Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Status of F-35 – Senate Armed Services Committee Statement [pdf]

armed-services.senate.gov

97 pointsprotomyth168 comments

The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project. A system designed to do everything for everyone. When it should be designed to do one thing better than everything else.

Divide the F-35 into three different attack aircraft. Single engine CAS with STOVL capability. Big/fast/stealthy twin engine bomber. Carrier based attack drone. All three would likely fulfill their roles better for lower total cost and be operational on a shorter timeframe.

The F-35 reminds me of this short story by A. C. Clarke

http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html

And this scene from pentagon wars:

https://youtu.be/aXQ2lO3ieBA

Plus if it's three different ones when the world changes and you need 85% carrier drones, 10% stealth bombers and 5% close air support you can build accordingly. Not to mention the fact that one of those can be available when it's done instead of not getting anything until they are all done.

Seriously – this is project management and design 101 stuff here. The points you make highlight the HUGE cost savings that could be accomplished by breaking it up into 3 different aircraft, at different price points, tailored to the different roles.

Sounds like a great idea.

It's not like an adversary could shoot down satellites, jam controller transmissions or hack a drones control plane.

We'd be better off buying aircraft from the French.

The F-35 is becoming the definitive example of how scope creep destroys a project

Or an example of how we don't learn from history, for the same exact thing happened with the '60s TFX, except the F-35 substitutes S/VTOL for air superiority. 5 models of it were planned, two for the Navy, all but what ended up as the F-111 were canceled, and we resumed building focused planes like the F-14 through F-16, and the A-10 I think. Read the relevant section in Possony, Pournelle, and Kane's classic The Strategy of Technology https://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/Strat.html for lots more details.

ADDED: And I've now recalled that there was stiff criticism of the F-111 as it starting flying and was fielded in the hot war of Vietnam. By and large the bugs were worked out, and e.g. surviving pilots were convinced that they should not turn off the terrain following radar and auto pilot system so they wouldn't follow their predecessors in immediately flying it into a hill. Which didn't happen with the following similar in that way B-1, come to think of it.

That I remember mostly from contemporaneous reports, the frequently poor prosecution of the Vietnam war was a big issue in the heartland.

>>Or an example of how we don't learn from history

Of course we learn from history. The thing you have to understand is that everything is working as intended. F-35, and programs like it, are a way to use public money to create private sector jobs. They aren't meant to be efficient or even effective means to develop and manufacture military hardware.

You can see a direct analogy of this in the space sector, where SpaceX came along and severely disrupted the incumbents by doing things efficiently.

I agree, except the problem is that it's sold to the public as defense, not as a jobs program. Part of the sales job is involves having American pilots fly those airplanes into combat.

You beat me to it. I was going to add something along lines of expanding existing corruption where military people authorizing it get cushy jobs in return over time. The "revolving door." So consistent that it should be our first hypothesis for every program like this.

The thing you have to understand is that your initial statement has literally no foundation to it. There isn't any solid proof that program failures like this are direct means to keeping workers employed (where it is implied that they otherwise wouldn't be). I am also not really sure how some crazy guy (I am being hyperbolic) betting hundreds of millions of dollars (some of it his own funds) somehow becomes analogous with a purposefully obtuse military industrial complex scheme to keep people employed.

There are certainly cases where the government soaks up funding, gives it to a company, for absolutely no other reason that we can tell other than to just funnel money along into their little corner of the country (and thus their constituents).

But I have a really hard time believing that is the case here.

It's hard to say with any certainty, to be sure. But I wouldn't be so skeptical -- Nixon did after all announce the Space Shuttle program in part to help secure his re-election. That too in California in a naked attempt to win SoCal.

Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=kje_BAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA12&ots=...

NASA was always a jobs program as well as what it ostensibly was for, it was officially tasked with industrially uplifting the South, which became an even bigger thing when LBJ became president. The area to the immediate northeast of MIT was still mostly a wasteland when I showed up in 1979 because NASA all of a sudden decided that Houston was the ideal place to put the Mission Control Center....

After Apollo, that became many times more what it was for.

It is an extremely inefficient jobs program, an extremely inefficient research program, and an extremely inefficient aircraft. As he said: do one thing, and do it well.

It /is/ a pretty good wealth distribution program, though. If you count dollars distributed, not number of recipients.

>>It is an extremely inefficient jobs program, an extremely inefficient research program, and an extremely inefficient aircraft.

Yep. Just like the aircraft: tries to do too many things, ends up sucking at all of them.

Decades ago there was the Boeing/Airbus fight over government spending in the aerospace industry.

Boeing was angry that Airbus got cheap credi backed by or from the government, Airbus was angry because Boeing got all the military money from the government.

My dad was a fighter pilot in the USAF at the time the F-111 was supposed to come out. It was late, so he ended up flying the F-100.

McNamara was the genius pushing the F-111. Also the genius behind the Ford Edsel. When he came to visit the base one time, one of the NCOs who was near retirement had an Edsel painted in the camo pattern specified for the F-111. It was parked within clear view so that McNamara could see it when he disembarked from his plane. He was pretty steamed.

That's about what airmen thought of the F-111 and McNamara at the time.

From my reading of the excellent book Clashes: Air Combat over North Vietnam, 1965-1972 (http://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972...) that would imply your father was fighting over South Vietnam (or perhaps to the west), but, hmmm, it didn't mention F-111 missions at all. For the big operations up north, the Air Force used up its F-105 inventory, and had to switch to their own version of the Navy's (spit) F-4.

Ah, per Wikipedia the F-111 was employed, but I can see why it wasn't covered in book, it was ideally employed as a low level terrain following penetrator, so it would not be a part of the big daytime flocks of birds that the NVA were be able to follow and vector their Migs to for one pass attacks. So not relevant to a book focused on air combat per se.

Heh, love the anecdote about the Edsel. The Official Story, on Wikipedia at least, is that he saved Ford not by pushing it, but by killing it, but I have my doubts, everything he touched after that turned to shit, including his disastrous tenure at the World Bank where he destroyed untold agricultural systems in the Third World....

I haven't read anything, but certainly killing the Edsel could have been his predecessor's idea, but it was too late and the task was saved to give some shine to McNamara. That happens (or seems to) in exec pushouts all the time.

"It was late, so he ended up flying the F-100."

From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-100_Super_Sab...):

Adapted as a fighter bomber, the F-100 was supplanted by the Mach two class F-105 Thunderchief for strike missions over North Vietnam. The F-100 flew extensively over South Vietnam as the air force's primary close air support jet until being replaced by the more efficient subsonic LTV A-7 Corsair II.

And this was mentioned in passing in Clashes.

It is a respunding success according to the amount of porking it generated. Is the f-22 exported?

Edit: to clarify: they're not exporting the good one which could change an actual war.

No exports of the F-22. It's apparently got some technology they're not willing to transfer, even to allies.

I'm half-way suspecting that the F-22 isn't available for export, because it would hurt the sales of the F-35.

The F-22 is not for export because we want to make sure we can shoot down the f35s we do export.

a software kill switch could be a solution to that problem

Good thing we have such competent developers on the project.

The French are known for doing that. I'm sure most militaries do in some way

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-hunt-for-...

The politics are a bit more complicated. The DoD would be willing to export to, eg, the UK & Canada, but any exports at all would trigger calls by lobbying organizations to send it to "allies" like Israel & Saudi Arabia, which then immediately finds its way to China / Pakistan / etc.

RAND published a writeup of joint acquisition programs recently: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/MG1200/...

Spoiler: they're a bad idea.

RAND didn't mention the commonality between the F/A-18A and the F-117A aircraft.

McDonnell-Douglas significantly upgraded the YF-17 mission systems and cockpit avionics for the F/A-18A/B and it was more advanced than the F-16A version at the time.

The F-117A basically used the same mission avionics and engines as the F/A-18 which was a few years ahead in development.

Having inter-service commonality in major systems and components sometimes a better option than a joint aircraft program. The USAF is upgrading the F-15C (& some export customers) with AN/APG-82 radar, which is basically a larger AESA "antenna" on a AN/APG-79 radar from a Super Hornet.

When designing for complex functions think orchestra not one man band.

Lots of standard interchangeable parts that can be individually replaced rather than one "do-it-all" pile of dependencies.

F-117 commonality was due to the "Skunk Works" model. Lockheed didn't have the time to pursue a custom set of avionics. IIRC, Lockheed also used existing forgings for landing gear for a similar reason.

There's great coverage of all that in: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/d...

In particularly, they patched together their prototype in a way which all hackers will appreciate.

I think your point is that commonality in the different bins in the bazaar is good; that being said using a cathedral to do everything is bad...

Avionics and engines can be treated in a modular fashion. Airframes cannot, and that's probably the biggest sin of the F-35.

I'd say that calling the lack of modularity an outright sin glosses over the engineering reality behind why the F-35 variants aren't as common with each other as initially planned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ5gmZ74YBY

Here's Jon Beesley, the pilot who did first flight in the F-35, along with quite a bit of the early air worthiness work. He is discussing the weight reduction efforts associated with what was called SWAT, STOVL Weight ATtack.

Originally the three F-35 variants were supposed to have about 75% of their structures as either common (identical) or "cousin" (largely the same but with some minor differences) parts. In other words, the F-35 was supposed to be modular. Unfortunately, this made all three variants overweight. This matters most for the F-35B, where extra airframe weight directly reduces bring-back weight and cuts into the performance margins of STOVL flight.

Starting at 2:15, he discusses the modularity issue directly (with a bonus discussion on scope creep!) "Holes are really heavy." For every hole, you must have a more robust structure around that hole to maintain overall structural integrity. A modular aircraft meant a heavier aircraft, so heavy that the F-35 was in great danger of being too heavy, missing a key performance parameter for the contract. Eliminating the modularity was the way to make the F-35 meet this performance parameter.

It's all about engineering tradeoffs.

I think it's more complicated than that. If you develop avionics and engines for a single specific craft, then you can be focused on the requirements at hand and a single working version. When you develop them for 3 or 4 crafts all at the same time, the feature creep gets pushed back into those modules as well.

I bet most of the avionics that get adapted for a new plane require some modification to get them working. This is, IMO, much easier if you start from a working version.

Consider the semi-disaster that is JTRS[1] (basically the f-35 of software defined radios). It was designed to be modular, and that was part of the failure. If they had picked a single form-factor that was useful in isolation, that would have allowed a single system to get up and running, and then it would make sense to grow it out from there, reusing where it made sense to.

Instead there was this byzantine connection of interdependencies and parallel development with few integration points that seemed likely to doom it.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Tactical_Radio_System#Pr...

It is also worth considering that the reason given for merging three aircrafts into one was to save money. I know the F-35 has a lot of defenders, but even they have to admit it is unlikely that the F-35 will ever be seen as a cost saving measure.

I'd defend that statement even though I'm not an F-35 fan. For cost savings, think of what it would have cost to field two different designs (F-35 as F-16 replacement and F-XX as Harrier replacement). VTOL has added cost to F-35, but it's unlikely that it has been so much that you could fund an entirely different airframe as well.

Then you get into the situation where the second aircraft is delayed by one FY because nobody wants to put two of these programs into one budget. Then there's pressure to diverge on engines, avionics, etc. which winds up adding to the cost of the second program.

You could start a brand new Harrier programme right now, same basic design but new build airframes, avionics and engines using modern materials, and you would still beat the F35 not only into-service, but in a stand-up fight if it ever came to that.

Harrier design concept is limited by the massive frontal cross section that Pegasus type engines imposes on the craft - this limits aero efficiency, and especially the ability to go supersonic.

Harrier design is also completely not low observable. An F-35 could splash any harrier derivative from afar, and could probably beat out an Harrier in anything but the lowest altitude, lowest speed confrontations.

F-35 is full of problems, but there's no sense in bringing up ridiculous arguments. Harriers might be able to perform some CAS roles better than a F-35, but it would get completely demolished in any 'stand-up fight'.

Any attempt to turn something based on a Harrier airframe into something as LO and as fast as the F-35 runs most of the same design risks and problems as the F-35.

"Hunh, ComplicatedX is expensive and 20% of the project is causing 80% of the overruns. We should just do SimpleY, we get 80% of the value for 20% of the price!"

...Ten years later...

"SimpleY is no longer Simple, it turns out that although we got 80% of what we wanted for 20% of the price, the last 20% of what we wanted were responsible for 80% of the overruns!"

F-35 could splash any harrier derivative from afar

And an X-wing could take out an F-35, I mean, if we're talking complete hypotheticals.

The Harrier is battle-proven everywhere from the Falklands to Afghanistan. Marry it up with modern radar and air-to-air missiles and you will have a very capable platform - one that the F-35 - if it ever flies in combat - which it won't because no-one will risk those mind-bogglingly expensive airframes in a shooting war - won't see coming because its radar has rebooted again.

I love the Harrier and agree that a modern one would be a better buy than the F-35.

However, the argument you're making is silly. A Harrier won't beat an F-35 in combat. The F-35 would shoot down the Harrier before the Harrier had even detected it.

The argument you SHOULD be making is one of cost, performance at roles (e.g. CAS, bombing missions, etc), proven for naval operations, extremely flexible, and would likely be delivered sooner (even if they started today, if only one manufacturer was involved, it will likely ship before the naval variant of the F-35 in 2022 or whatever they're guesstimating now).

The core problem with the F-35 and F-22 is that they're the most advanced air to air combat aircraft ever built, so advanced in fact that they have nothing to fight, and worse still will arrive right before swarms of drones take over from manned aircraft (e.g. 10x drones Vs. 1x F-35, the F-35 would literally run out of munitions).

Please tell me what a modern Harrier would look like. Here is an (admittedly contrived) list of some design goals:

* Greater STOVL performance, without the limitations imposed by needing to carry water for thrust augmentation

* Low observability (certainly lower than a Harrier, which has a big RCS)

* Greater sensor capabilities. Built-in electro-optical targeting so that radar can be used less, or not at all

* Reduce pilot workload by filtering information presented in an intelligent way

* Reduce STOVL cognitive errors created by differing control schemes between STOVL flight and conventional flight

This sounds an awful lot like an F-35B.

My point is, saying you want a "modern Harrier" isn't enough. Because in many important ways the F-35B is a "modern Harrier". You have to figure out how whatever it is you're going to build will be different, if you hope to avoid the same problems.

>> The Harrier is battle-proven everywhere from the Falklands to Afghanistan

This doesn't translate into a tactical capability today: Falklands: Harriers fighting Mirage III, which were 20 years old, 34 years ago. Afghanistan: dropping dumb bombs on adversaries who didn't have a SAM capability

Isn't that the point, though? Who are these jets going to fight -- pretty much any realistic hypothesis of conflict today would consist of asymmetrical warfare, especially if waged by the US or US allies. Asymmetrical warfare with existing weaponry, let alone next-generation planes. The only scenario where the US would face significant resistance is vs China or Russia, where planes wouldn't even get the chance to take off before Midnight is upon us.

Given the situation, it would make more sense to invest in something cheaper that will do the job just as well.

I am not convinced than an X-wing would beat an F-35. Do you notice that the cannons on the X-wing have a slow rate of fire, and the beams move slowly through the air. Not to mention the limited missile capabilities.

There's that but the X-wing's repulsorlift gives it superior V/STOL capability to the F-35 remember.

Harrier design concept is limited by the massive frontal cross section

The same criticism has been levied on the F-35, due to the S/VTOL airframe support requirement.

....I assume your design would be just as fast as a F-35 and also just as stealthy?

Unsurprisingly, it's already divided into three different aircraft - F-35A, F-35B, F-35C. They were supposed to be 70% common, but that's simply not achievable so the differences are quite a bit larger.

By some estimates the parts commonality is now about 25%.

I always felt that F-35B at least should have been its own design. As for A & C, there have been successful examples of naval aircraft being used by air forces too - such as F-4, and F/A-18. But trying to have a design that is also STOVL capable?

It is my understanding that the biggest problem with the naval version is that it has only one engine. The F-4 and F/A-18 were both twin engine planes and if one engine failed or was damaged, the plane could still fly and the pilot could land on the aircraft carrier and save the plane. With the F-35C, if the engine is damaged far from the carrier, the pilot will probably have to eject and be rescued. In that case, even if cost is no object there is the inconvenience of going to rescue the pilot and being short one airframe. I also remember reading somewhere that the repair bays on an aircraft carrier can swap an engine in an F/A-18 in just a few hours.

Well, the Navy's been there fairly recently, the single engined A-4 Skyhawk, the F-8 Crusader, and the A-7 Corsair which was based on the latter all saw heavy service in Vietnam. And per Wikipedia, the latter replaced the A-1 Skyraider (to the extent a jet like that could) and the F-100.

But for the obvious reasons they vastly prefer two engined planes, plus I've read the F-35's single engine is so big their current logistics system will have trouble getting new ones to a fleet at see, I assume this means it can't fit in a C-2 or maybe V-22.

Isn't the F-35's high price due to it already being 3 very different attack aircraft?

1. CAS with STOVL capability (Marine)

2. Light attack fighter (Air Force)

3. Carrier attack plane with bigger wings (Navy)

Creating 3 separate programs isn't going to change that. And, if not that, then the software they want is going raise the prices of the 3 different aircraft anyways. The Marines are probably going to want to develop the expensive Augmented Reality helmet anyways, for example.

If you create 3 separate programs, where will you save money?

They don't have the kind of assembly commonality that the program aimed for initially, but I think it's a stretch to call the three variants "very different" aircraft. There's a pretty high amount of systems similarity. And pilots don't have to go through completely separate training programs for the three variants, just separate qualifications for things like STOVL or CV operations. If you can aviate in an F-35A, you can aviate in the other two variants.

Not sure why you single out the USMC for developing the helmet mounted display, because the HMD is common to all variants and is already a working system.

Because in real world costs tend to grow exponentially with complexity.

Max, Amy, and Ned are driving old cars and want new ones. Rather than buying three cars, they decide to go in together and buy one car to share.

Max wants to replace his offroading jeep, Amy wants to replace her fast sports car, and Ned drives an amphicar because he lives on an island.

So Max Amy and Ned go to GM and say "Design us a floating, offroading, sports car please we are trying to save money."

By the end of the day GM has to convince them to take three variants of the same car, but the cost, time and design tradeoffs needed to reach that point were never worth it. When you could have designed three (possibly four) vehicles separately that each excel in their focus area.

Saying that 'well all three would need gauges and windshields anyway' isn't a compelling reason to combine them.

Dr Michael Gilmore, who wrote that report, apparently had not actually seen the aircraft up close until less than a year ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9re9tJckTlk

The pilot in this video, LtCol Christine Mau is a F-15E combat veteran is now flying the F-35. The video description incorrectly states the director of the JSF is "General Michael Gilmore". LTG Chris Bogdan is the JSF Executive Officer and has seen the F-35 up close and flown chased flights from an F-16.

For the OT&E Office at the Pentagon, they do not actually fly the jet, or operate the jet, or even touch the jet.

There are a handful of DoD "civilian" pilots who evaluate the aircraft for the Office of Secretary of Defense. None of the DoD pilots have made public statements regarding the F-35 airframe having any major issues.

That scene from Pentagon Wars should be mandatory viewing for every student in systems engineering and project management.

> A. C. Clarke _Superiority_

This fits the Tiger Tank vs. T-33 in WWII. The T-33 had very good firepower and armor. The Tiger was superior in both those regards. However, the T-33 could be more easily produced, dealt better with Russia's muddy seasons and winters, and was far cheaper to maintain.

I think you meant the T34, the second most produced tank in history.

Doh. Off by one! Yes. T-34. There was a recent analysis by the DoD, finding that the logistic costs of modern MBTs scale by the fifth power of their weight. This is a big problem with state of the art modern tanks. Right now, reactive armor is good enough to stymie 105mm and 120mm guns in battle conditions. However, making tanks heavy enough to support 140mm and larger guns looks like it will make them prohibitively expensive.

>Carrier based attack drone

Drones were science fiction back in the early 90's when the F-35 program was started. Even today they can't even come close to outperforming a skilled human pilot in a combat scenario. (Although perhaps if it were Google working on the hardware and software it'd be doable).

What if that skilled human pilot was flying a "drone"/unmanned craft rather than sitting in the cockpit? I imagine there are benefits to being "in-person" but the unmanned craft could theoretically endure far more extreme maneuvers that would leave a human pilot unconscious or dead.

Most of that benefit is that you still have something capable of mission decisions when an enemy engages in jamming or other information distortion tactics.

On the positive side for 'drones': they can be viewed as both expendable (with costs/limits) and capable of performing maneuvers that would kill a human.

I can see narrow beam transmissions on multiple carriers and extremely fault resistant communication protocols combining with remotely manned vehicles. The pilots might best be closer for speed of light delay reduction, but realistically you could have a relay in some kind of helicopter type vehicle a short distance from the actual fight, and the expert pilots stationed somewhere even more safe.

While you're at it, that helicopter/blimp/etc could also be your primary communication platform for a local region; it's already a high value target so there's little reason not to use it as an additional uplink.

> Drones were science fiction back in the early 90's when the F-35 program was started.

AFAICT, the first armed drones deployed by the US military were ASW drone helicopters in the 1960s. Ground attack jet drones were successfully tested in the 1970s, and some preliminary and positive testing on air-to-air combat drones also happened in the 1970s. Drones certainly weren't science-fiction in the early 1990s, even if the military hadn't gotten around to actually fielding armed drones (despite the tests) beyond those old Navy ASW drones.

> Even today they can't even come close to outperforming a skilled human pilot in a combat scenario.

The Navy's X-47B "Salty Dog" got pretty damn close (before the program was cancelled). It can take off, on-air refuel, and land back on a carrier with no human input.

http://dronecenter.bard.edu/chronicle-of-the-salty-dogs-x-47...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twdCdlo3BtA

True. At this point they might as well build a Space Shuttle with guns.

It's the worst case of both scope creep and putting your eggs in one basket.

Just making some small improvements in this process would save the country a ton of money. I cannot believe the cost of the F-35 program has exceeded 1 trillion.

F-35 looks like it's the most ambitious software project ever attempted.

- Lots of system integration for the final product from multiple suppliers (usually nightmare).

- Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) is critical for the maintainability and it's millions of lines of code. Failure rate of large projects like this is typically 40-60% and ALIS looks like it's more advanced than most bean counting systems ever delivered.

- Underlying hardware is slowly changing underneath because the system is late.

- It has frigging augmented reality system with helmets that integrates everything together.

- It's safety critical code.

> no less than 27 power cycles were required to get all systems functioning between initial startup and takeoff. These power cycles varied in degree – from “cold iron” resets, where the aircraft had to be shut down and then restarted, to component or battery power recycling.

Holy shit!

This is what so many non-software people trying to make decisions on software fail to realize - every constraint added increases the complexity of software by an order of magnitude.

well, a binary order of magnitude maybe

Indeed. There was a paper done in the 70s or 80s that found that operating system size doubled with each new feature. Picture going from single tasking to multitasking or to virtual memory. Sorry, I cant dredge up the reference.

I run into this at work all the time.

Me: FYI, in scenario xyz, I updated the documentation to do abc. It seems like the best balance of complication and doing the right thing, especially considering it will almost never come up.

Boss: why does it even matter what it does? It will come up maybe once per year. Oh, and it should do <this other really specific and complicated thing> instead, so do that.

Me: sigh....

Maybe you can explain it to them this way - if they know what a function is. If you have a function that does something, foo, and it takes one boolean parameter, that's two test cases. If you add a second boolean parameter, now you have at least four total test cases. And so on.

Ah yes, give it to them in functions and boolean parameters, that will get the non-programmers on board. /s

My house has a vacuum, a lawnmower, a blender, a washing machine, 20 light switches, a 4 zone heating system, and 6 sinks/showers. I can manage 1.71e10 possible states while I sleep, why are you struggling with four?

one last hurrah at attempting to keeping human pilots relevant

>> no less than 27 power cycles were required to get all systems functioning between initial startup and takeoff. These power cycles varied in degree – from “cold iron” resets, where the aircraft had to be shut down and then restarted, to component or battery power recycling.

> Holy shit!

Even more extraordinary that they found someone willing to takeoff after that...

Those are 27 power cycles spread across all the different flights described in that section of the document, not 27 power cycles for one single flight.

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

Ctrl+Alt+Delete

"Abort, retry or fail?"

Choose carefully, one of those deploys the ejection seat.

When viewing the F-35 through the lens of a defense project, it looks silly. You must also realize that this is also an indirect federal jobs program. When the F-35 would replace other aircraft and their roles, the bases, parts suppliers, and ...sub contractors those people had to be kept employed. No member of congress wanted to say don't add that or build that if it would hurt their district. So much backroom dealing goes on with projects like these its embarrassing.

Army: We need 3 different planes

Government: Why not build one plane that can do 3 things? it will be cheaper.

... it turns out it isn't.

LMFTFY:

Government/Army: We need 3 different planes for these 3 different requirements

Private corporations @ public trough: you could "save" money by building a single plane meeting all those requirements, and we'd also bring extra jobs to your geographical area. Oh, and plus there is this extra "lobbying" money you can have you if support this project.

Politician: Sounds like a good idea...

That's not how the F-35 was conceived or designed, not at all. It was a highly competitive contract with the requirements given to a few companies and they were given some amount of money to compete for the best design[1].

Your comment is nonsense.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program

Hah! The army is the only service not getting one, unless there is a helicopter variant in there somewhere.

Is it too late to add helicopter capability?

I'd rather we drop a half-trillion in alternative energy projects. That's a much better jobs investment, and arguably vastly increases our national security than a shitty money pit jet that the Chinese get to make a 99% competitive jet at 1/10th the cost.

Here are some new rules of warfare that the F35 is designed for:

"Blackhawk Down" If you lose even one aircraft crew as we did in Somalia, you may be forced to retreat from the entire war. So it makes sense to spend 10x to go from 99.9% -> 99.99% safety.

"Battle of the Civs, Proxy war edition": Fighter planes are less relevant to hugely asymmetric warfare the U.S. is engaged in, and expects to engage in the near future. These fights consists of the most advanced military technology against insurgents with machine guns and RPG's. Clearly drones are better in this area, and Missiles of all classes bring more destruction and accuracy to the traditional fighter role of deterring the threats of advanced weapon systems against your ships/bases.

However in the smaller proxy wars of e.g. Syria, Ukraine a traditional fighter jet still makes sense, and in fact could be a crucial deciding factor. So what the F35 program is doing is building a machine that can give a strong advantage in a regional war. And by controlling the access to the machine, the U.S. gets a say in the conflict without entering it.

"Terrorist hideout or hospital?" - collateral damage has always been a part of aerial combat but bad PR seems to do be especially discouraging to today's democracies. So weapon systems have to be even smarter and more precise.

"Software is eating the world" - As others have mentioned this is at least an order of magnitude increase in software functionality over the F22. And yes, an autonomous vehicle will probably be the main aircraft in the fleet in 20-30 years. So the F35 is this kind of avant-guarde experiment in how to structure contracts, maintain and deploy weapons which are primarily based on software.

TLDR: The delays are due to software problems and the plane wont be kinda ready until end of 2018.

Software Development is going to be a competitive advantage in warfare as well. From what I have heard, DoD has some really interesting practices on building software (code review each line with physical printouts, etc), which in combination with scope creep might be the cause of this slowness.

Those practices might be appropriate for a combat plane.

So basically F35 is a plane embedded in a software. Why not have embedded computers in a decent plane? lol.

Just about every complex engineering system is now a software project with an associated hardware component. You do not have a "decent plane" without good software.

> Why not have embedded computers in a decent plane?

Oddly enough, Fairchild Aircraft was formed when Mr Fairchild decided to build a 'decent plane' to carry-around his aerial cameras...

Back to the F-35 it is interesting to contrast how Dassault in France has been slowly expanding the mission scope of its Rafale by adding additional software, without affecting the actual flight-control systems. After 12 years of gradual updates they're also starting to update hardware, such as converting to an SDR instead of traditional tuned radio.

> Oddly enough, Fairchild Aircraft was formed when Mr Fairchild decided to build a 'decent plane' to carry-around his aerial cameras...

Ya know, I think he may have been onto something there ...

> The A-10 was designed around the 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon that is its primary armament.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunde...

"Software Development is going to be a competitive advantage"

Let me fix that: if done well.

Fagan-style code review is likely a net productivity gain over no-reviews-at-all. Sure, scope creep is a killer, but I'd imagine it's a herculean task to create software for a new fighter. The expectation would likely be that software could control and/or monitor many features that would not have been software-controlled in previous generations. Safety requirements for flight (active life support) and armaments would be a huge burden.

IIRC, the F-22 has the equivalent of a Harris Night Hawk computer onboard. That was a big deal 20 years ago, but computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today.

My memory, faulty as it may be, seems to recall a two page ad in AW&ST touting the Night Hawk "supercomputer" that would be in each F-22.

This is normal in the defense industry. You must be very careful when you upgrade hardware, because it should be proven that the upgrade provides at least the capability of the previous system (regression testing) plus whatever new/improved functionality you plan. Changing hardware on the timescale of consumer electronics is simply not viable, or necessary.

In other words, my response to your statement that the avionics of a fighter jet are "computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today" is, "So what?" You buy and test the hardware that you believe is necessary to accomplish the given mission, not the latest-and-greatest for the sake of being the latest-and-greatest.

Similar arguments apply to spacecraft. The processors and other IT tech are usually far behind consumer gear. This is party due to the radiation hardening required, but also the lack of a real requirement for the latest-and-greatest.

I have a hard time classifying the computational power of a smartphone as latest-and-greatest.

That's almost irrelevant. The point is, the computational power on even a 5th generation fighter is much less than a flagship smartphone. Which is fine, because defense acquisition is on a completely different timescale than a typical consumer electronic product.

I agree with your overall point but not smartphone part. The systems I'm seeing certified for DO178C, etc and defense are usually PowerPC boards with 1-2 cores. PPC always smashed ARM back in the day. So, some are probably better than most smartphones. Just not the highest-end.

Which is fine because you're right: they don't need them. I'll add the older nodes were more reliable, too, as it was trivial to get chips to work vs deep sub-micron. I'll take old-school, fault-tolerant chip over modern ASIC any day if ny life is at stake.

My point was that how much more or less powerful the avionics in a modern fighter are as compared to a modern smartphone is irrelevant. What matters is the ability to accomplish the mission in a robust and fault-tolerant matter.

I recognized and agreed with that in my comment. Just correcting the misconception that they're all weak. Many are good and some have more than one.

There are very few functional requirements on that kind of a system that are linearly improved by a faster computer - it's not like they're mining bitcoins in flight. "Doing X in real time" is usually the goal and any faster is superfluous. OTOH, "X percent more robust when pulling G's / subjected to EMP / hit by shockwave" is an excellent property to have, so you stick with simpler systems.

If it was mining bitcoin in flight then it could pay for itself ;)

your smartphone isn't formally verified.

IIRC The F-22 uses an array of 39 i960MX processors in each of the two Common Integrated Processor (CIP) "Super Computers". Each i960 processor has 30M Instructions per Second capability. I'm not sure the clock speed, but its under 100 MHz. Each computer also has several custom DSP processors.

This processing capacity could be replaced with a couple of high density MILSPEC FPGAs. Its likely they'd use a 64-bit PowerPC processor augmented by FPGAs. The combined solution would be flexible and probably offer 1000x what the F-22 (Block 5 airframe) went into service, at a fraction the cost of the CIP [1]

As for the reference to the $100 smartphone, the latest "$100" smartphones could probably handle MegaPixel cameras for Augmented Reality and with connected sensors, more commonly known as "Sensor Fusion" [2]

Note: A failure of a $100 smartphone doesn't usually result in a pilot pulling the ejection handles on a $185m (unit cost) fighter. Avionics has to meet higher standards. There are MILSPEC versions of some of these processors. FPGAs are available with MILSPEC qualification.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i960#i960_variants

[1] http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#2.1 Common Integrated Processor (CIP)

[2] http://www.f22fighter.com/avionics.htm#4.0 Software

Not to mention the old i960's had advanced segmentation and error handling vs common RISC due to BiiN project requirements. I really wish i960 got traction and updates to modern nodes as my security engineering work would've been soooo much easief than x86 bullshit.

Like you said, though, they can be emulated or replaced with PPC if necessary. I encourage someone to emulate i960 anyway given it was badass enough to deserve at least one FPGA clone. :)

Honestly why do we still spec these with pilots? Why not make a generation of hyper-advanced missiles? It has got to be cheaper and easier (you don't need to visualize anything, because it is a computer) and you wouldn't even need active lifesupport.

...but you'd need a ton more software, which based on the F-35's history, is already the key hurdle in its design.

Or maybe less software since there is a lot of pilot-support stuff you don't need any more.

When fast jet pilots run the procurement, fast jets get bought.

> Honestly why do we still spec these with pilots?

I'm not sure that we do. We did when the JSF project that produced the F-23 was launched, but that was in 1993. More recently, the 6th gen fighter project that would be the follow-on seems to have been abandoned by the air force in favor of a strategy of disaggregating into independent component upgrade projects; for the attack role, it looks like the real replacement for existing manned airframes will be drones (the MQ-9 Reaper seems to be taking that role now, and the air force is training more drone pilots than anything else.)

> Why not make a generation of hyper-advanced missiles? It has got to be cheaper and easier (you don't need to visualize anything, because it is a computer) and you wouldn't even need active lifesupport.

Drones carrying the same type of missiles a manned attack plane would carry are cheaper over time and more flexible in use than "hyper-advanced missiles" that fly the whole mission themselves and are consumed each flight.

I think a lot of the issue is not the software on the plane but the software that manages maintenance, logistics and support; without that working the plane is sitting on the tarmac not doing anything.

Just to be clear, "physical printouts" means their printing the code to paper? If so, why, and if not, what do you mean, and why is it done this way?

>The combination of re-hosted immature software and new processors resulted in avionics stability problems that were significantly worse than Block 2B

So, the upgrade actually made thing worse. I'm sure I'm colored by many of the negative articles about the F-35, but other than "we already spend a lot of money on this thing" and "there's no plan b", why aren't the F-35 scrapped?

For the US, it would maybe make sense to get the F-35 operational, but why would any other country, including my own, not pick a different plane?

Probably the same reason people get the newest model of iPhones whenever they come out.

Because, for all their software and development delays, they significantly outperform 4.5th gen offerings and (the A, at least, which is the majority of what people are buying) don't cost nearly as much (~85-95 million for an F-35A flyaway vs. 110-120+ million for a Eurofighter or Rafale).

According to Wikipedia the $90 million is without an engine, which is just weird.

For smaller air forces, which won't have enough plane fight of the Russians anyway, there's little reason for buying a plane like the F-35. Some of the competitors are actually planes like the F-18 Super Hornet or the SAAB Gripen, priced at around $60 million. Sure they are aren't as modern, but for the needs of many small countries they're actually fine.

> According to Wikipedia the $90 million is without an engine, which is just weird.

Yes, a plane without engines is just a pretty mockup that sits on the ground. But, from Lockheed Martin's perspective, the engine is government furnished equipment. LM does not build engines. The government has a totally separate contract with Pratt & Whitney for the development and production of F-135 engines, and another separate contract with Rolls Royce for the development and production of the LiftSystem in the F-35B.

This is why the costs are given as "without engine". Because the engine is a separate contract.

Wasn't the F35 spanked by an obsolete F16 recently? Which means modern MiGs are going to eat it for breakfast.

F35 vs. any MiG fielded currently by Russian airforce would be a rape in the sky. SU-34 however might be able to escape.

There's also currently no missile for S-300/400 SAM capable to intercept F35, although there's a hectic R&D effort in that direction.

It was a Basic Fighter Maneuvers test point. The F-35 was supposed to maneuver in response to an F-16 behind them, and they did. This was not an evaluation of dogfighting performance of the F-35.

At TOPGUN (& FWS) the F-5 "spanked" the Tomcats and Eagles on most dogfight missions. That same F-5 runs out of fuel pretty quick, limiting its frontline effectiveness.

For the love of god, it's time to admit that the F-22 wasn't too expensive, and crawl back to it.

F-22 is an apex predator, F-35 is a multirole fighter/bomber. two different planes. I think you mean going back to building specific planes for specific thing rather than jack off all trades plane

The F-35 is a 1.5 Trillion black hole; a stark lesson on the sunk cost fallacy. The F-22 exists, and works. We already have bombers, and frankly it seems less useful to put humans rather than robots in harm's way for a bombing run.

and what robot is going to do this bombing run you speak of? has it been built yet?

Robot, or for the near-term, drones controlled remotely by humans. It's never desirable to risk the life of an airman/woman, for obvious and lasting political reasons if no other.

Maybe it is an example of the sunk cost fallacy. But ruminate on this for a moment: if we were having this conversation in 1996, you could have easily said something like, "The F-22 is a $800 billion black hole; a stark lesson on the sunk cost fallacy. The F-15 exists, and works..."

Maybe the F-35 is what you say it is, but when you look at the history of fighter development, I don't think the F-35 is significantly different, just a continuation and amplification of trends seen on previous programs. In other words, these kinds of problems aren't unique to the F-35. This is by no means an excuse, just a thinking point.

The F-35 was inspired by the cost of F-22 production, an inspiration that has already proven to be wrongheaded. The rest of what you're saying is very reasonable, but spending 1.5 trillion to discover the answer isn't.

Yes, to a degree, several modern fighter aircraft have run into significant cost and schedule overruns due to the additional complexity born of new advanced capabilities.

However, the F-35's woes are particularly bad because of some disastrous decisions made early on with the project.

First, the government decided not to start out with drafting detailed requirements for the JSF like they have for previous aircraft (and other weapon systems). The idea was that defense contractors know how to build planes so they could cut out some red tape. As it turned out, the result was a large number of oversights due to the contractors vision not lining up with the military's needs.

There was also a large reliance on computer simulation in lieu of real world testing. Predictably there were some sizable problems simulation did not catch, which resulted in major revamps and retrofits.

In the development of any weapons platform one would expect issues to be found in real-world testing with prototypes. But with the F-35 the government approved "concurrent production" which meant that production F-35's were getting built before all of the testing was complete. This resulted in extremely costly retrofits of existing aircraft everytime a major problem was identified (and fixed). Right now there are about 170 production F-35's out there, and operational testing is far from finished.

Put all of these facets together and it's a much worse situation than what we had with the F-22. Cost is tracking at around 200% more expensive than anticipated, and that's assuming we won't see a big drop in the number of aircraft partner nations order.

Your substance is right and I have no major disagreements with any of your points. I do have some comments and a few very minor corrections which do not substantially change your argument, but which you may find useful. I'm going to assume that someone who wrote such a reasoned response would find these minor corrections of interest.

On requirements: as an engineer I know how disastrous it is to write bad requirements. But having a thorough set of bad requirements is better than not having requirements at all. Without requirements, just about anyone is free to make them up as they go along. As you said, the government did decide that it didn't know how to build planes and the defense contractors did.

But, also, the government has, by and large, shifted its engineering focus away from systems design and more towards systems engineering and integration. Also, in general, the government cannot pay the same kinds of salaries that contractors do. So, even if the government had wanted to take a more active role in systems design, it would have found itself lacking the right people to do so effectively.

This doesn't excuse the lack of requirements, but it does offer an explanation as to why the government didn't take a more active role in design.

> There was also a large reliance on computer simulation in lieu of real world testing. Predictably there were some sizable problems simulation did not catch, which resulted in major revamps and retrofits.

Most notably, the government provided an incorrect computer model of the dynamics of the arresting gear found on aircraft carriers. The initial F-35C arrestment hook was designed against this incorrect model. When testing revealed this deficiency, the hook had to be redesigned.

> But with the F-35 the government approved "concurrent production" which meant that production F-35's were getting built before all of the testing was complete.

Yes, in large part because the government believed that improved computer simulation would eliminate the need for a separate engineering and manufacturing development phase. We've seen how that worked out.

> Right now there are about 170 production F-35's out there

From different production lots, so not even all production aircraft are the same. Later production lots include fixes that must be retrofitted on earlier lots.

> and operational testing is far from finished.

What the government calls Operational Testing (OT, what is also known and talked about in the linked document as Initial Operational Test & Evaluation, or IOT&E) is different than a layman's interpretation of the term.

Traditionally, once the government completed a very detailed set of specifications and the contractor built a few prototypes, these prototypes were flight tested by the contractor (with government oversight, of course). Once the developmental testing was done, the completed aircraft and all its test results and paperwork were handed over to the government. "Here's your plane, it meets all your requirements." Then the government would conduct testing in environments representative of actual deployments and combat conditions. Operational Testing. The OT force for F-35 just stood up last year. OT has really barely even started.

> Put all of these facets together and it's a much worse situation than what we had with the F-22.

An amplification of previous trends, as I said earlier.

> But, also, the government has, by and large, shifted its engineering focus away from systems design and more towards systems engineering and integration. Also, in general, the government cannot pay the same kinds of salaries that contractors do. So, even if the government had wanted to take a more active role in systems design, it would have found itself lacking the right people to do so effectively. This doesn't excuse the lack of requirements, but it does offer an explanation as to why the government didn't take a more active role in design.

Unfortunately this is a trend that's happening all over government. There's this pervasive idea that contractors can do it better so over time the government has less and less full-time employees with the technical expertise they need. Glad you brought up this point because this is a prime example of how this philosophy can be very costly.

It does seem like the program has been running better under Bogdan but at the same time you still have many staunch defenders who refuse to acknowledge reality (like the USMC). Maybe it'll all work itself out but I feel like realistically we'll probably need to produce more legacy aircraft (Superhornets, F16E's) as a stopgap at the least. At worst they may have to short cycle the F-35 and bring the replacement(s) sooner than anticipated.

> he F-35 is a 1.5 Trillion black hole; a stark lesson on the sunk cost fallacy. The F-22 exists, and works.

You compare fleet of 3k aircraft + operation costs for 80 years with fleet of 180 F-22 jets. Also F-22 can't fly from aircraft and amphibious assault ships, and do most of the ground attack missions.

This aircraft is never going to be risked on a ground attack mission. It was dumb for them to think it could fill that role.

They can drop JDAMs, small diameter bombs from 30 miles away and turn back. You are probably saying about Close Air Support role. It can be fulfilled by high precision weapons, which can be applied from many miles distance, but also Air Force consider replacement for A-10 for this role, which will not be F-35. And some other cases of CAS can be covered by apaches and drones.

I really think it's a shame that they moved to the F-35, instead of just continuing to produce F-22s. Stupid export ban. Then again, the extra payload may have been worth it.

The unit production cost (the cost of building an aircraft, not including amortized R&D) for the F-22A is about 50% higher than for the F-35A. You could certainly argue that two F-22As is better than three F-35As, but that is an issue that needs to be considered.

Furthermore, the F-22A was already running into parts obsolescence issues when I was working on it (2002 - 2006). Those would have continued to get worse had production expanded or continued. The F-35A was (supposedly) designed to better handle those issues.

The solution should be relatively straightforward. Purpose built different airframes, with relatively conservative technology. Share components where it makes sense. Manufacture lots of airframes and spares. Update components later.

The next US fighter / attack program is going to be like that. It aims a lot lower and should be more predictable. I've lost track if it's called F-X or F/A-XX or what now, and what are the split parts etc...

http://www.seapowermagazine.org/stories/20160426-f35.html

Yes, my naive reaction to reading about these planes and the maintenance requirements is that they are pushing for capabilities that are unreasonable given the available technology.

There is 3 different models of super Hornets.

1) F/A-18E Strike Fighter

2) F/A-18F FAC(A) CAS/Strike Fighter

3) EA-18G Growler

Commonality is ~80% between all 3 aircraft. They could probably make a F/A-XX based on F/A-18E/F with similar avionics, and engines based on the F135 in a larger airframe, but they could make it happen relatively economically if that was the priority.

It's not a good design in the stealth and supercruise departments.

Back in the sixties and seventies when the Hornet was designed, modern stealth shaping was not really known.

Modern airframes could be a lot more capable.

> The unit production cost (the cost of building an aircraft, not including amortized R&D) for the F-22A is about 50% higher than for the F-35A.

Allow me to point out the very practical reality that the figure you're quoting was the cost to build an F-22. We haven't built one since the last F-22 rolled out of Marietta in 2012, and all the tooling has been put away (and some of it has been lost). It would certainly be possible to resume F-22 production, but the cost of the first few new aircraft would be even higher than what you're quoting because we would have to teach ourselves how to build it again, and set up all the equipment and logistics necessary to do it. That won't come cheaply.

Quite right. The comment I was replying to seemed to be saying it was a mistake to cut F-22A production way back when in favor of the F-35, and I was answering in that context. Restarting it now would require hundreds of millions in tooling costs just to get the lines going again.

If parts were going obsolete while it was still being produced, how is maintenance going to work for the next half century? I assume these were electronics?

Well, that was part of my job. In the defense industry, it is referred to as "diminishing materials suppliers" (DMS). When a supplier decided to stop producing a part, I had to identify an alternative. Sometimes it was a drop-in replacement and this was just a matter of ordering samples and testing them on our boards. Sometimes we had to qualify new suppliers to build our custom parts. Sometimes I actually had to modify the circuits to fit a new part.

Generally, near the end of production the program makes a final buy of parts to warehouse for "spares and repairs". The typical threshold is twenty years of support. If the spares run out during the support lifetime, it is up to the customer how to handle it. Sometimes we can cannibalize other aircraft, sometimes we repeat the DMS process for the parts we ran out of, sometimes (if the customer wants to keep the aircraft flying for a while longer) we do a tech refresh and design new replacement modules with current components.

Eh, the F-22 is for land-based air superiority, and not much else. I don't think it is really want we want to use for CAS and other missions, nevermind doing things like land on a carrier.

I think we should have cancelled both the F-22 and F-35 programs, demand that the Air Force just fly F/A-18F Super Hornets (they would totally hate this), and put all that money into UCAVs instead.

Edit: grammar.

Yep, neither the F-22 nor the F-35 are the planes we need, it turns out.

Unwinding the F-35, with all the international commitments and arms deals, is gonna be very messy. Yet necessary.

On the subject of messy international things - the UK is building large carriers without CATOBAR specifically for the F-35B!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth-class_aircraft...

The money is on them re-starting F-22 production.

"The bill would also require a study of the budgetary implications of restarting Lockheed Martin’s F-22 fighter jet line."

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2016/04/28/house-pa...

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/04/20/D-j-Vu-F-22-Why-Air...

funny because just 3-4 years ago everyone was saying how expensive the f-22 was and couldn't even win in a dogfight. Now we want more?

http://www.businessinsider.com/f-22-wont-win-a-dogfight-thru...

5 years later will there be comments saying how awesome the f-35 is and that <gasp> we should build more?

Huh? That article is about how thrust vectoring, a really complex and expensive piece of hardware on the F22, is unnecessary to it's main mission, which is air superiority. If the F22 doesn't need one of its most marketed features to dominate the skies, that's a good thing.

The F22 is expensive but so good at its job that no other country had tried to counter it with its own design, and one of its primary problems is the health effects of extreme g forces on its pilots. The software is now modified to limit it's maneuverability just so that its pilots can remain concious.

That article you linked to says absolutely nothing about the F22 not winning in a dogfight. The F22 is still vastly superior to its competition.

I also keep seeing news about the Navy and Marines asking for more F-18's since they have ran through more hours on the airframe since the F-35 is late.

I remember when they were killing the F-22 project that basically the argument was that the F-35 would be taking over the lion's share of the work and the F-35 wouldn't have the same issues as the F-22.

Oops.

This might be off topic, but there are a few comments on here (mostly) joking about why we even should bother designing planes like the F-35 to be operated locally by humans. I'm curious, does anyone have any info on the state of drone fighter planes, either remotely piloted or completely autonomous? Does such a project even merit consideration when we could innovate missile systems instead?

Drones are not a good replacement for the traditional fighter aircraft. Remote piloting has too much latency for dogfights and software is no where near smart enough to trust full autonomy in order to, say, shoot down another plane.

That said, would you consider a cruise missile a drone? One can imagine other types of weapons getting smarter. Additionally, its clear the roles that drones tackle will expand at the expense of manned aircraft.

What about a semi-autonomous fighter, with a pilot to provide low latency input on what to shoot, and the plane deciding how to fly and make that shot independently? You could even have the pilot prone for higher G tolerance, like they tried in some of the old Gloster Meteors, since their input is no longer necessary for all of its operation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor_F8_"Prone_Pilot...

we found, designed a plan to, and (nearly) recovered an entire nuclear submarine from the ocean floor -in secret- using a giant grappling hook in under than 8 years and for $3.8 billion ($800 million in '74) dollars.

but we can't design a marginally improved fighter jet for less than a trillion or under 20 years?

ref: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Project_Azorian

We also built the golden gate bridge in 4.5 years for an inflation adjusted $1.3B, the new Eastern span of the bay bridge took what, $6.4B and 11 years?

That's just seems to be the nature of all public projects - the cost rises way faster than inflation.

Ode to what could have been... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZGgvhqs5g

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