Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Most people reading will recognize that it is a standard procedure to ground everything until you understand the risk. In this case the risk is a faulty fuel line, and apparently there is a test that will let you know in the field if you have it or not so you can return the plane to service immediately if the test comes up negative.

There is a remarkable amount of disinformation that is spread around about this plane. My father (who is ex-Air Force) assumes it is because it is so far beyond what "opposing" forces can field they will do anything to delay its operation. I don't know where it comes from but I do not that the relative transparency of the US procurement process makes it easy to talk about problems which are later addressed and never return. You can compare that to a more secretive system where all of the kinks are worked out behind the curtain and the end product is presented ready to fly. It "feels" better from a marketing sense but I haven't read anything that suggests the Russians or the Chinese have any fewer issues when they build a bunch of new technology into a plane, it just gets reported on less.

That's an interesting theory, that there's a foreign disinformation campaign smearing the program, because they don't want it fielded against them.

I'd argue against that theory though, on the grounds that a corrupt/greedy congress, military and defense contractor network will do more against the country than our opponents ever will. Remember that time we bankrupted the USSR in an arms race? This time we're doing it to ourselves.

So if anything, I think the flag waving F35 program supporters are both the defense contractors (obviously) but also all the foreign states that would like us bankrupt and saddled with decreased air power in three armed services. It's genius.

> there's a foreign disinformation campaign smearing the program

Do we have any evidence of this?

> Remember that time we bankrupted the USSR in an arms race? This time we're doing it to ourselves

The Soviets spent 25% of their national income on their military in 1980 [1]. Most years, it was above 10%. In contrast, the United States spends low single digits of its GDP on its military [2].

[1] https://nintil.com/2016/05/31/the-soviet-union-military-spen...

[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS

Wow, talk about cherry picking.

> The Soviets spent 25% of their national income

> United States spends low single digits of its GDP

Why are you comparing income vs GDP? Apples and oranges, please..

"In FY 2017, the Congressional Budget Office reported spending of $590 billion for defense, about 15% of the federal budget." [1]

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/system/files?file=115th-congress-2017-20...

> Why are you comparing income vs GDP?

GDP is a measure of national income, alongside GNP, GNI, NNI and NMP [1][2]. The article finds "one would say that military spending was around 10-20% of Soviet GDP, so perhaps a compromise figure of 15%, around twice USA spending."

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_material_product

> assumes it is because it is so far beyond what "opposing" forces can field they will do anything to delay its operation

This doesn't hold water; nation-state propaganda doesn't have any effect on the funding this program receives. Nobody should have any trouble believing that an overly-ambitious pie-in-the-sky kitchen-sink project that has been in development for 30 years might be having a hard time meeting its lofty goals, or indeed nailing down its goals in the first place.

Consider the Space Shuttle program, and now realize that in four years the F-35 will have been going on longer than the shuttle program, and that the F-35 has already cost five times more than the entire shuttle program, and that the shuttle is also today considered an overall failure (and this opinion is not ascribed to "opposing forces"). And if the shuttle can be a failure while achieving more than the F-35, while costing less than the F-35, with a smaller (though still huge and confused) scope than the F-35, by what possible metric can the F-35 not be considered a failure?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

What a bizzare comparison. The shuttle isn't a fighter jet and and has nothing to do with this. The question is what military value does the F-35 provide, and will provide, during its operational years. Nothing about the history of the shuttle program can possibly give us an answer to this question, and the entire comparison is absurd.

I think the basis of comparison is that both projects would have been better off with a more focused mission scope. In the case of the shuttle, it should have focused on launch and return of human crews and left BDRs to launch payloads. In the case of the F-35, the branch-of-service requirements were sufficiently different that individual platforms should have been developed to address each specific need.

Even if that were the case (and I seriously doubt that splitting the F-35 into multiple platforms would have resulted in a smaller budget, reduced development time, or better overall value. At the very least it's not trivial that that would be the case), it tells us absolutely nothing about the value of the F-35 compared to the Shuttle. I have kitchen gadgets that attempt to do too many thing at once and would have fared better as separate devices. They are cheaper than the F-35, so I guess the F-35 must be a failure.

When you consider that only 6 shuttles were ever built and the projected cost of the f35 program includes thousands of fighter jets and decades of maintenance then this will really open up your eyes how much of a failure the shuttles were.

> This doesn't hold water; nation-state propaganda doesn't have any effect on the funding this program receives.

Again, I wasn't offering up my father as an expert (other than having been in the Air Force, which is weak at best), just sharing his take on the observation of all the negative articles.

And you don't need to go to the Shuttle, look at the CVN-X program (21st century aircraft carrier, aka the Ford class) which has EMALS and a bunch of other next gen tech, lots and lots of press about boondoggle and how nothing worked, and this thing is a sitting duck in an ancient concept of what war will be like. The B-2 bomber, similarly maligned as over priced, under delivered, not worth the money when B-52s can be retrofitted. Or its earlier sibling the B-1 bomber cancelled then un-cancelled. Or the Seawolf class submarines, too expensive, not enough justification Etc etc.

So I think the press coverage, especially when it is effective at raising outrage over social programs, is effective at getting congressional action to limit the investment in new weapon systems.

Some citations for your perusal

[1] B2 Bomber program cancellation is urged (1989) -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/05/19/b...

[2] Seawolf cancelled [1992] -- https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/docs/910802-cr.htm

[3] Penny Pinching Submarine Warfare to Death -- https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/01/opinion/l-penny-pinching-...

[4] B1 Bomber flew in 1974 but was cancelled in 1977 -- https://www.boeing.com/history/products/b-1b-lancer.page

Don't forget there are some of us completely against warfare, no matter how it is being sold to us.

Seeing any report on defective military weaponry warms my heart... Why? Imho, because the sole purpose of weaponry is to cause harm to others.

Isn't it time we grow up and stop the sabre rattling, and live good, honest lives that respects the life of others? There was a Jew, 2000 yrs ago who tried to spread this message... It seems that we're just as deaf as ever though.

I certainly resonate with your message but I also see a bit of nuance. It hinges on the question of what others are trying to do to you as well right? Military weapons exist, and there are people who will use those weapons to assert control over you (you can the people of Crimea, Syria, Kuwait, Yemen, Myanmar, etc). So if you are ok with submitting to the whims of anyone who has weapons, then not having weapons of your own is a viable option. I don't see that as a very common point of view however.

Maybe it's from the project running over budget by hundreds of Billions of dollars and being a decade late?

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