F-35 Program Achieves Full Rate Production
defense.gov
defense.gov
I don't know what the argument is for that. Maybe that sim training will be a larger percentage of training in the future, and therefore operating costs don't matter so much? Take whatever jet has the best capabilities, period?
I think what that misses is that maintenance of real aircraft will atrophy without constant pilot feedback. Of course mechanics can follow the maintenance guidelines, but so much of that, historically, is guided, modified, and improved by experience from wear and tear from actual use.
What competitor is even close to "slightly less capable"?
The main driver of the cost is maintaining stealth coatings. On that front it has no real competitors.
The US is basically broke and seems to be struggling industrially. It won't be able to ignore economics if it has to conduct a war against an industrial power.
Japan has a Debt to GDP ratio of 255%, relatively few natural resources, and a rapidly aging population, yet it is still doing reasonably well. America by comparison is in a vastly better position economically.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_p...
> Japan has a Debt to GDP ratio of 255% ... yet it is still doing reasonably well
and
> Being a net creator ... [is] a sign something negative is going on.
How do you synthasize these? Would the Japanese be economically better off if they just forgave the debts of all the people who owe them money? That seems suspicious to me. As far as I can tell the argument is that the US is doing better than Japan, Japan is different to the US and therefore the US is not broke.
I don't think that is a strong argument. If the US engaged in heavy war spending, they'd have to print like madmen and don't think their economy would cope well. Let alone where they'd get the money to prepare for a conflict without focusing on manufacturing efficiency; it isn't easy to outspend people from this starting position because they seem to be finding the limit of what they can borrow. The people they owe money to aren't going to get it back in real terms either, seems safe to say.
In many ways Japan’s economy actually fits people’s perception of the US economy.
Money spent on the economy stimulates growth even if it comes from loans.
I'm not an economist but probably I would probably define the ideal amount of debt a country should have is when the amount of economic growth coming from the extra money is equalled by the costs of financing said debt.
The Korean Boramae is also likely to be exported. But there, granted it’s more a 4.5gen plane unless/until they iterate further.
There are still a few other 4th-generation fighters in production, some with modernized systems, but at this point they're only suitable for a limited set of defensive or low-intensity missions. Russia and China supposedly also have operational 5th-generation fighters now but it's unclear whether those actually work, and they can't build enough to even supply their own forces let alone exports.
Your point on how effective they really are or not is on point though. Ukraine has shown a lot of Russian wunderwaffe aircraft performing less than spectacularly.
Basically, but also looking like increasingly transient victory through attrition that's going to backfire on US alliance in long term.
TLDR - Convince western bloc to burden share development cost of joint program, burn partners by retaining near exclusive control over deployment and development. See drama that US has control over mission data files, that can only be generated at Eglin AFB, aka non US operators have essentially no sovereign control over their F35s. In the meantime, partners stuck on F35 platform because multi generational gamble commitment killed their own aero industry and there's no alternative short/medium term.
There's a reason almost every non-US F35 operator that can, is developing their own fighter, or partnering up in programs to to develop non US associated fighters (history US joint programs tech sharing drama entirely different shitshow) - actual long term operators of F35 have come to realize getting captured by F35 US/Lockmart SAAS is highly problematic. Borderline treasonous if we're being honest.
US can probably fix this by openning up program, or wait for other programs to fail technically/economically. Seeing how US can barely wrest F35 from Lockheed contracts, and how behind other western programs are, the latter probably more likely.
So - it reminded me of the thought of the 737max bugs that boeing is plagued with right now...
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I'm really curious to know how much of all these billions we are sending out to all these wars will come back to this project?
Also, in a general aviation sense, I think all planes should have a link to their service records.
I think that service records should be required to be made public for ALL large transit modals; sea, air, rail, etc.
A restaurant has to publicly post their health score.
Thoughts
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I just thought of: there should be public data sets from the FAA with all service records for all licensed commercial aircraft - and an llm fine tuned to produce ratings and spot errors.
This I think would be an epic(ly) hard thing to do, however the current Boeing Catastrophuk ESP with the 'suicide' of the Whistleblower would be good leverage to force this law.
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Actually I asked BING to GPTify this thought more succinctly, and got a pretty pretty pretty good response:
For Boeing’s crash data over the last 40 years, I can provide a general overview. However, specific annual data might not be readily available in a single source.
Here’s what I found:
Here is every Boeing Safety event Since 1970 on the NTSB site
https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/ResultsV2.aspx?queryId=d6cc0483-0...
Boeing 737 Accidents: As of February 2024, there have been a total of 529 aviation accidents involving all 737 aircraft [0]
Boeing’s Annual Summary: Provides insights into the safety of commercial air travel worldwide, including accident statistics [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
[1] https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/compa...
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boeing-whistleblower-john-bar...
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We’re still talking about military aircraft?
One, shareholding is a bad analogy for democracy.
Two, shareholders—and voters in a republic—delegate responsibility, including the responsibility to protect secrets. Our spooks would kill for China or Russia’s air force service records, and for good reason: it lets you exploit patterns and limitations.
How about accounability of those who manage?
> shareholding is a bad analogy for democracy.
Why?
I was reading service records as what conflicts it had been in, and what it's record was during those conflicts. It took a second that they were conflating this like it was a Boeing passenger plane type of thing. oy vey! There might have been a big whooshing sound as the point flew.
So - it reminded me of the thought of the 737max bugs that boeing is plagued with right now...
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Well, I just looked up every boeing safety event on NTSB since 1970:
https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/ResultsV2.aspx?queryId=d6cc0483-0...
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But thats for commercial...
Im going to dig into this more and make a separate post in r/aviation..
We are sending these billions to domestic defence industry, that will sending older equipment to various wars, and we are keeping the newer stuff
That was the f22. And we blocked international sales in favor of the f35. The death of the f22 should not be mourned, we will get 6th gen research to replace it.
As for the everybody wants it bit, this is very true. Much to the ~~shargrin~~ chagrin of EU military industry. With one of our presidential candidates calling for us pulling out of nato, with us not backing Ukraine, I would expect that the f35 is the last major military product we sell in the EU this way. And for as much as I might not love it, that spending is a large part of our exports and economy.
noun A keen feeling of mental unease, as of annoyance or embarrassment, caused by failure, disappointment, or a disconcerting event. "To her chagrin, the party ended just as she arrived." Vexation; mortification.
Costs are also somewhat weirdly calculated, by just taking hours flown / cost. Maybe we could fly the jet a lot more for a modest increase in cost, & the numbers would look much better. But we don't fly that much, especially given the teething issues (such as the oxygen supply issues) we've had. There was a really great report I think based on GAO or maybe direct from GAO that covered f35 expenses very closely, comparing across services over time, that really was interesting to see; haven't found the link again though alas.
The F35 is also a far more advanced sensor & communication system, I believe. F22 was a more conventional stealth where the pilots got the mission, got on the air, & kept minimal emissions to the target & hopefully back; the f117 I think had similar characteristics. This isn't nearly as general purpose a role.
I'm seeing annual US exports at $2 trillion, with military exports at $56bn, or 2.8%. That is definitely material, but hard to call that "large part of"
The language could very well be from some dark humor novel making fun of three letter acronyms. Definitely reminds me parts of Catch-22.
Boaty McBoat Face (BMcBF)
Now I can use BMcBF and you have all the information you need to work out what I'm on about.
I'm pretty sure that "Usage and abusage" encourages that format.
The only slightly controversial aspect of my example is M vs Mc. Mc is already an abbreviation, so should it be repeated intact? For me, Mc is complicated enough as a contraction and abbreviation to warrant deployment in full, as I have done.
sadly, as time goes by, this is becoming less of a norm. people just spit out acronyms because they are so used to, but fail to take a second that someone less familiar might actually be reading it. in previous discussions, this receives some support as "it's targeted a like minded readers" or "they're not professional writers" or "it's just a blog" blah blah.
for tweets, i'm surprised we still you vowels. for longer form posts, it would be nice to still be readable.
I note that, sadly: grammar, punctuation and basic prose construction seem to be wandering off into the mist and getting lost.
* dark humor novel making fun of three letter acronyms
Some of those silly seeming acronyms, like MSC for “milestone C”, probably are included because people who actually work on and around this project have naturally adopted them. I bet there are senior level employees in and outside the government who's whole career has been spent on this one project.
To those people, MSC and ADM are like k8s and MVC
In the private sector, you'd no longer be able to buy the components it's built out of.
Ridiculous.
Which is one of the reasons the military likes using civilian ammo.
Hmm?
The benefits are similar to the reasoning behind setting up CI/CD in software. They are just more significant, as production takes a while to ramp up when it comes to complex hardware.
As for upgrades.. they're behind schedule.[0] There's Tech Refresh 3, which looks to be improved computers/displays/software, which is needed for Block 4, "which will include new sensors, the ability to carry more long-range precision weapons, more powerful data fusion, increased interoperability with other platforms and advanced electronic warfare capabilities."[1]
[0] https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/03/30/f-35-upgrades-sli...
[1] https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/12/15/f-35-head-warns-f...
most of the fighting, and a whole lot of dying, has been with late-cold-war era tech. The upgraded T-72 tank, and it's successors, the T-80, and T-90, for example, are all far older than 2006.
No idea if that will come true, but it was absolutely one capability briefed. I'm not a project participant, but I was peripheral both during development and early operational stages .
Although, I could see how it might proceed as you suggest. Allow AWACS to direct squadrons into areas of interest and keep the bigger picture in mind while allowing the squadron level pilots to C&C the drones and focus on the details of which targets to engage. All from a nicely air conditioned "cockpit" from Sunnyvale
https://www.twz.com/massive-pl-17-air-to-air-missile-seen-on...
Remote piloting generally isn't a viable approach for near-peer conflicts. The communication links are too vulnerable, and even when they're working the latency is too high.
We’re not yet in the age of UCAVs that can match, tactic for tactic, a human pilot in a military context. We’re getting there. But not yet.
DO you really want nukes on a UAV? The last step in that has always been a human, and I would like that to remain NOT on a connection that can be remotely highjacked (even if a slim margin).
The question is will we get more UCAV in the f35 role. The answer is "maybe". It's not like remote pilots on a carrier are any safer from dying in a peer engagement than if they were in the plane. In fact you may make yourself vulnerable to a decapation strike at that point.
But why dont we have the pilots in, say Arizona. Well latency is a bitch, I'll leave it to Grace Hopper to explain why this is bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2uls6iIEU
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...
In 20 years they'll manufacture just one plane, and it'll cost a trillion dollars, if current trends continue to hold.
Also it'll the weight of an aircraft carrier.
Much was made of the fact that, once modern western equipment arrives in UK, it will wipe the floor with soviet union relics that serve in the Russian army. Instead, it has hardly made a difference.
The difference in price, even of simple non-mobile artillery pieces, is huge. Because they are so expensive, we cannot field as much equipment, and we've been telling ourselves that our modern equipment is worth multiple unit of the other side. Now I am starting to think we've just been deluding ourselves, and in reality we are just outgunned and the military complex is a huge graft.
Anyway, assuming it was Ukraine, then, yes, the western equipment made a lot of difference. In the first months of the war it was the Javelins, and the NLAWs. Then it was the HIMARS. Then the anti-air defenses, like the Patriot. All these things absolutely made a difference.
The problem is that there was not more of those. But that was by design. You could say that not in a thousand years would Putin actually use nukes. But I bet you said he would not invade Ukraine until the day he did.
Right now Ukraine is still standing, and Putin did not use nukes. It could be better, but it could be worse, much worse.
It's not a genocidal war of annihilation. It's not WW2 redux. It's not Holodomor 2.0. I do not think everybody realises how low the stakes of this conflict really are.
There are caveats, like: a tank that hits a mine is going to be disabled one way or another, and a disabled tank won't survive too long if it's anywhere near the front.
The problem isn't the quantity of equipment, it's the quantity of munitions. For example, Ukraine has only 30 or so HIMARS units but that's more than enough to fully consume every GMLRS munition we can provide them.
It's looking a bit like the struggle between armoured knights and guns. The place where the rubber really meets the road on this, the Big Problem, is surface navy: what's the lifespan of a floating metal castle in the age of hypersonic missiles?
Nobody wants to talk about that.
https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2024/01/23/upgraded-f-3...
And they always cause misery and suffering, even if they are just.
The entire Middle East begs to differ.
On a more statistically relevant note, just note that US / Nato allies feature on like 1/3 of armed conflicts in the 21st century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_2003%E2%80%93pre...
Edit: Just in case it wasn’t obvious, this evolving situation is counter to the hypothesis that improving military capability means ‘world peace’, particularly when there is always asymmetry and misalignment between geopolitical forces
Sorry, you said won, not pay for. But the point stands. If we were to get into a conflict with China, not sure how the military industrial complex would get funded.
See this from wikipedia, for example: The JSF program was expected to cost about $200 billion for acquisition in base-year 2002 dollars when SDD was awarded in 2001.[56][57] As early as 2005, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had identified major program risks in cost and schedule.[58] The costly delays strained the relationship between the Pentagon and contractors.[59] By 2017, delays and cost overruns had pushed the F-35 program's expected acquisition costs to $406.5 billion, with total lifetime cost (i.e., to 2070) to $1.5 trillion in then-year dollars which also includes operations and maintenance.[60][61][62] The F-35A's unit cost for LRIP Lot 13 was $79.2 million.[63] Delays in development and operational test and evaluation, including integration into the Joint Simulation Environment, pushed full-rate production decision to March 2024, although actual production rate had already approached the full rate by 2020; full rate at the Fort Worth plan is 156 aircraft annually.[64][65]