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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: 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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