I wish this was the cynical view but it's more like reality of government procurement.
The F-35's initial "share parts" goal was good. But feature creep and overall complexity in the project weren't controlled, and now with hindsight we would have been better off with multiple task-specific aircraft even if that meant little parts sharing.
A greater emphasis on these modular components being flexible enough to meet each mission need while permitting each service to get its own tailored airframe would have been the best option. Instead the F-35 program office has the population of a small town on its own who all have to coordinate in harmony (hah!) with each other and the customers who have very different actual wants and needs. Divide that into 3+ airframe program offices (of reasonable sizes) with proper focus on their customer, and one larger program office that oversees the various LRU and other components and this alternate F-35 family of aircraft could have been successful (at least some of them, even if, say, you end up trying to build 5 planes and only 3 really meet their goals, that's better than the F-35 which doesn't work for any of its users).
Just to point out, back then with foresight there were plenty of people saying "this is a bad idea". The GAO found numerous issues as early as 2005 with the F35 (even earlier, as the article mentions, if you go back to the JSF), and I feel like I haven't gone more than a year without seeing yet another report of problems.
> I wish this was the cynical view but it's more like reality of government procurement.
> I'd argue that three distinct aircraft could have accomplished that goal better too (as they could be assembled in different places by different companies, with different US-based suppliers).
Which I think is proof that the GP is wrong. If all Congress wanted to do was spend cash to create jobs, they could have done better than the F-35.
I think Congress and the military were honestly trying to save money by building the F-35, by getting more bang for their buck by filling more roles with it. It's just that they failed at that. Some people can't help but assuming malice when incompetence is a far better explanation.
Lockheed spread the work around to make it more politically difficult to kill, but that was for their own profit-seeking reasons.
Multiple roles is hard when your biggest enemy is weight.
How do you measure this?
The USSR had deaths, including hitting the ground because parachutes didn’t open with Soyuz 1 and from faulty equipment causing asphyxiation during flight on Soyuz 11.
That the Space Shuttle was the only US space program with in-flight fatalities is significant.
That the USSR had fatalities in its own programs as well seems less relevant. It makes sense to compare US programs to US programs. Comparing US to USSR programs makes less sense.
It seems less significant and more of an artificial and meaningless distinction to avoid avoid space programs with launchpad fatalities in space vehicles and make the Shuttle falsely unique.
The Shuttle also accounts for the vast majority of US manned space flights (only a few less total missions than Russia Soyuz.)
Shuttle is also responsible for 100% of American launched flights after a certain point.
That’s like saying ICE cars are responsible for 100% of car deaths after the model T and before modern electric cars.
Also, you appear to have forgotten Russian casualties and ground rocket deaths.
(TL;DR: the plane is in a catch-22 of not having enough range when it carries enough weapons and not having enough weapons when it has enough range - you can't load dirty and fly high in contested airspace, you'll get shot right down, and if you load clean you won't have enough range to engage safely or the numbers to do so effectively)
* 1000 NM radius is not enough for SE Asia, at all, certainly not for defended airspace. Flying dirty (unstealthed), it flies LOLO for terrain masking, and now you're lucky to get 500 NM. * persnickety: pre-chilled fuel; exotic conditioned electricals; 30,000 dollar CPFH + regionally specific MDF for the active LO systems * Can't stealth mount BRU-61 * Can't mount AARGM-ER/AGM-88G, AIM-260 JATM, JAGM-F, SPEAR 3, JSM, APKWS, AGM-183 ARRW, AGM-158C/D LRASM/JASSM-XR, SACM/CUDA/PEREGRINE, Hammer/Hatchet at all * Can't supersonic launch missiles because no supercruise * So now subtract 30% from your missile range - a lot of power to make a shock cone that fast. * 8 seconds (A), 16 seconds (B) and 43 seconds (C) over KPP requirement for missile sprint, during the run up to IOT&E and OPEVAL. This is super duper bad. * 4 AMRAAMS internal, and you need 3 to guarantee a kill in ECM environment. Take more than 4 and you fly low, halving the combat radius if you're lucky. * APG-81, MADL, stealth coatings were pirated in the late aughts, compromised * Offtopic, but they're not helping with the "Show The Flag" forward presence parades up and down the "Black Ditch". Free handout to PRC tech exploit teams hanging out on the trawlers sniffing all the ELINT. * Etc etc etc etc this could go on for some time, like the logistics system that's already forcing ground crews to cannibalize the few jets they have.
(1) VTOL? VTOL!? Have you not noticed that the most practical form of VTOL is a hundred knot airframe WITH A GIANT FRICKIN FAN ON TOP? Also, since when is your fighter aircraft the most expensive one? They're supposed to be disposable for gods sakes.
The DoD of course, followed it on with the F-111 (thanks McNamara!) that tried to do everything, but the only effective thing it really did was to cause the Soviets to build the MIG-23 and waste a bunch of cash on that.
I don't know why they even wanted an interceptor. I suppose the soviets were still a thing. But a handful of F-104s wouldn't have stopped them.
In the Netherlands there was also a huge corruption scandal involving the queen's husband who was paid to lobby on Lockheed's behalf.
The US Govt, taxpayers, and military service members are getting hosed- especially on the software side of things.
You often see these companies avoid investing in themselves unless they can charge it to the government.
This culture extends to contracts as well. If the government doesn't pay for unit tests then they aren't getting unit tested software. Known bugs don't get fixed unless the government pays for it. The government can require static analysis but then not require the findings to be fixed. It's as if these companies treat the government as an adversary.
There is little to no incentive to deliver a good product- just enough to pass the requirements, check a box, and dump it on the customer.
We have known about this approach to software for decades- the Defense Innovation Board has been sounding the alarm about losing ground due to outdated software processes in the defense industry:
https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/01/2002126691/-1/-1/0/SWA...
I really like their suggestion to make software source code a deliverable. That way the government can own the code, build from source, apply security fixes, audit, etc.
The tribe opens up their wallet anytime they feel threatened, but not to help each other, to make sure no other sub-tribe is getting a disproportionate portion of the help (and/or to maintain their own sub-tribe continuing to get a disproportionate portion of the help).
I would characterize it as a general trait of people being happy with growth for everyone, as long as their piece of the growth remains consistent and stays ahead of the growth of those at or below them in society. Once the ordering starts getting disturbed, then people get tribal very quickly.
I'm assuming this is a general trait present in many species that live in groups.
Oh, the irony.
Anyway, government is only inefficient if you want it to be. If you keep voting for corrupt grifters that waste money, that's what you get. There are plenty of examples of government being fairly efficient.
In the US, the Republican Party has been preaching the evils of government for decades, and when in power, they've made sure that they were correct about it. They made it a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Its funny however since most people in the US are against the wars now also.
The numbers on this are pretty paradoxical. The majority of people want the wars to end but also keep up military spending.
I'd say the F-35 fails at all three. It's just a slightly cheaper F-22 that can be exported, the work was handed to existing companies for the sake of politics instead of creating new ones, the project is decades old and failed to hit inflation goals.
> It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. - Twain