Comment by gnoway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gnoway | Hacker News Reader

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It is just inconceivable that we have a multi-decade program to develop a new fighter to fill all these roles, and what we've produced is either equivalent to or worse than the incumbent in all cases, is not safe to fly in combat situations, and is more expensive to boot. I mean we've seen this sort of thing happen on a smaller scale before, but versions of this plane are supposed to replace, like, everything in multiple mission classes across multiple services. Again, just inconceivable.

This article didn't present anything that we haven't seen before, though, and the excerpts from the unnamed pilot set off the 'totally out of context' alarms in my head when reading them. Maybe it's because I'm not involved with fighter planes in any capacity; for example, I found myself thinking that maybe the pilot is not supposed to actually be looking behind them in this plane vs. using video on their HUD or something, and that explains why the helmet and seat are not optimized for head movement.

"...just inconceivable that we have a multi-decade program to develop a new fighter to fill all these roles, and what we've produced is either equivalent to or worse than the incumbent in all cases, is not safe to fly in combat situations, and is more expensive to boot..."

My first week at PLC in Quantico another candidate, prior enlisted recon guy, told me... "War is a racket". Later I found out that the quote was attributed to USMC Maj Gen Smedley Butler. Even read the book. It's kind of amazing how little things have changed at heart since he committed his thoughts to paper.

You can find the text of "War Is A Racket" here: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html#c1

Just a friendly reminder why governments and large corporations can't develop shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

Totally agree with you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

Nice rebuttal. The Apollo program was also delivered on time (JFK's "before this decade is out" deadline). I'd also add the Manhattan Project to this list.

I wonder: why can the government execute Apollo and Manhattan projects, but botches such simple projects as the Bradley APC carrier?

My theory is that Manhattan and Apollo both had exceptional, unicorn-frequency leadership. Both had flawed leaders - Tom Lehrer wrote a song about Werner von Braun, and Lesley Groves is a legendary ... figure, but it got done.

The software story in "Moon Machines" should be required for anyone who does software. The whole thing should be interesting to anyone; it's a great example of documentary filmmaking.

Apollo and the Manhattan project were both executed by fairly new bureaucracies that had people in key leadership roles who weren't selected by their ability to get promoted from within large bureaucracies.

It is possible to have institutional mechanisms or culture that keeps rot to a manageable level but nobody really knows how to do that deliberately - it's always a matter of luck. That's why it's important to allow organizations to fail. I wish we had some systematic way of allowing that for government departments the way we do for corporations.

Apollo wasn't all that different. It ended the successful relationship with McDonnell-Douglas which had produced Mercury and Gemini and brought in a number of different contractors at the same time: this was the result of lobbying and pork-barrel politics IIRC (I am not an expert). Unsurprisingly this transition set back the space program quite badly. IIRC things only really started to shape up again after the Apollo 1 fire which killed three astronauts.

> why can the government execute Apollo and Manhattan projects, but botches such simple projects as the Bradley APC carrier?

Because they were different governments. Yes, they were both labeled "US government", but the brand has changed a lot.

In both cases it was do or die. Right now is do or ... meh.

Do or die? I'm not sure. Neither Apollo nor Manhattan were do-or-die situations (for the US).

Maybe "First-system" vs "Second-system syndrome" is the difference?

  Apollo and Manhattan were definitely "First systems".
  Bradley APC and F-35 are classic "Second systems",
    suffering from second-system syndrome [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_system_syndrome#The_sec...

In the times they were conceived they were. A different european theater would have made nukes absolutely needed at least as deterrent.

And US urgently needed to catch up in the space race - space is very efficient way to drop nuke on someone.

IIRC it was increasingly unlikely that the Axis could actually win a conventional war in Europe during the period of the Manhattan Project. The big fear was that Germany could develop its own atomic bomb first.

Yes, that was the driver. We knew they were trying to build such a device, but we didn't know how far along they were. Given the German lead in other war technology areas (like guided missiles), it would have been foolish to underestimate them.

Of course the Germans were lucky to have lost before the bomb was ready. Otherwise instead instead of memorials at Hiroshima and Nagasaki they might be at Munich and Hamburg.

At the start of the project, the Germans were still advancing through the Soviet Union, and the Solomon Islands were still actively contested. U-Boats were doing a number on convoys.

Victory over Germany wasn't a sure thing until late 1944. The fact that U.S. leadership had the foresight to make a massive investment in the Manhattan Project at a time where half of the US Navy's carriers were out of action speaks a lot of them.

I wouldn't be wholly surprised if the entire point of the F35 is to make money off of it. Either by selling it to foreign countries, or by exploiting the large influx of tax money.

If that was your goal, it is win-win, no matter if the project fails.

And that's where I'd peg the fundamental problem.

I agree. F-35 seems to be developed to make money and redistribute political power. The atomic bomb was developed to make an atomic bomb. See the subtle difference in these two sentences?

And it works with so many companies today as well. That's why I'm a big fan of Tesla and SpaceX - because they build electric cars so that there are electric cars. They build rockets so that humans can go to Mars. Many other companies in these sectors are the toilet-paper type: they develop electric cars to make money on people buying them. They develop rockets to make money on companies buying launch services. It's the difference of having money as an instrumental vs. terminal goal.

In a way, maybe. Defense contractors have figured out that they need to distribute facilities into numerous congressional districts.

Too bad they couldn't repeat that kind of success https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

Nearly everything you do with computer tech was seeded by government/large corps.

For a military contracting specific account: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/d...

It was seeded by wartime/cold war governments and large corps.

But back then government was at least somewhat independent of the large corps.

Today Washington is the wholly-owned political arm of the mil/ind/fin complex.

The tail isn't just wagging the dog, it's controlling it with direct brain implants.

If you don't accept this, please explain how the F35 was allowed to happen.

The scale of wastage and - let's call it what it is - establishment-sanctioned corruption is almost impossible to comprehend.

War profiteering is nothing new. Corrupt generals and politicians are nothing new either.

Shitshows like the F-35 are just another symptom of the poisonous political landscape. These big projects get jobbed out to hit every congressional district to make projects tough to kill. They turn into monsters that aren't managed by anyone.

All the stuff we have that we don't want to replace with the F35 was built by governments and large companies

According to that clip, the key point of failure was the project manager, who just rolled over rather than properly manage expectations. Still part of the 'government', but the hero of the piece is actually the central villain.

In any case, you're suffering from confirmation bias. Plenty of government/large corp work is more than successful, from the SR-71 to Predator drones to the Mars rovers.

Don't forget this one : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

> just inconceivable.

Unless the primary goal was to transfer tax dollars from the unwashed to the privileged.

Don't be silly, the "unwashed" don't pay taxes. E.g. the bottom 50% pay 2.9% of total income taxes collected.

Edit: Heck, according to the IRS, in 2013 the bottom 20% paid -1.6% (negative 1.6%) of total income tax collected! I assume that's because of the EITC.

The bottom 50% pay a bunch of other taxes. Payroll taxes, sales taxes, taxes on booze, cigarettes, property etc.

Bottom 40% - All Federal Tax - 2013 - 5.6% of tax revenue. Bottom 60% - 16.5% [1]

A good rule of thumb is all state & local taxes paid generally work out to about 1/5th of your mortgage/rent cost. But that's also not funding the F-35. (neither are payroll taxes)

[1] - http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID...

State taxes are systematically less progressive than federal taxes so despite that rule of thumb you can't assume that relationship holds across income levels.

Exactly so. If they were progressive, then a fixed percentage rule would not hold. Being less progressive (more likely a fixed percentage), the rule of thumb is generally more accurate, wouldn't you agree?

> It is just inconceivable...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

I don't need to actually click that link, do I?

Probably not.

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