Submitted via IRC for Bytram
US military grounds all F-35 jets
The US military has temporarily grounded its entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets in the wake of a crash in South Carolina last month.
Inspections are to be carried out on faulty fuel tubes.
An official report questioned earlier this year whether the F-35 was ready for combat after dozens of faults were found.
[...] In a statement, the F-35 Joint Program Office said the US and its international partners had suspended flight operations while a fleet-wide inspection of fuel tubes was conducted.
"If suspect fuel tubes are installed, the part will be removed and replaced. If known good fuel tubes are already installed, then those aircraft will be returned to flight status.
"Inspections are expected to be completed within the next 24 to 48 hours."
The aircraft, which uses stealth technology to reduce its visibility to radar, comes in three variants.
The crash in South Carolina involved an F-35B, which is able to land vertically and costs around $100m (£75m).
The pilot in that incident ejected safely but the aircraft was destroyed.
The plane, manufactured by Lockheed Martin but including parts made in several other countries, has been sold to a number of nations, including the UK, Japan, Italy, Turkey and South Korea.
[...] The Ministry of Defence in London said the UK had decided to "pause some F-35 flying as a precautionary measure while we consider the findings of an ongoing enquiry".
But the MOD said F-35 flight trials from the aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, were continuing and the programme remained on schedule to provide UK armed forces with "a game-changing capability".
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MostCynical on Friday October 12 2018, @02:35AM (2 children)
Neither article gives fully amortized figures.
Planes are not cheap.
https://www.quora.com/How-much-do-the-flying-cost-per-hour-of-the-F35A-Rafale-and-Typhoon-compare [quora.com]
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/air-force-plane-cost-per-flight-hour-chart-2016-3?r=US&IR=T [businessinsider.com.au]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 12 2018, @02:39AM (1 child)
Yeap! That was a feature!!
I mean... the fact they grounded the entire fleet is gonna save some budget!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @03:24AM
Horrible. It was a horrible fight. No, it couldn't even be described as a fight; those two little girls were punching and kicking the little boy, who was not fighting back at all. Thomas, deeply disturbed by this blatant bullying, decided to intervene.
"Stop!" he screamed. Upon hearing the man's shout, the two little girls stopped beating up on the little boy and turned to face the source of the sound. When Thomas finally reached the children, he began questioning them about what had happened.
From what Thomas could gather, the bullying started because the boy had a ball that he wouldn't give to the girls. While it was typical for children to engage in bullying, what was atypical was the level of violence the girls used. Thomas thought about how he could resolve the bullying situation, and quickly came upon to a solution. All he had to do was implement it...
"This is for your own good," Thomas screeched. Yes, breaking their legs so that they couldn't escape was for their own good. Now that the children were immobilized, all Thomas had to do was teach them a lesson, so that they would never bully or be bullied again. The man began with one of the girls.
She screamed. The first little girl screamed and cried as Thomas rapidly and violently mashed his genitals against hers. Eventually, he began punching her with an ever-increasing level of force until she quieted down. When the girl's abject silence became apparent, Thomas grabbed her head with both of his hands and twisted until a snapping sound was heard. The man, having finished with the first child, turned his lustful gaze towards the boy. "I want to try something a bit different this time," said the man.
It was indeed different from usual. The boy was unmoving, but not because he was dead; it was because Thomas had smashed his spine with a hammer. The man lifted up the little boy's limp body and began violating his anus. Thomas pumped and pumped and pumped some more, until he was completely satisfied. At the end of it all, a large amount of seed was deposited into the boy's rectum. Then, the man put an end to the boy with the very hammer he had used to steal his ability to move. Finally, Thomas made a note in his journal to remind himself in the future to avoid that method, as it was too boring when they were completely unable to resist. The man then looked to the last child...
Brutal. No, even "brutal" was an understatement. For the last of the three children, the man went above and beyond the level of violence he normally dispensed. After violating the girl from behind, he smashed her fingers one by one; he broke her teeth out a few at a time; he snapped her arms; he slammed her face; and he mutilated her with a knife. After all of that, it was no surprise that blood loss soon stole the last of her motion. That was the end of that.
Thomas reviewed the results of his lesson; a smile appeared on his face, and in his heart. He had done a good thing for those children, so it was no surprise that he would feel good about the situation. Yes, it was a truly good thing; the girls could no longer bully, and the boy could no longer be bullied. Thus, the situation had been completely resolved.
Thomas walked off into the sunset with a smile on his face, leaving behind the silent, educated children...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday October 12 2018, @02:36AM (1 child)
"If suspect fuel tubes are installed, the part will be removed and replaced. If known good fuel tubes are already installed, then those aircraft will be returned to flight status."
Agile development matra: release early, release often. If a bug is found, fix it and make another release.
Yeah, it will be the customers to pay us many times over until we get to a proper design. Serves them well, we've got the fuckers captive anyway.
The only thing that did not happen for the F-35 case was the "release early".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 12 2018, @06:02PM
The part that fails with iterative turd polishing, when you don't have a captive audience like the DoD, is the "customer buys again".
We have that problem. It looks like our competitors are all f___ing up also, so the customers still finds us less unpleasant, but I'm still amazed at how they are putting up with the buggy stuff we waste their time with, and not making us pay killer penalties.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 12 2018, @02:54AM (10 children)
This demonstrates the need to get an early start on the next aquisition round of faulty aircraft. Really, we need to get every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Jane into a conference room now, to start listing their unreasonable demands for an all-purpose aviation weapons platform which will be incapable of meeting any of their demands. To maximize profit and to maximize taxdollar waste, we need to get the ball rolling now! Vertical/short takeoff, low orbit capability, nuclear capable, hover mode, be sure to get it all in there! And, don't forget the gold plated urinals, and bidets!!! Above all, it must be internet connected so that you can stream your strafing run to Grandma.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @05:48AM (1 child)
The quick answer, already proposed, is something that might be called the F-22B. We retrofit some of the non-disaster F-35 stuff onto the F-22 airframe. That gets us helmet-mounted cueing for sure. We might also get new-style air intakes (with fuselage lump instead of the gap and movable ramp), the cameras, and some parts in the newer materials. Being nuclear-capable is trivial and obvious, but we'd need to keep it secret due to annoying treaties.
One of the mistakes of the F-35 seems to be an assumption that vertical takeoff requires a horizontal hover mode. No, it does not. Consider the Falcon 9, which is incapable of throttling low enough to hover. It lands just fine. Consider the way Russia air drops tanks from cargo planes, with rockets to do the final bit. We could make a plane that used solid fuel rockets to do vertical take-off and landing. We could also make a plane that would hover while aiming vertically, along with some ground handling equipment to grab and release it in that orientation.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 12 2018, @11:27AM
Actually lack of thrust is the problem, as a 3G approach would be militarily helpful. Some jet aircraft exceed 1:1 thrust ratio and can theoretically hover under limited conditions for a short time but nothing out there can pull 3G.
Its very easy for a rocket thats burned 95% of its weight in fuel to burn its last drops of fuel at 20G acceleration if the vehicle can handle it...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jasassin on Friday October 12 2018, @07:21AM
You forgot about the ability for it to transform into a giant robot!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday October 12 2018, @09:57AM (2 children)
You forgot Blockchain.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @10:21AM (1 child)
Drive... errr... pilotless as well. Actually, AI-piloted.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 12 2018, @06:06PM
The pilot is already on his phone checking Instagram for half the flight ...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 12 2018, @11:24AM (3 children)
You talking about the space shuttle or the F22 or the F35 or the ...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 12 2018, @03:00PM (2 children)
I think it's the F-69. It will do EVERYTHING - while giving head to the congress critters who authorized it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 13 2018, @12:41PM (1 child)
Thats the congressional page's job. Thats like a whole job category ripe for "#metooooooo"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 13 2018, @12:47PM
But, automation. We need to put the pages out of work.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @04:12AM (2 children)
The navy wanted two engines. Had they gotten their way, this crash wouldn't have happened.
The second engine adds cost to every plane, both for acquisition and maintenance. OTOH, crashes are really expensive! I wonder how that works out.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 12 2018, @06:12PM (1 child)
The Navy has a terrible habit of not having many options to land if you lose an engine.
Someone at the pentagon said "new engine has enough thrust and enough reliability" and it was decided that the fuel savings, maintenance savings, and alleged commonality unit cost saving would be worth it, at the cost of occasional losses.
Time will tell, over 40 years, if that was a wise decision. Early on, that third criteria is busted, but the others are still in play.
(Score: 2) by Kawumpa on Saturday October 13 2018, @01:10PM
Someone should have told them to read the Challenger report...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 12 2018, @10:43PM (1 child)
Could have used that money for education in one of the poor southern states. You can teach a lot of pickaninnies with that much money.
(Score: 2) by Kawumpa on Saturday October 13 2018, @01:15PM
Yes, but that would be really counterproductive considering the goal is diverting money into the pockets of a few in the military industrial complex. Besides, until there is a fully robotic army we still need uneducated people to join the military to occupy lower ranks.