The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II multirole fighter plane has numerous software and hardware flaws. So many, in fact, that it won't be ready to deploy before 2019:
The F-35 multirole fighter won't be close to ready before 2019, the US House Armed Services Committee was told on Wednesday. The aircraft, which is supposed to reinvigorate the American military's air power, is suffering numerous problems, largely down to flaws in the F-35's operating system. These include straightforward code crashes, having to reboot the radar every four hours, and serious security holes in the code.
Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, reported that the latest F-35 operating system has 931 open, documented deficiencies, 158 of which are Category 1 – classified as those that could cause death, severe injury, or severe illness. "The limited and incomplete F-35 cybersecurity testing accomplished to date has nonetheless revealed deficiencies that cannot be ignored," Gilmore said in his testimony [PDF]. "Cybersecurity testing on the next increment of ALIS [Autonomic Logistics Information System] – version 2.0.2 – is planned for this fall, but may need to be delayed because the program may not be able to resolve some key deficiencies and complete content development and fielding as scheduled."
He reported that around 60 per cent of aircraft used for testing were grounded due to software problems. He cited one four-aircraft exercise that had to be cancelled after two of the four aircraft aborted "due to avionics stability problems during startup."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday March 24 2016, @12:54PM
The plane itself will be obsolete before it's finished. The development contract started in 1996, meaning that the design and much of the technology is already 20 years old.
At a unit cost of $100 million, the USAF will be unwilling to risk these planes in dangerous missions, such as close air support. Anyway, it was never more than a fantasy that the same airframe can support both high speed aerial combat and low-n-slow battlefield support.
All of which matters not at all. The real program goals have been - and continue to be - achieved. The distribution of pork to all the right Congressional districts, plus the lucrative revolving door for high level executives.
Just one minor example: Maj. Gen Heinz was fired as F35 program director, because he failed to hide the excessive fees he was awarding to Lockheed. [reuters.com] No worries, he is now chief operating officer of IBC Advanced Alloys [ibcadvancedalloys.com], which is a significant subcontractor on the F35 program [ibcadvancedalloys.com]. This kind of revolving-door corruption goes on all through the defense industry.
I do understand that someone working in an industry will remain in the industry when they change jobs. However, remaining within the same program should be absolutely prohibited, at least for government employees.
(Note: this comment was originally posted to the wrong article)
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday March 24 2016, @01:13PM
Missing links:
For next time, download and run my extension from sig, use the "Quote This" button on the post (seen if comment is displayed in full initially), then copy and paste, and remove the blockquote.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @01:30AM
Another something that can do that (including other sites) is SeaMonkey Navigator, the browser from the SeaMonkey suite.
Mark the text, right-click, and select View Selection Source.
A small[1] window will pop up with the good stuff.
[1] I keep mine in the non-maximized state.
It remembers the state from the previous time that window was closed.
As SeaMonkey also includes an HTML Editor, alternately, you can drag & drop the highlighted text into that and click Source (Code View), down in the corner.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 25 2016, @01:36AM
The selection source will include the redundant [domain.com], which could be tedious to remove.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 25 2016, @02:03AM
Did I forget to mention that I also have NukeAnything Enhanced installed.
Mark pretty much anything and tell it "be gone".
Tedious? That could be.
Again, SeaMonkey's thingie works on -all- sites.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Thursday March 24 2016, @02:24PM
The higher the technology, the longer the development cycle. And the longer the development cycle, the more likely that the government will have to update its requirements, which ends up lengthening the development cycle, ad nauseum. Especially during peacetime. Contrast this with the dawn of military aviation during WWI - development cycles lasted on the order of months, and a new design would be in the sky within a year.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Spook brat on Thursday March 24 2016, @03:15PM
Anyway, it was never more than a fantasy that the same airframe can support both high speed aerial combat and low-n-slow battlefield support.
The fantasy is that there could ever be a replacement for the A-10 Thunderbolt program. [wikipedia.org] The Air Force high command hates it, preferring flashier and faster strike fighters - the quip goes that instead of an air speed instrument the A-10's cockpit gets a calendar. This is an unfortunate attitude, since the A-10 is arguably the best Close Air Support platform ever put in the sky. [popularmechanics.com]
The Air Force brass want to divest itself of the A-10 so badly that they recently sent a report to Congress blatantly mischaracterizing the A-10's fratricide and civilian casualty risk. [jqpublicblog.com] The report takes lying with statistics to an art form. They have gone so far as to tell their subordinates that reporting accurate info on the A-10's capabilities to Congress constitutes treason.
Fortunately, even if the Air Force decides it doesn't want to fly the A-10 anymore, there's another solution: the Army can reinstate its fixed-wing Air Corps and fly the platform itself. This option has ended the argument several times in the past already, and it seems the Air Force's pride is injured less by flying slowly than by letting Army personnel fly fixed-wing aircraft.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by rts008 on Thursday March 24 2016, @04:07PM
I find your comment very interesting.
I have been saying for years(two decades worth, at least), that as an enemy combatant, my worst nightmare would be getting targeted by a 'Warthog' or 'Apache'(AH-64). With my Murphy-infested luck, it would most likely involve BOTH....*sigh*
I find it telling that the initial fanfare[1], the astoundingly excellent service record, and the aircraft AND pilot survivability rate for the A-10 matches it's service record...and now the Top Brass is crying about how outdated it is, despite it's continued successes.
It does not matter that we are spending almost as much per year on our military as the rest of the world combined, if this kind of crap(F-35) is what we are buying.
[1] Heck, they even went so far as honoring the A-10 with the official designation of "Thunderbolt", of WWII P-47 'Flying Jug' fame. And it turns out the Warthog has not only lived up to the name, but added to it.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday March 24 2016, @10:44PM
Why are you playing into the Airforce's outdated debate points? Drones do everything an airforce was ever meant to do. They can boom and fight enemy boomers autonomously without reliance on satellite targeting or communication already.
The Army and USMC use some harriers for ground support but their own reports suggested helicopters work just as well. The rest of the Navy doesn't need VTOL since they figured out safe and fast carrier takeoff and landing using automatic carrier landing system decades ago.
Really, even if the F35 was perfectly operational and quarter price, it would still be the equivalent of the cavalry charge facing the machine gun. An obsolete design that can be countered or substituted by a ~50k$ drone.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Friday March 25 2016, @03:23PM
Drones do everything an airforce was ever meant to do. They can boom and fight enemy boomers autonomously without reliance on satellite targeting or communication already.
I think I'm having a Poe's Law moment; you're either trolling or misinformed, and I'm not certain which. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and a straight answer just in case; I like assuming the best about people.
Why are you playing into the Airforce's outdated debate points?
Why does the Air Force keep parroting these same tired arguments? Trust me, I'd love to let this drop; it's the Air Force that keeps bringing it up in perjurious testimony to the U.S. Congress.
The Army and USMC use some harriers for ground support but their own reports suggested helicopters work just as well.
You are mistaken on this point. The AH-64 attack helicopter is a great platform, but is essentially defenseless in contested air space. It relies on stealth to avoid enemy aircraft, by which I mean literally staying hidden in trees/behind hills (it is not considered a "stealth" platform technologically). Like any other helicopter, any damage to engine or rotor is incapacitating; in contrast the A-10 can lose 1/2 of it's tail, 1/4 of its wingspan, and an engine while still remaining operational. If you need close air support in contested air space you don't call an Apache, you call a Warthog. Remember that it's the Army demanding that the A-10 program continue; if the Apache was good enough at the CAS role to replace the Warthog then they'd stop making mission requests to the Air Force for it.
Really, even if the F35 was perfectly operational and quarter price, it would still be the equivalent of the cavalry charge facing the machine gun. An obsolete design that can be countered or substituted by a ~50k$ drone.
You have far too much faith in the air-to-air capabilities of UCAVs; real life isn't like what they show in Hollywood. [imdb.com] The global community is still struggling with the ethics of allowing armed combat drones autonomy and clearance to fire independently; neither the United States [wikipedia.org] nor anyone else in the world [wikipedia.org] has an autonomous AI-driven air-to-air strike drone, and those that can carry anti-air missiles cost significantly more than $US 50k (closer to $2 million [wikipedia.org]). A hellfire missile by itself costs $70k, so unless your concept for an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle is a low-speed kinetic strike munition your budget is blown on ammunition alone.
I agree that someday in the future Moore's Law will let us put a robotic brain into a cheap airframe that will (if deployed in large numbers) pose a significant threat to a high-tech fighter airplane. This is inevitable, and will be a great battlefield equalizer when it comes. This is a terrific argument for abandoning the F-35 and supporting development of less costly, more reliable aircraft. It is not an argument for dropping the A-10 platform, however, and won't be until we get much better at building combat drones.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday March 27 2016, @04:48AM
I think I'm having a Poe's Law moment; you're either trolling or misinformed...
Note I said meant to do... Not does. NORAD's patrols are already done by autonomous planes anyhow they just didn't arm them to appease the legislators. In the Airforce's defense, in 2015 they trained more drone operators than pilots so they at least aren't in complete denial.
Air Force that keeps bringing it up in perjurious testimony to the U.S. Congress.
And they'll keep doing so since they have a monopoly on the data. For every report they publicly disclose, they classify 10 more with lies, damn lies and statistics and present those in close hearings. So, they say the same nonsense, you argue a fact based on a report, they say, "hey, we have new data, but it classified so the public will have to leave the court room" and then they just lie and lie and lie without any fact checking possible.
You are mistaken on this point...
First off, that's neither my personal opinion nor the report's point. Their claim was that the current generation of surface-to-air missiles that proliferated in the middle-east and Afghanistan can target anything low-altitude, slow-flying, circumventing any "stealth" claims, so prolonged close air support itself is losing viability. That's to say, the A10 could still workout since it drops it's loads \ clears it's barrels in a fly-run and circles back home so it might be less vulnerable... Or not. Really, that not what the report, or my point, was about. It was about harriers and helicopters not taking heat nor pulling off stealth... It wasn't a procurement report, it was an operational review recommending less reliance on air support while focusing on maintaining support lines... Real We Were Soldiers vibe with artillery and mortars subsection and everything.
neither the United States nor anyone else in the world has an autonomous AI-driven air-to-air strike drone
They're called missiles. Seriously now, the distinction is trivial. The tech been there for at least a decade. If you can make an autonomous surveillance drone, you can add a radar to identify anything big that isn't carrying a transponder and release a missile. Hypothetically, someone like NORAD could even deploy surveillance drones like these while making sure patrols are cut in half so there's always enough on board fuel for a kamikaze run if they can't scramble a jet fast enough... It doesn't even have to be autonomous, the operator hitting enter is enough to pass the legal restrictions.
Overall, the F35 vs. A10 debates are reminiscent of the battleships vs. dreadnoughts debates post WW1's German U-boat campaign. A typical preparing-for-the-previous-war deadlock.
It's not that I don't agree the A10 has it's uses, or that it will continue to have it's uses for decades to come. It's just that I don't think it's at all relevant to the current\future of the F35. While the A10 will slowly phase out as more surface-to-air missiles and air-to-air drones get introduced over the years, or not, the F35 won't even have that to say for itself. If drones aren't already there, they will be before the F35 ever reaches anything remotely reminiscent of justifiable by strategic, economic, or really any measure.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Monday March 28 2016, @04:08PM
Glad I gave you the benefit of the doubt, you seem sincere here.
Do you have a link to the report you're referencing? I'd really like it read it, it sounds like good analysis. I think I'll need that for context to understand where you're coming from in this conversation. If the prolonged close air support mission is just evaporating in the real battlefield, that changes the discussion significantly.
I think we're still talking past each other a bit, and ending up in violent agreement :) I think the F-35 should never have had CAS as a mission requirement, and that's turning it into a poorly-built multitool that will never do any of its many jobs as well as purpose-built platforms will do at their only job. And while we may disagree about the modern cost/availability of practical combat drones, their future adoption in warfighting is inevitable. It's just a matter of time, time which the F-35 is spending far too much of on the drawing boards and not enough in the air.
Eventually the F-35 will be facing swarms of (relatively) low-cost adversaries and not have enough bullets to intercept them all before being shot down. At ~100M/F-35 that's not a high bar to clear; 50x $2M armed drones (available today) would certainly fit that bill. So, agreed, obsolete before manufacture. Good job, USAF.
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