, these generals want to kill the A10, and fly the wings off the F35 and F22 fleet at much higher cost.
The F35 is only cheap when compared to the F22.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @10:38PM (2 children)
A couple of problems here:
1) The F-35 is cheaper per flight-hour than the V-22 (according to your link), as well as the B-2, so it's not only cheap compared to the F-22. Of course, it really isn't meant for the same kinds of missions as those.
2) This article doesn't show the flight-hour costs of the F-15, F-16, or F-18. The F-35 is supposed to eventually replace those planes too, not just the A-10.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:47AM (1 child)
I'm not so sure about all those claims for cost per hour. Let's consider automobiles for a minute. A new car generally runs pretty cheaply, because it needs little to no maintenance. Assuming you pay cash, you have a big payment upfront, then you drive for two to four years, quite cheaply. When you get tired of your car, you sell it, and the aging vehicle becomes another person's headache. That car looks great to you, because it ran well, it ran cheaply. The new owner, however, has bought an aging vehicle, which is going to require more and more maintenance as time goes on. The car looks less great to him, because it is more costly to operate. He drives it for a couple years, and sells it - and that new owner can look forward to increased maintenance costs.
Back to the aircraft. Are they comparing the costs per hour for NEW F-15's, or for the aged relics already in service? Aircraft with already stressed frames, and dozens of repairs, some of which may be merely "adequate"? Aircraft with obsolete and/or worn out electronic components, maybe?
Had the military ordered NEW F-16, A-10, and F-18 craft be built, the equation would probably look a lot different.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 13 2017, @04:50AM
That's a good question, but aircraft, even brand-new ones, require a significant amount of maintenance, and aren't really engineered like cars are to be mostly maintenance-free. After all, when an aircraft has a mechanical failure, that frequently means a crash. So they have to get various things done at certain hour-intervals, and then a full overhaul at some fixed point. With cars, they just seal everything up so that regular lubrication isn't needed (I mean the bearings/suspension here), and then you just replace it whenever it goes bad, which these days is typically beyond 100k miles, and you drive it until something breaks in the engine.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @10:42PM (2 children)
Here's another article [time.com] from 2013 showing the flight-hour costs of many more AF planes. Looks like the F-35 is cheaper than the F-15, but not the F-16. The F-18 isn't listed here (it's not Air Force) but a google search comes up with around $25k.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Monday June 12 2017, @10:58PM (1 child)
All those numbers do is support my premise that, by flying the A10 instead of the F35 for missions where the A10 is suitable, more A35 can eventually be fielded should the time come that we need to field F35s.
I also think that you have to take the F35 numbers with a very large pinch of salt. I suspect that, once actually deployed in significant numbers and any fudging of the numbers become more difficult, the per-hour flight costs may increase, although I will concede that a single engine design may help to contain costs in comparison to a twin-engine design.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:04AM
You have entirely missed what the metaphor is saying.
(Where I'm from, we say "with a grain of salt", which makes the point more clearly.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:03AM
I'm not an accountant or actuary, but I think replacing pilots who suffocate is probably one of the more expensive parts of an F-35.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:40PM
One of the arguments about why the '35 is so tricky is because in theory the Air Force has to gamble a bit to stay ahead of the competition (enemies). If you use "safe" choices, you won't be ahead of the competition. New fighter planes have often had kinks that took time to iron out. Too little gambling and you are behind the curve, too much and you have a risky or useless plane. Even if you target a middle ground, you sometimes get it wrong: nobody has a perfect crystal ball.
Vietnam-era jets were designed with the assumption that straight-on speed, guided missiles, and powerful radar would reduce the need for dog-fights and so were not well-suited for dog-fights. Unfortunately, the Ruskies eventually found tactics to force them into dog-fights, putting the US in a bind for a while. (In part because guided missiles were not very reliable yet.)
The WW2 p-38 was potentially so fast for its time that they were hesitant to test scale-models at full speed in wind-tunnels because the voltage needed to emulate full speed broke the wind-tunnels, which were in short supply during the war. Thus, it took a while to tune them to take full advantage of their speed.