Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 29 2018, @01:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the flying-money-pit dept.

Testing Director says the expensive F-35s are not combat-ready, unreliable, and components need redesign

Overall fleet-wide monthly availability rates remain around 50 percent, a condition that has existed with no significant improvement since October 2014, despite the increasing number of new aircraft. One notable trend is an increase in the percentage of the fleet that cannot fly while awaiting replacement parts – indicated by the Not Mission Capable due to Supply rate.

[...] Total acquisition costs for Lockheed Martin Corp.'s next-generation fighter may rise about 7 percent to $406.5 billion, according to figures in a document known as a Selected Acquisition Report. That's a reversal after several years of estimates that had declined to $379 billion recently from a previous high of $398.5 billion in early 2014.

$122 billion has been spent on the F35 program up until the end of 2017. $10-15 billion will be spent each year through 2022. This is detailed in a 100 page F-35 spending summary report.

FY17 DOD PROGRAMS: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

Related: The F-35 Fighter Plane Is Even More of a Mess Than You Thought
The F-35: A Gold-Plated Turkey
Flawed and Potentially Deadly F-35 Fighters Won't be Ready Before 2019
Lockheed Martin Negotiating $37 Billion F-35 Deal
Does China's J-20 Rival Other Stealth Fighters?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by stormreaver on Monday January 29 2018, @01:59PM (10 children)

    by stormreaver (5101) on Monday January 29 2018, @01:59PM (#629801)

    If the U.S. wants strategic air superiority, we need to scrap the F35 program here at home, and gift the entire fleet to China and/or Russia. We would immediately cripple their entire air defense program.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Informative=1, Funny=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 29 2018, @05:07PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 29 2018, @05:07PM (#629877) Journal
    But it wouldn't be very stealthy.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday January 29 2018, @05:25PM (8 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday January 29 2018, @05:25PM (#629888)

    We can also throw in the F22s, which are so expensive we can't use them for anything risky (and they have no actual role, given we currently don't need air superiority), so fragile and hard to maintain they can't go to many bases, and have such a short range they're useless against the few real enemies who could be a future challenge.
    At that flight-hour cost, that'd be the last straw.

    I can't wait until we have the full cost of the new bomber, so that we may marvel at the trifecta of useless shiny USAF toys, while drones do the actual "work" (terrorist generator, that it).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @08:20PM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @08:20PM (#630005)

      There are plenty of reasons to want you to think the F-22 is a failure. The military doesn't want foes to know how good it is. The democrats, particularly Obama, weren't about to appreciate a plane being built in Alabama, a red state that is useless to them. Other defense contractors, the ones that didn't get the F-22 contract, would prefer to move on to a new project that they might win the contract for. People who hate America will of course dislike any American fighter... say, is there a modern American fighter that you would enthusiastically support?

      What we really ought to do is a "B" version of the plane. The F-22 is generally the best fighter in the world, but it is missing 2 features found on the F-35. The first is helmet-based cuing. This lets the pilot direct the missile to make an immediate turn right after launch, based on the pilot's head angle. The second is new-style air intakes, allowing for supersonic flight without moving parts or a gap around the intake. You can recognize these on the F-35 and on some Chinese jets by the lump on the body that occurs right in front of the intake. The older intakes instead have a gap between the intake and the body.

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday January 29 2018, @09:50PM (4 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Monday January 29 2018, @09:50PM (#630048)

        > The military doesn't want foes to know how good it is.

        Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you KEEP IT A SECRET! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?

        As for the rest, read the history of the plane a bit. Start at Wikipedia. Even there, you will learn a few things.
        And ...

        > People who hate America will of course dislike any American fighter...

        Not even remotely close to starting a maneuver that would eventually lead to potentially approaching a semblance of truth.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @12:30AM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @12:30AM (#630119)

          I assume you don't want the F-22 despite the imperfections. OK, what do you think we should buy lots of?

          a. F-35
          b. F-15 "Silent Eagle"
          c. F/A-18D and F/A-18E
          d. F-23

          If there isn't one you'd like to get at least a few thousand of, then despite your protest you clearly are uninterested in America. You'd rather have Russia and China running the world unchallenged. You'd rather not be able to do anything about stuff like ISIS or the invasion of Kuwait. You don't even want to defend our territory.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @01:33AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @01:33AM (#630134)

            you clearly are uninterested in America

            You aren't describing "defense".
            You're describing AGGRESSION.
            (If the Air Farce is about "defense", why weren't the airliners on 9/11 intercepted?)

            You'd rather have Russia and China running the world unchallenged

            What flavor is that kool aid you drank?
            You'd have to add together what the next 11 countries spend on their militaries to equal what USA.gov spends on its.

            Military procurement is all about further enriching the 1 Percent and that has a really lousy fiscal multiplier effect.

            USA has 900 military bases in 130 foreign countries.
            How do you feel about another nation having military bases in USA?
            Again, what USA.mil does is AGGRESSION.
            Dial back on that and THAT is how you get a safer world.

            The reason militaries exist is to loot other countries.

            ISIS

            The countries where they are have national sovereignty.
            USA breaching those borders to preemptively murder civilians there is counter to international law.
            Again, think of some other country doing that to USA.

            The standard practice for dealing with lawbreakers is extradition.
            Using the military to do "law enforcement" is 11 kinds of wrong.

            the invasion of Kuwait

            You should learn a little history.
            USA.gov gave Iraq permission to do that (having already supplied Saddam with weapons), then changed its mind.
            Your gov't is made up of 2-faced sons of bitches.

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 30 2018, @01:34AM (1 child)

            by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 30 2018, @01:34AM (#630135)

            Interesting attitude...

            The F-22 was designed for a dogfighting war that's not about to happen. It's the best thing by so much margin it hasn't had anything to do. Dropping a few bombs on Syria doesn't count, an F-15 or 16 could have done the same job cheaper. Now, the Chinese and Russians are developing new fighters which the F-22 will never fight directly, but against which it is a deterrent. If the F22 was exported to other countries, it would potentially get to stretch its legs one day. As a US fighter, it serves the same purpose as a nuke: don't mess with the place which has one. But hey, would you mess with the US without it? Their range, price, and maintenance logistics means they just don't fit in an offensive scenario.

            The F-35 is needed, because the F16/15/18 have their limits, being airframes designed before computers became central to the job.
            The two main design flaws of the F35 are known (besides the cost/procurement):
              - Stealth requirement, which may not be useful, added serious design constraints. Big opponents can likely see through stealth, while little guys are not a threat. In most deployments for the lifespan of that plane, stealth will be irrelevant.
              - USMC STOVL requirement hurt the overall performance, even in non-STOVL variants
            It's a decent bird, but a 21st century version of the F16 (or F15/18, if forced by carriers, but they now seem ok with single engine), not burdened by those two requirements, would be equally as useful, have better overall specs, and likely a much better price and availability.
            Look at Eurofighter and Rafale, both designed a while back without those two constraints (they are only moderately stealthy). Try to imagine what the US could have come up with given the budget gap.

            > then despite your protest you clearly are uninterested in America.
            > You'd rather have Russia and China running the world unchallenged. You'd rather not be able
            > to do anything about stuff like ISIS or the invasion of Kuwait. You don't even want to defend our territory.

            How many F35 in Kuwait? How many F22 against ISIS? Are you going Poe's Law?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @03:49AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @03:49AM (#630167)

              We often fail at secrecy. Consider what the Soviets did with tanks. Crews trained with older tanks. The newer ones were secret. When it came time for combat, the crews were given the new tanks and a day to familiarize themselves with the differences.

              The F-22 wasn't sold outside the USA. That needs to be the standard for our best equipment.

              It is foolish to risk losing our best equipment over enemy territory. In the conflict in the remains of Yugoslavia, we lost an F-117. It was promptly sold to China. The same happened with a stealth helicopter in the Osama raid.

              Stealth is not a boolean. Everybody can see through stealth if they have a huge high-power antenna running at a relatively low frequency, but that kind of equipment doesn't fit in a small-diameter missile seeker. Getting a brief detection is not the same as continuous tracking.

              Kuwait was done with the high-end technology of the day. The F-16 and F-15 used in that war can be considered equal to the F-35 and F-22 in a war that happens within the next decade or two. We didn't fight Kuwait with the P-51. We need to prepare for wars of the future. If we stick with the F-16 and F-15, it'd be like bringing a P-51 to the fight in Iraq.

              You say "The F-22 was designed for a dogfighting war that's not about to happen." Why? Is such a war unthinkable, maybe like WWII was unthinkable in the 1930s? (it being so terrible that we can't consider the possibility) Failure to prepare for wars of the future means you lose. Note that you can sometimes win or lose without fighting; the behavior of nations is affected by perceived ability to fight a war.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @12:53AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @12:53AM (#630127)

        Red state: Yes
        Alabama: NO

        The F-22 is assembled at Lockheed Martin's plant in Marietta, Georgia.
        (It was developed in Palmdale, California AKA Los Angeles County.)

        Production of F-22s was halted at 187 copies.

        ...and the aerospace that's in Alabama is in Huntsville (rockets).

        ought to do [...] a "B" version

        A proposed F-22B two-seat variant was canceled in 1996.
        There was an FB-22 (fighter-bomber) proposed and that was canceled in 2006.

        ...and we've noted before that plastic airplanes are hangar queens.
        The F-35: A Gold-Plated Turkey [soylentnews.org]
        The example given was that if a fuse blows, you have to cut a hole in the aircraft, replace the fuse, use nasty chemicals to patch the hole, and wait days for the glue to cure.

        ...and older, cheaper, longer-wavelength radar picks up "stealth" aircraft anyway.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @03:54AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @03:54AM (#630169)

          You can't put a longer-wavelength radar into the seeker of a small-diameter missile. You mostly can't even fit it into a fighter plane. Long wavelengths require physically large antennas.

          Brief detection of a stealth aircraft is different from continuous tracking. A minor shortcoming of the stealth does not imply total failure. Stealth is still very important.

          BTW: Alabama, Georgia... same thing. :-)