The Marines say the F-35 is now ready for combat | Hacker News Reader

The Marines say the F-35 is now ready for combat

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35 pointssangd215 comments

Now if they ask me (wouldn't that be odd? "let's ask one of those guys on the Internet...").

After the F-35 program is cut back from a couple of thousand to a few hundred craft, and then completely cancelled, this is what I think should happen:

1) extensions and upgrades to old platforms. Aesa/irst and modern bvr for all craft.

2) Make a new cheaper "4.5 gen" multirole platform with low operation costs, and no silly budget-breaking features: no full Stealth, no jumpjet. Instead just low radar cross section, supercruise, and lots of payload (f-35 can carry very little because of stealth and jumpjet design constraints). Looking at the Gripen, this should be possible at a fraction of the cost of an F-35.

3) tell the marines they can stop using jumpjets and use choppers or drones or whatever. Jumpjets are a dead end.

4) Make a few more F-22's in case the ultra expensive air superiority is needed.

Sounds like good ideas. No 3 in particular might save Marine's lives if they get rid of the Osprey. There's a new counterargument: stop killing your own people and get them to the battlefield instead.

So you get rid of the Osprey. Congratulations, now you have a tactical gap because you have no more medium transport capability. The CH-46 (the previous medium lift helicopter for the USMC) is officially retired as of August 1, 2015. Now you need to develop a new aircraft. Even if you choose a civilian aircraft and militarize it, you're looking at a decade where you have no medium lift.

You assumed I'd do it instantly. That's a bad assumption and you came up with the reasons yourself. It would take time.

Well, you seemed so...cavalier about it.

I do have an odd way of speaking sometimes. Nothing gets created in defense sector without time. I guess I figured people would assume there'd be some process to getting rid of them.

The Osprey, from what I have heard, seems to be doing okay now. But, as you referred to, it has a rough history. Have you read "The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey" by Richard Whittle? I read through it, and found no glaring technical errors (though my experience with a V-22 involves climbing inside one, once, to look at home someone did something I needed to replicate on something else, and a quick test flight in a V-22 simulator years ago as part of a "hey come work here we are really cool" career fair I attended). It's competently written and talks about the issues the V-22 encountered in detail.

Sounds interesting but I'll probably not have the time to spare. The radical nature of the craft means it would definitely have issues. That was going to be true from the get go. Other commenter implied the things that came before it were much worse and if true then it's necessary evil.

Cool that you got to get in one, though.

Interestingly enough, while I was in the sim, another person was flying and managed to put the aircraft into vortex ring state -- the exact cause of a real-world V-22 crash. That person crashed in the sim, too. The flight controls won't stop you from doing so. But the aircraft does detect flight conditions where it's likely to happen and warns "SINK RATE, SINK RATE" over the crew's headsets. So then it's the pilot's responsibility to knock it off.

That's a trip. I'm glad they at least have a warning. Probably is the reason the accident rate isn't higher.

I take it you haven't look at the stats for the helicopters the Osprey is replacing? The media doesn't cover helicopter crashes like it does the Osprey, but it doesn't cover the CDC top ten killer list either.

I haven't done a full look at the stats vs what it replaces or alternatives that were available. A bias on Osprey from media and/or soldiers that talk about it could certainly affect my view. How bad were they?

I bet you're getting tired of hearing from me. But I did do some work on a CH-46. That was the previous medium lift helo for the Marines (and the Navy until they retired the type in 2004).

So one CH-46 got shot down in Iraq by a MANPAD. Here is the video from the persons who did it http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=efb_1196612143 So there's a clear vulnerability there. Various attempts to address this met with mixed results. Here is one aircraft so modified https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5603/15563054829_09753417c0_b.... It's sitting in a museum this way, so this stuff (which is not at all old) clearly didn't work.

Plus it was getting difficult to keep the things in the air...the youngest CH-46s were made in the early 1970s, but most dated from 1965-68. So, 40+ years old. There are even documented cases where a father and son (and even one father/daughter pair) flew the exact same CH-46 into combat, 4 decades apart.

The 46 is slow. You might push it up to 120 knots. And it was made in the era before digital avionics. The 46-E standard at least gave the aircraft a digital flight computer (not flight controls, but avionics control and some decent comms), but even that is now ancient and antiquated. That's the basic answer about the 46 -- good at its creation, one hell of an airframe, lasted longer than it should have by all rights, but it is just time to say goodbye.

As I said elsewhere, August 1 (today, now!) marks the final flight of HMM-774's last CH-46 to the Udvar-Hazy center in Dulles, VA, where the type will be officially retired. HMM-774 then officially becomes VMM-774 flying the V-22, and the conversion is complete.

Oh THAT thing. I remember calling a death trap without knowing the stats. Obvious why: flying too low too slow with plenty of bodies in it. Best thing to shoot. So, how well has Osprey done in terms of resisting being shot down vs those? Accident section on Wikipedia doesn't look complete for either.

Well, flying in aircraft mode means it can go much higher (12000 feet) and much faster (250 knots cruise speed), so it spends less time in threat areas. I don't believe any have been shot down by MANPADS, but I also don't know if any have been shot at by MANPADs.

The CH-46 served so long that no complete public accident record is out there -- many of the sources are still on paper in obscure filing cabinets.

Enemies have their work cut out for them.

The F-15 Eagle entered service in 1976 (first flew in 72) and will be in service up until 2025. That's 49 years. Considering the cost and assuming it works out, 30 years for procurement for the F-35 seems reasonable.

The SR71's top speed was just over mach 3. The F-15 can reach mach 2.5. The Mig-25's top speed is mach 2.8 but was clocked by the USA over Israel at Mach 3.2 (Yeah, the SR71 ain't all that). Mig 31's top speed is mach 2.83.

The F-22's top speed is Mach 2.25.

The F-35 is a measly mach 1.6. I think this shift in priorities is revealing and goes beyond a mere obsession with supermaneuverability. The USA is now able to project force around the World, so the need for a fighter that can get somewhere at very high speed is not what it used to be. Now we need a fighter than can be invisible, be great at surveillance and jamming and if it gets into trouble must be able to completely out maneuver the enemy. So slow, smart, invisible and highly maneuverable is what we got.

I watched the F-22 do a Herbst maneuver today at the Seafair in Seattle which is impossible without thrust vectoring. It's an amazing and weird sight. While the new breed of fighters have taken a lot of flak, I wouldn't want to get into a dogfight with one of them while flying a fighter that has traditional control surfaces that need stable airflow when they're able to fly below stall speed at crazy angles of attack and use thrust vectoring to change direction with zero airflow over their control surfaces.

No modern aircraft are 'invisible' in any area of the spectrum.

In terms of radar cross-sections, low-RCS champions like the F-22 only have reduced returns in certain aspects and that only reduces the range at which they can be detected, it doesn't render them invisible^.

In terms of imaging infra-red all modern aircraft glow like candles. Even the B-2, which has various nifty features such as contrail-suppression, is a big hot pancake against the sky and makes a lovely 'hole' against the cosmic radiation background, or TV signals...

^ source: a relation who in a former career often tracked F-117s. The radar detection range was indeed reduced by an order of magnitude but once detected they could be tracked. And when using mobile radars the 'red force' on exercises were often able to align their radars with the aspects of strongest signal return.

Mostly agreed. But TV signals?

Slow and maneuverable doesn't win air combat. The Japanese found that out the hard way.

Ask any combat pilot and they will tell you Speed Is Life. The faster aircraft dictates the terms of the engagement.

Also the F-35's stealth capabilities have been compromised.

Edit: down voters please check your understanding of air combat. You can't fight what you can't catch

And running away is not what these aircraft are designed to do. With higher airspeed you lose maneuverability. Speed is life refers to any aircraft and the ability to trade speed for altitude. This should get you started on why the trend is to build slower lighter more manueverable airfraft...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93maneuverabili...

I can't remember to the documentary that has made with RAF Sea Harrier pilots, but in combat they preferred over Panavia Tornado even if the Tornado have supersonic speed, higher altitude and thrust.

Those Herbst maneuvers are really cool. The F-22 demo team does them as a standard thing, and I really enjoyed the F-22 demo I saw in 2008 at Andrews AFB.

The problem with the Herbst maneuver, as the energy maneuverability wonks will rightly say, is that when you're done with it, it leaves you in a low energy state. So you (as an F-22 pilot) must then give up some maneuvering for a short time while you regain some energy. So if you need that maneuver to get a kill, you need to actually get the kill, or else you've put yourself in a troublesome spot.

Where the capability to perform such maneuvers comes in handy is that being able to do such things means that your controllability at high angles of attack is superb. You can outturn your enemy in a wider portion of the flight envelope, in an area where fighter aircraft were traditionally not the greatest.

"So slow, smart, invisible and highly maneuverable is what we got."

Highly maneuverable... Except it's already been made so obsolete. Even the cheapest combat drones could out maneuver the F-35. There's nothing that this fighter excels at.

>While the new breed of fighters have taken a lot of flak, I wouldn't want to get into a dogfight with one of them while flying a fighter that has traditional control surfaces

While the F-22 is an impressive fighter the F-35 didn't seem to do very well against a F-16 in mock dog fights (as linked elsewhere here I think https://medium.com/war-is-boring/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-... )

Please look at some of my other comments in this thread for my explanation on how Axe misinterpreted that.

Ok. I did and you seem to have a point.

Thank you for considering what I wrote.

According to the history of the development:

  The original F-35 was designed to meet Marine Corps demands   
  for a supersonic, short takeoff/vertical landing plane.   
  That vertical landing requirement dictated an extremely   
  wide, 50-inch fan blowing straight down for lift and sucking 
  air through a huge intake door on top of the fuselage
  directly behind the pilot. That, in turn, led to an
  unusually fat fuselage that is so high it completely 
  obstructs the rear of the canopy.

  Subsequently, when the Air Force and the Navy were enticed 
  into joining the F-35 program — supposedly to benefit from 
  the “savings” of a large 2,500 unit tri-service buy (savings 
  that quickly turned into huge cost overruns) — they both 
  had to accept the fat fuselage and lack of rearward 
  visibility of the Marine Corps version. [1.]

So, perhaps it meets their specifications and use cases, but not the other organizations'.

Source:

[1.] https://medium.com/war-is-boring/everything-wrong-with-the-f...

[2.] Many HN submissions with discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=f-35&sort=byPopularity&prefix&...

Never mind the whole NATO pileup...

David Axe has a great, thorough writeup on how F-35 became the worst, most expensive, plane in our arsenal and will probably just get our pilots killed.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-alli...

I was extra mad that they're moving to get rid of the A-10's in favor of this garbage. Originally learned about them with the A-10 Tank Killer games on PC. Later read how they shredded the opponents' vehicles in one campaign after another, even recent ones, despite being highly exposed to enemy fire. They're beasts. And that's just one example of something that does its job more effectively and at better cost than F-35... which is also being decommissioned to support F-35 program. There's quite a few more that each could've been updated with less money than F-35 took.

David Axe exhibits poor engineering understanding of the aircraft, which results in him interpreting the reports that he reads in ways that are simply not supported by the source material. As someone with detailed knowledge of the program, I consider his reporting to be misguided at best and potentially malicious at worst. At the very least I wish he would consult someone with flight test experience as he writes.

Actually, the test pilots tell him it's such a poor design that they lost to F-16's in the mock battles:

Rather than denying it, Lockheed's response was that it was intended for "long range" dominance. Axe's claim was that it would fire off its payload and be destroyed in dogfights by any planes that survived. The pilot's remarks and Lockheed's support that this is true... even if they have their older planes. ;)

Far as long-range, there's concerns even if we take Lockheed's word their stealth is great. Their word hasn't been reliable so far but let's pretend it is. That leaves two problems: engine being picked up by upgraded infrared sensors on next-gen aircraft; fact that tests showing long-range dominance were done with weapons it doesn't even have and still aren't in the program. Both mean it might not perform as well as expected with one being straight-up deceptive.

So, the evidence in dogfights, Lockheed's response, and their cooked tests show this plane is worthless. Upgrading proven designs that are each great at their respective missions would've been a better investment. Far as aircraft engineering, I haven't met one engineer that in private will endorse F-35 or existing VTOL aircraft. They all mock both while praising their choice of prior aircraft.

F-15's, A-10's, and F-18 Super Hornets get my vote for upgrade dollars. That's air, ground, and multi-mission. Maybe try to make the F-22 cheaper while they're at it. Improve some drones or human, recon craft. Throw in improvements on an ECM craft. All adds up for most bang for buck. Collective capability would rival a bunch of F-35's. Military with with the F-35's. Should've chosen Option A.

As a layman reading about this plane for years and years and years it almost seems like the military would have had better results stacking the 400 billion dollars up in 5inch stacks and strapping it to the soldiers as body armour at this point.

They're doing some cool stuff though, the military. The new railguns and laser systems the Navys building are pretty neat and will probably end up having some civilian benefits in the future.

This unfortunately feels like a huge sinkhole which won't produce any tangible benefit for the military or civilians.

Lmao that might be true. They could've upgraded the whole military with next-gen rifles, IR, Playstations, and so on plus some new jets at these prices.

One article pointed out that the F-22 acquisitions were canceled due to cost. Yet, they did seem to be untouchable in the air. Now, we have an enormously expensive plane that can't beat F-16's in short-range and might loose to China's clones in long-range. Prior gen performance approaches F-22 prices. (slow clap for U.S. military)

My theory is that the money is actually siphoned out to black projects.

It could and they almost certainly do. Probably a combo of projects and profit. We have no way to test that, though, for this program. I'll note that black projects already have a way to get tons of money without much accountability: SAP's, USAP's, and waived USAP's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program

I know in the 90's that Aviation Week reported that they spend around $100 million a day on these with a House committee admitted they review only 5-10% of them. So, plenty of money slushing around to who knows what. Every now and then we get details such as NSA's exploit development and subversion program costing around $212 million a year.

Not all SAPs are black. Some are publicly acknowledged.

I forgot to add that I learned quite a bit from SAP security thanks to Uncle Sam publishing it:

http://www.dss.mil/documents/odaa/nispom2006-5220.pdf

It's not the end all but it was a nice start to organizational security. Just had to... de-bureaucratize it into something a person could comprehend lol. Then worked from there based on expert writings in each subfield, spy vs spy literature, and what worked for organized crime dodging LEO's. And that's how one learns real security. :)

Yep. That's why they add "Unacknowledged" and "Waived [from extra reporting]" in front of SAP for those that are. I usually only call USAP's, esp waived, black programs in my usage. Seems most accurate, eh?

The whole long-range dominance idea reminds me of early-Vietnam era F4 Phantoms - they were supposed to use the early models of Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles exclusively for air-to-air combat. So when they actually got into combat, the armorers started strapping externally mounted gunpods on them, so that they could have a chance to dogfight with the mostly cannon-armed MiGs they encountered.

What you are describing is historical truth. The Sparrow missiles were really bad. They had poor seekers, poor motors, and poor maneuverability. It took multiple Sparrows to even have a chance of killing a target. I believe their Pk was below 20% and was often as low as 9%. Early Sidewinders were more reliable, but had a narrow engagement envelope. And pilot training completely eliminated any work on how to conduct traditional dogfights. This was a recipe for lots of aircraft and aircrew losses.

However, the aerospace industry and government have not stood still. Newer missiles are orders of magnitude more reliable and capable. High off boresight missiles mean that pilots can engage targets from a wide variety of angles. Seeker technology is amazingly better.

One of the VTOL opponents I know was my grandfather, who flew F4's. :) He loved them (unsurprisingly). He told me they did a lot of interesting stuff with them trying to squeeze out more ROI or effectiveness. The gunpods sound like an interesting example of that. Probably the best example of that idea in Vietnam, though, were the AC-130's with Vulcan's. I think the F4's might have been more cost effective, though, given how much munition the Spookies dropped vs number of kills.

The test pilots told David Axe no such thing. Someone inside the program leaked a pilot's report on a basic fighter maneuvering test. David Axe basically failed to understand

1) The exact nature of the specific F-35 used in that test, and how it differs from production aircraft in crucial ways

2) The intent of the test plan this test was conducted under. Axe says "The two jets would be playing the roles of opposing fighters in a pretend air battle, which the Air Force organized specifically to test out the F-35’s prowess as a close-range dogfighter in an air-to-air tangle". This basic assertion is incorrect. The intent was to test how the F-35's control laws responded to the kinds of inputs that it would receive in combat maneuvering, and how the pilot would feel about how the aircraft responded. As the pilot himself reports, "The test was designed to stress the high AoA [Angle of Attack] control laws during operationally representative maneuvers utilizing elevated AoAs and aggressive stick/pedal inputs".

3) The meaning of much of the language used in the pilot's feedback.

The key takeaway from the report was not, as Axe says, that the F-35 " is demonstrably inferior in a dogfight with the F-16", but, as the pilot himself says in the leaked report (I will not link to it -- it is ITAR controlled and should not have been distributed in the first place, but Axe has posted it), "Whereas rudder inputs often feel sluggisth or gradual/delayed, the anti-spin logic is immediate, abrupt, and forceful. Perhaps some of the available authority may be given to the pilot while still preventing departure." In other words -- the plane has more maneuverability in it, please give that to me. The pilot also recommends some changes to the seat to allow for better visibility, and a change to how various regions of the control laws are blended together.

By "Lockheed's response", did you mean https://www.f35.com/news/detail/joint-program-office-respons.... ? Because that's not Lockheed, that's the JSF Program Office -- run by the government. Their response was more nuanced and detailed than what you describe.

The pilot's remarks do not mean what you are asserting that they mean, as I have outlined above.

F-15's have already been upgraded significantly. A-10s have received two different service life extensions. F-18 legacy Hornets are receiving entirely new center barrels. All of this helps, but it's not a long term solution.

Making the F-22 cheaper sailed out the window when the current administration stopped production orders in 2009.

Edit: also, "Cooked tests"? The test plans are approved by the government and are conducted with government engineers participating in every single step of the process, from test design, simulation, planning, briefing, execution, and data analysis. Nothing is passed through as OK until the JSF Program Office approves of it. Please refrain from baseless speculation on a process that you have not participated in or witnessed.

Your argument doesn't seem to make any sense.

You say that the F-35 engine would be picked up by upgraded sensors on next-gen planes ? But next-gen planes don't exist yet. So that means the F-35 would dominate older generation planes when in its preferred position. Which makes it anything but worthless does it not ?

I'm saying that tests already prove outdated planes would kill it in a dogfight and there are concerns about long-range. Here's those:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/no-the-f-35-can-t-fight-at-...

Contrary to your post, the goal of F-35 isn't to defeat outdated tech: must defeat old and next-gen tech. Performance at long-range looks like it was optimized to defeat old tech with a bit of improvement. The enemy's new tech is very improved and China straight up stole F-35 tech for theirs. With that, we must assume theirs is at least as good as F-35. Maybe more given that they eliminated its weaknesses in their version. Add Russia and the new radars to get anything but assurance that F-35 will deliver.

It might. So far it's failed on everything else, though, while specifically eliminating strengths in its design for politics essentially. Enemies's designs aren't doing that. So, I'm not betting on F-35 in any scenario.

The Chinese 5gen we don't even know what it's for. It's not stealthy like the F-35, only from the front. The Russian 5gen (T-50) looks like what the F-35 would have looked like if it was made as a 5gen fighter for the USAF without the stovl crap bolted on. As such it can get a huge energy/payload/maneuverability advantage over the F-35, like the F-22. In any case, the F-35 might run into problems when pitched against 4.5gen or 5gen craft, if the battle isn't decided at long range before the F-35 is detected. A large part of the problem lies in the payload capacity; if you face an adversary carrying 2-4 times as many bvr missiles per craft you are at a huge disadvantage.

"The Russian 5gen (T-50) looks like what the F-35 would have looked like if it was made as a 5gen fighter for the USAF without the stovl crap bolted on."

One of my biggest gripes with the program right there. F-35 seems setup to fail against 5gen's while others aren't doing that in design decisions. I'll take everyone's word for it that the others' designs aren't finalized or sufficiently detailed to tell what they can do overall.

Combat effectiveness testing is done on all aircraft the US introduces. So the question of "can we succeed against other types of aircraft that we will encounter?" will be examined in great detail. Nothing on that yet, so it remains an open question with respect to the F-35.

These hit pieces are never actually written by anyone with actual air combat experience. Test pilot reports tend to be quoted out of context and misinterpreted in the media.

Its ironic that "everyone" claims the F-35 can't dogfight etc. forgetting that the former JSF program director [0] has actual experience in an actual dogfight[1].

[0] http://www.navy.mil/navydata/bios/navybio.asp?bioID=288

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Sidra_incident_(1981)

Which highly mechanized army are we fighting?

The A-10 is an absolute beast against the people we are currently fighting. It also can hang around and provide cover for a much longer time than the F-35.

The A-10 is built around an absolutely awesome cannon, but it is vulnerable to shoulder-fired missile launchers. I don't know how many of these ISIS has, but there are plenty of them out there in the world, and they are designed to be used by irregular forces.

Any low-flying, slow ground-attack aircraft that is designed to strafe is going to be vulnerable to shoulder-mounted missiles. I would have more faith in the survivability of a flying tank like the A-10 (the thing is built with a titanium bathtub enclosing the pilot, redundant hydraulics, manual cable control backups, and the engines mounted in a configuration that somewhat confuses the thermal signature of the exhaust), which has demonstrated the ability to fly home after being shot full of more holes than swiss cheese, than in most other ground-attack craft.

Helicopters, even a similarly over-armored model like the Russian Hind, don't have that kind of durability. Maybe we'll have close-air support drones eventually, but I would imagine a drone that has the flight characteristics to be a good gun-platform for strafing is still going to be vulnerable - this is flying in at altitudes where aimed small-arms fire can do damage.

It's a risk. However, it worked in our last two conflicts where enemies had both those and surface-to-air.

I don't know enough to have a solid opinion, but at a surface level I can see enormous value in the F35.

The growing threat against western militaries are asymmetric threats, and the US's modus operandi for quite a while has been to empower the carrier strike groups to project power over wherever these threats may start heating up. If a carrier has to carry a bomber and two escorts and now an F35 can be 80% as good as each of those at their respective task but take up < 33% of the space, that seems valuable.

How does this whole F35 thing pan out when logistics like that are taken into account?

The asymmetric threat should make the carrier extinct pretty soon, and this should have been taken into account even during the JSF project. The carrier is what the major battleship was in WW2: a basket for too many eggs.

No need to speculate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

U.S. strategy and gear were totally defeated by an asymmetric response. Seems our tricks only win against 3rd world countries we hit. Add any brains, like we saw in Vietnam insurgency, to get a different scenario. That they then rigged it to make our failed strategy look good says even worse about our military leadership and outlook if we go against strong opposition in the future.

that thing has been debunked so often, it gets boring. motorcycle couriers operating at lightspeed, with no losses? etc etc etc.

The Zerg rush works. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12navy.html?_r=...

>that thing has been debunked so often... motorcycle couriers operating at lightspeed

got a link?

http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/n230b/til_a_w...

the original papers are to be found in mil resources.

Thanks for the link. I don't agree with what I saw there, but I'll read some more.

News to me. Where? Link?

So the carrier goes extinct. You're left with F-35Bs and F-35Cs that can operate perfectly well from land bases. What's the problem?

The real problem isn't the carrier version but the jump jet version. The B is ok, it's an appropriate response to a challenging problem (stovl), the real issue is how it affected the performance and cost of the Air Force version.

>How does this whole F35 thing pan out when logistics like that are taken into account?

Pretty poorly given the long mission turnaround time and otherwise low projected availability/readiness.

The easy way to do it is to just ask, "When have we been unable to destroy enemy vehicles or structures due to extra planes?" We did it in Iraq faster than ever with our current configuration of various, specialized aircraft. What you're mentioning can be done with F-18's and A-10's against most countries. The top opponents are investing in, again, aircraft specialized for certain types of missions that will dominate F-35 in any performance test.

China's F-35 is already better than ours for instance. I'm not sure if they sent Lockheed a thanks for all the free R&D. ;)

> China's F-35 is already better than ours for instance

Where is the evidence for this ?

Everything I've read about the J-31 has said that it isn't a match for the F-35 at all and actually isn't even a program yet (just a prototype has been built).

Might be true. There's little to draw on for either side of the argument. Original article I cited was the basis for my claim where it showed they had eliminated weaknesses in F-35 in their clone. That's already better for short-range. Whether it's better for long-range will depend on their detection and missile tech. Or how much of ours they stole and improved on.

Their only evidence was their own claims. Unsubstantiated in any public source.

Please please stop taking "maybes" and speculation and presenting it as fact. That's what irks me about David Axe. I'm really confused, because I have read through some of your other commentary here on programming and security issues and you seem quite intelligent and solid there. So why spread so much FUD about something that's outside of your wheelhouse? You're certainly allowed and encouraged to ask questions, investigate, etc, but you're presenting yourself as an expert on this sort of thing when you aren't.

I am operating outside my expertise: security and system engineering as you noted. Having to rely on third parties way more than I like. One seems to misrepresent the situation to push his personal success. You've illustrated this pretty well on F-16 case. Another systematically misrepresents the necessity/effectiveness of programs to rake in billions of dollars and has been caught in such schemes many times. Gets away with it because Congress has lots of votes/stock in defense and brass often get hired by them near retirement. I'm not liking my options haha.

You have a point, though, in that my own bias against the wasteful program caused me to leverage sources without enough verification. I need to be more careful about that in near future. Thanks for calling me on it.

This is why I love HN. Good reasonable conversation on the internet. It's hard enough for me to find in real life. The internet, doubly so.

Yeah, it's rare and why I've been spending more time than I can justify here. ;) The last site that was similar was Schneier's blog where I put most of my essays and designs on for public benefit. Aside from the large audience, the blog's moderation focused on keeping things civil and it attracted top notch security engineers for solid, peer review. Post-Snowden, too many of Reddit and Slashdot crowd ended up there with what results from that. So, I looked around and ended up here. Been fun.

Least my stuff's still there to benefit whoever.

You couldn't be more wrong. China's F-35 clone isn't even an actual program at this point. It's half mock-up, half vaporware. There's zero evidence they have any battlefield ready capabilities in place, nor that they can mass produce their plane.

I hope that's true. Otherwise, it would mean our F-35 program was so thoroughly infiltrated and their engineers so much better that they got a passable prototype in record time. So, I really hope you're right and there's a decent chance you are.

Once I had a college professor who said, "Plagiarize, plagiarize, let nothing escape your eyes." He meant it! Copying assignments in his class was acceptable. But at the end of the semester, he would come by and talk to you and see what you really knew. If he found you lacking in understanding, you failed. You still had to know the material. Blind copying would get you to the final examination, but it wouldn't allow you to pass it.

Any aircraft the Chinese make will presumably be put to some examination, some day. Will they be able to pass? Your guess is as good as anyone's.

"Good artists create. Great artists steal." (Steve Jobs, inspired by Picasso)

Put that to good use after a visiting some true innovators at Xerox Palo Alto. ;)

Far as espionage, I lack the source on hand but one said what they got in a year from U.S. companies paid for their whole intelligence program in what they got on it.

Considering what happened in Iraq, maybe our definition of winning isn't well chosen.

Agree 100%. I'll add that maybe the goals aren't well-chosen, either.

Case in point:

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

And against ISIL targets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn8R8ne9Pd0

That it can take tons of gunfire, counter missiles, rapidly disable targets (bombs/missiles), and selectively/cheaply do it (bullets) makes it ideal for current battles. Gotta imagine what beast would've come out of $1-5bil in improvements to that.

That first video is terrible.

Most of the A-10 videos were terrible despite how cool a video its capabilities could make. I went through half a dozen of them looking for good runs with avenger and bombs. That was the most "exciting" one that popped up. I should've posted footage of the PC game (A-10 Tank Killer) as it did it more justice lol.

Sadaam's had trucks, tanks, and planes IIRC. Most Middle East targets don't operate entirely with shoes and camels. There's plenty of machinery to target.

Remember, though, that these programs exist to put money back into Congressional districts more than anything else. That's why they do nothing about Pentagon being a financial sinkhole with broken accounting. So, they have to do upgrades, need a lot of money to move, and everyone wants a piece of it. Option A: invest small amounts to upgrade a few proven planes with their contractors and subcontractors; Option B: invest as much as a war into an unproven one with cash across many districts and capabilities a compromise across various branches. Option A is best for taxpayer but Option B is best those paid with taxes. Washington and Pentagon 101. ;)

The A-10 worked because the Soviets didn't export man portable SAMs.

Other sources I've dug up showed the A-10's lack of thrust hurt it in Iraq and other places. They used it to mop up less-equipped front of line troops. I might need to re-evaluate it.

If the money spent on this failure of a flying machine went to NASA's budget instead, we'd probably have a Mars colony by now.

Other than being kind of cool, what would be the advantage of a Mars colony again?

We could get away from all the crazy wars that people are starting here on Earth.

Colonizing Mars would advance our technology far enough to give us confidence to research forward into colonizing beyond our solar system. Which is arguably the next major important developmental steps as a species.

Let's see:

* Another planet to live on if we mess up Earth sufficiently bad (though, if we can live on Mars, we can probably live on a pretty-fucked-up Earth)

* Close proximity to the asteroid belt (which is already being examined for mining activity)

* Arguably the least hostile to colonization among the planets

* Has water ice, might have liquid water

* Respect from Buzz Aldrin

Ready for combat? Against who?

Preferably nobody at all. That's the strategy. Outrageous air superiority means nobody wants to fight. Fighting the US conventionally means you lose all your shit in 48 hours.

Seems like a flawed strategy. The US already has outrageous air superiority and people still want to fight them.

And these conflicts tend to go on for much longer than 48 hrs.

Someone should really tell "the enemy" that they're doing it wrong. They were meant to give up years ago!

Maybe this was like a Reagan era military spending play. Outspend your enemies so that they will go bankrupt trying to copy you.

While the F-35B has now reached what’s called its “initial operational capability,” the plane’s development is not complete. There are still updates to the software that need to be implemented.

Did the "fire the gun" software get installed or is it still a to-do item?

We'll get to that once it's finished applying 345476 Windows updates. Only 10 reboots to go...

Sadly, I'm actually being quite serious[1]. The update from last year gave a likely 2019 which was later corrected to 2017. I doubt it made it to 2015.

1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...

This reminds me of an anecdote that a Marine officer once told me.

He said that when the Air Force builds a new base, they're given a certain budget and they build every part of the base, gym, mess hall, rec facilities e.t.c. and use the entirety of the budget to make the base nice and comfortable for the airmen that are stationed there. Then, when the base is almost completed, and over schedule, the party in charge asks for more money, and more time because they still need to build the most important part of the base, the flight-line.

I know this is most likely an embellishment, but being involved with government work in the past, it doesn't sound far off from the truth and felt it fit nicely in this situation.

Interestingly, this is the similar to how municipal services are funding. Authorities build out the police and internal government pork, and then cut the parks and schools projects and go to the pulic for tax increases.

Wow. It can't even use its gun right. Mindblowing.

Meanwhile outside Pentagon, university teams from across the country with limited budgets are building robots that drive, fly, make stuff, and so on with little to no human intervention.

The gun has been tested on the ground both in and out of the plane. The software that would enable full use of the gun was delayed at program office request. It was decided that using missiles and bombs was more relevant and important.

I get that you don't like the plane but your arguments do not reflect facts.

My argument is the gun software is not the ready which you have confirmed. Also, for a CAS platform the pathetic 220 rounds is really going to be a problem.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/01/08/pentagon-f-35-gun-will-fir...

Yup, there's no denying the software is not ready. As I pointed out, the gun is still being tested.

And let's be clear about that 220 rounds -- that's only on the F-35A. The number is less for the other two variants (180) which have to carry the gun externally in a pod. So that is even worse!

You just admitted what the article claimed but with a different reason. We've spent X dollars for Y years for a plane with a partly usable gun? That fact is enough reason not to like the plane for situations involving guns or the program that led to that situation. That's before my arguments or personal preferences enter the situation.

So you're a software guy, right? Ever do a phased release? Wherein you design capability to be released in different increments. I know this isn't the most popular of software methodologies, but it's how defense projects work. Your complaint is like saying, "You worked all this time to get to phase 2 and you don't have feature X done yet?" and the engineers say, "But feature X isn't even intended to be in the software until phase 4!"

EDIT: I should point out that as a defense acquisition project, THIS (http://www.hjspllc.com/2014dev/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/DA...) is what governs the F-35 and most projects the DoD does. Look upon these works, ye sorry engineers, and despair. I took several hundred hours of courses about this process and I could not even begin to explain it, it's so ridiculous.

Tons of waterfall and spiral development there.

I have enough experience with phased development to know that the later phases rarely happen.

Or they get mashed together, or neutered, or otherwise transformed to poor shadows of their original conception.

? Spiral is the opposite of waterfall that people like these days

That process chart has some waterfall in it -- that's clear to see -- but the steps of those waterfalls are often done in a spiral manner (sounds confusing, it really is). So you go down a waterfall in this chart, do some work, but you split the functionality of what you make into "blocks". The first block features the basic functionality. Subsequent blocks build on that.

Really the DoD chart is what the DoD tells itself about how it designs and develops products, but in reality, it's even messier and more confused. It's the world's biggest exemplar of a spaghetti process.

"Really the DoD chart is what the DoD tells itself about how it designs and develops products, but in reality, it's even messier and more confused. It's the world's biggest exemplar of a spaghetti process."

Well put. It's how I've interpreted it from the outside looking at descriptions/slides vs results.

Spiral is waterfall with short iterations and the predecessor to Agile's increments. It's also not how defense procurements usually work. They get a big contract, divide that into different phases, subdivide each phase's work into subcontracts, these might be further subdivided, and there are various points of integration. There are DOD efforts that used Spiral or want to do Agile but the status quo is quite waterfall-like. Even if your small part is Spiral, you might still be forced into an overall water-fall structure.

One of many reasons I stay out of that sector. It can be like working in a straight-jacket sometimes.

I'm a systems & software guy w/ a high assurance focus so I'm familiar with that sort of thing. It taught me to prioritize based on what was more vs less critical. So, it's supposed to destroy targets. Means it has to take off, detect the target, destroy with missiles/guns, and return. The essentials of these get done first and then everything else.

A program that's spent this money with this many features without a working gun is not how we do phases in delivery. That's defense programs gone wrong. Further, the other commenter's link shows this isn't a phase: it's a delay caused by the failure of one. Plenty of delays, overruns, and even decommissioning to make up for it support how poorly-managed this program is. And such poor management and priorities support that this isn't merely a lifecycle issue.

Well, you would have to prioritize how you wanted to kill targets, as you say. The program has chosen to delay focus on the gun until later. Was that a wise decision? I honestly don't know.

And also, history nerd that I am...most of the high profile defense programs that I can think of were off the rails at one point or another. This is not to excuse anything (boy, people love that argument, that other programs had issues but turned out fine, so this will, too...I don't like that one), but to point out the fact that we as a society really don't understand how to do this kind of thing well. F-15 and F-16 were both lampooned in their day as being bloated and late and ineffective (I can anticipate the objection now -- not to this same degree -- and cannot argue against it). The Bradley's problems were so famous that HBO made "The Pentagon Wars" (which is a movie that I would actually highly recommend). The A-10 was not paid much attention to publicly but the Air Force of the 1970s hated it and wanted it to die before it ever left a drafting board (they were wrong, of course).

I was saying the program has had many delays and overruns in general with the gun issue maybe being part of that trend rather than pure design decision. Each possibility paints it in a different light.

Regardless, I agree that many programs have had issues despite making it. I did watch Pentagon Wars and was amazed that some issues even existed. I think the main concern, outside the original link, is that this plane is one of the most expensive we've ever done while not delivering the value or effectiveness a few different, focused planes would. They still could've consolidated on radar, comms, weapon/missile systems, and so on while making the plane physically ideal for its missions. In process, they could leverage proven approaches in other best of breed fights.

That is what I meant by upgrading our current best stuff. You can straight-up improve their existing configuration. Or you can create new planes with their best qualities with vastly improved capabilities. As illustrated above, there's still plenty of consolidation allowed and would probably be cheaper (in development) due to less troubles.

Well, from my experience, the low-hanging fruit with improving existing configurations has mostly been done. The Navy has taken the Hornet to its logical full development potential by orchestrating the creation of the Super Hornet, which is more than a simple 15% scale up, it's a whole new airplane. The Super should serve for the next 25 years or so. Although the Navy is beginning to do the initial studies for its replacement...

One thing that constrains a lot of the older aircraft is electrical power. They don't have the big generators and high voltage DC power systems that the newer jets have. Those newer systems provide a lot more power budget for running all the advanced sensors. Now, I suppose you could add this capacity to older aircraft, but that's expensive because all this is really tied into the engine and would require some extensive mods. That means time out of service, and tying up depot maintenance. Maybe this is worth it in some cost/benefit comparisons -- I haven't really done the math. Just trying to point out a big gotcha in upgrading that most people don't often think about.

See, now you're getting to the kind of stuff I'm talking about. They need more power budget. Other things about them are pretty good or easy to update. So, do a clean slate design following the other plane's strengths as much as possible while adding the new stuff. The result is not the same plane. Yet, it should deliver more value than a basic upgrade of old plane while having way less risk than a program requiring tons of R&D (eg F-35).

Now, my proposal doesn't negate the possibility of investing in next-gen tech. The F-22 program didn't bother me because we have to push ourselves as far as possible in any specific area. The results usually trickle down into other, affordable tech. F-35, far as I can tell, benefited a bit from that program. The U-2, SR-71, B-2, and F-117 all offered unique capabilities. Just prefer that the majority of our fleet is cost-effective and value-driven. Leads to build on what's proven.

U-2 is probably one of better investments given it's apparently still paying off (see below). Could probably use that F-35 sensor system & some control assistance for pilots. However, it could all just be an excuse for local Majors to jump in GTO's and tear up the tarmac. ;)

Addressing your first paragraph, I have the feeling that the F-18 E/F Super Hornet is a real-world example of what you're talking about. A good airframe (the legacy F-18) was taken as the baseline for a new aircraft that featured greatly improved systems in all areas (including electrical power generation!). Does a Super Hornet deliver more value than a legacy F-18? Absolutely, I don't think anyone familiar with the type would argue otherwise. Anecdotally, all my friends with experience on both ranges of F-18 love the Supers. I've never touched them on any kind of engineering project though.

But the Super Hornet was not risk-free (not that you implied such a program would be, I feel that you gave the concept a fair shake). It encountered some problems that almost killed the program. Here: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=ht... Click on the link next to "PDF url" to obtain the report. This is a study of what almost wiped out the program...Trans-sonic wing roll-off, aka "wing drop". Much more readable article here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/F-18.htm...

The cause was a difference in the wing-fold in the larger Super Hornet as compared to the original Hornet.

You never know where risk can come from. You can, as you are no doubt well aware, try to schedule some risk out of the system, and design risk out of it, but it's always there. This is not an argument against your point -- after all, the F-18 E/F is a real world example, as I said, and a successful one -- but pointing out some of the caveats of it. Even things that seem like they should be simple can turn out to be complex. A lot like software...

Actually, I agree the Super Hornet is an example, maybe the best, of what I propose. The results show it delivered on my promise as well. It's no surprise that they ran into problems. Matter of fact, the problem is a common one in system evolution: assumptions built into use of components in version 1 no longer apply in version 2 but it wasn't taken into account. IIRC, this was the same reason for the failed conversion that destroyed the Ariane 5 rocket. The receiving component assumed and was coded for a smaller number, resulting in an overflow.

This is why I'm a fan of keeping unambiguous, mathematical specifications (eg Z) side-by-side with readable, English description side-by-side with design. The specs should embed assumptions, maybe more visibly than other things. We've seen this in software with both Eiffel/Ada's Design-by-Contract and static analysis tools with similar pre- and post-conditions. You could say typing also helps. The person using a component should be able to readily tell what its requirements were and do a manual/automatic sanity check.

Personally, I'd be surprised if your CAD tools for aerospace don't have requirements or integration checking features built into them. F/18 started around the time that such tools would've both been feasible and had computers that could run them fast. Do they seriously not have ways of catching at least obvious problems with component reuse?

I agree with you about problems in system evolution. We both see this in our work. And about that Ariane incident, you're also right. More detail here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_%28spacecraft%29. For anyone interested, I can recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Space-Systems-Failures-Satellites-Expl...

Your second paragraph sounds like a call for literate engineering, akin to Knuth's literate programming. I like this idea.

About CAD tools for aerospace, it really depends on what CAD tools you use. Things like Pro/E and Solidworks explicitly allow you to put in specifications and tolerances, and also for interference checking and the like. For electrical design, there are tools that allow you to put in electrical requirements and run simulations on your design files to test against those requirements. So there are some ways of catching problems ahead of production.

Now, those tools aren't available to everyone. So I'm on job #3 in this industry. Job #1 had me doing all my electrical designs in AutoCAD LT. No checking or simulations there (can't even generate a bill of materials with this either)! All we had was a library of symbols that one of the engineers had made. Job #2 had me using Cadence ORCAD, but without any of the add-ons that made it useful (could generate a BOM, but couldn't customize it, which meant that I was assigned to create an Excel macro to customize the BOM to meet our specific stock-keeping system's requirements). Job #3, I have nothing because all the vast majority of the electrical designs are done somewhere else (they use CATIA). Whenever I actually do some design work, I'm reduced to taking screenshots of relevant areas in other schematic PDFs, then stitching them together in MS Paint, and then pasting those into a Powerpoint template. I wish I were kidding.

But with job #3 most of my time is spent on other things besides pushing dots, like testing and evaluating upgrades to our embedded systems (this kind of thing is one reason why I spend time here).

Wow, that's ridiculous and sounds painful! Again, I'm not a hardware guy, but I've absorbed a lot of knowledge and wisdom of it over past year trying to improve CPU designs and eliminate subversion possibilities. Studied their flows, synthesis, mask reduction, etc. Anyway, what your describing sounds behind even the free stuff. So, here's an amateur's attempt to help you out a bit with open-source alternatives:

gEDA's 10+ tools to assist the process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEDA

KiCad is similar w/ bill of materials and artwork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KiCad

QUICS for simplified usage in schematic capture & simulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quite_Universal_Circuit_Simula...

Magic for those wanting old school (a recent SOC used it) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_%28software%29

You get used to something like gEDA or KiCAD then you can use it (even on your laptop) whenever the work tools suck. Not sure if it will help you since I understand just enough to know the tools exist and what they do but nothing further. And if you get bored with hand-made circuits, look up Qflow: from behavioral synthesis down to detail routing all in open source. Handles much of opencores.org's Verilog.

Have fun with that and please tell me if any of the CAD tools are solid replacements for commercial use in your field.

I do have a laptop at work that I can use to mess around with. I can't work on any classified materials on it (but I don't deal with that much on the design side).

I will experiment with these tools when I get some time. I doubt if you'll see a reply to this thread by then, though. Perhaps we can find another way to communicate.

Seems every variation of my name and what it represent are taken on all major email providers. Hard finding one that represents strong INFOSEC, lay people understand, easy enough to spell, and sounds cool. Then, I had an idea. Just click on my name to see my new email for security work.

Many of those teams are funded by the Pentagon. The DoD has its eggs in several baskets. DARPA is a very creative organization.

Yeah, I might have gotten carried away. This is military-industrial complex's BS in action. DOD, esp DARPA, is capable of funding well-managed programs.

It will get worse when the contractor behind this gets involved:

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/10/10/malware-compromi...

now ship them to enemies of the us as a trojan horse.

Add a subtly-flawed, long-range, detection system and yours is the best use for it I've seen. Reminds me of the Dijkstra quote on System/360 design issues:

"I characterized the Russian decision to build a bit-compatible copy of the IBM 360 as the greatest American victory in the Cold War."

Yeah, if the marine opens the cockpit a crack and fires a handgun at the enemy.

Not to justify this asinine comment, but the cockpit of an F-35 opens forward, so the force of the air passing over it would prevent it from opening. http://www.vtol.org/images/dmGallery/SourceImage/fig%203%20-...

Just need to add a port-hole...

Lmao. Offense in depth leveraging Marine marksmanship.

You seem to have a dog in the fight. Anything to disclose?

That's a personal attack and not ok. See my comments below.

I'm detaching this from its original parent (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9985536) and marking it off-topic.

You got downvoted but I agree with you. Reading engi_nerd's comments in this thread, one can't help but notice that he rigorously defends the F-35 and questions the credibility of anyone (e.g. David Axle) who points out major flaws in the plane's design. Even if he's not a paid shill, I would bet money that he's involved in the military-industrial complex somehow.

I strive for rigor in facts. Look, the fact is that the plane is kind of stubby looking and is not the quantum leap in maneuverability that, say, generation 4 represented from the previous gen. But I get very, very tired of people taking a poorly researched article that takes major sections of a report out of context (yes, I'm aware that Axe published the whole thing, but he still doesn't draw the correct conclusions from it) and then using that to say, "See? The F-35 sucks after all". The F-35 is a complex answer to a complex question, and it cannot be so simply understood. I wish it could. I love engineering simplicity and elegance and strive for it in my own designs, but anything in the military-industrial complex is hairy and ugly.

And yes, I know that from personal experience. Is that a bad thing?

The F-35 could be the best solution to the complex problem (of making a joint stealth fighter with stovl). No one is arguing it could be done much better, but right from the start it should have been obvious that it's a problem without a good solution at all. The problem just shouldn't have been solved!

It should have been two (or even three) different airframes sharing engines, electronics.

Some craft wouldn't need full stealth, some wouldn't need stovl. Cramming everything into the same body and adding stealth just made it expensive, heavy, slow and unmaneuverable.

Well, look at the graphic here: https://i.imgur.com/WdOZcNF.jpg

Parts in green are identical across variants. Parts that are similar but require slight changes from one variant to another are called "cousin" parts and are shown in blue. Unique parts are shown in purple.

It was originally intended that the three variants share at least 75% of their parts in common. That required a modular kind of construction.

That didn't work out so well. A modular construction requires "holes", right? But holes are heavy because you have to reinforce the structure around them to carry structural loads. Now retired test pilot Jon Beesley says this in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ5gmZ74YBY at 2:57. It's actually less costly, weight-wise, to build the aircraft structure without holes. For background, the aircraft that he's standing in front of is AA-1, which is the first F-35 aircraft. It represented a design that was 5000 pounds or so overweight. Many changes were done before the next F-35 to roll out, resulting in the current overall config.

So in reality we are probably doing much of what you suggested, even though that was not the original intention. They share engines (well, the STOVL variant engine is a different part number because it has to interface with the lift fan, but it's highly similar) and electronics.

He implied his involvement in this stuff in his own statements. He's clearly got an attachment. That's fine, though, so long as he backs up claims with evidence and we can focus on quality of claims/evidence. An example of that is the F-16 vs F-35 thread we have going on where he's produced useful links.

I'm a numbers and figures guy, I want to be judged on the quality of what I present. I admit to being passionate about what we're talking about here. But I am trying not to let that cloud my arguments. Apologies if it has been that way.

You have nothing to apologize for—on the contrary, the users making insinuations should be apologizing to you. Thank you for being a good sport about it.

(This is a procedural comment, not taking sides in the argument.)

I'm judging you on the quality of what you present so no apologies needed. It's the others that are worried about your background. I evaluate what you say and work from there to figure things out.

FWIW, when I read the David Axle piece, my immediate reaction was "This is a PR hit piece" based on the tone and emotional manipulation present in it. I don't know the actual facts behind the F-35 program - I'm about as far from the military-industrial complex as you can get. But I've seen PR spin and know how companies manipulate public opinion, and that piece set off some major alarm bells. I think someone else independently commented to that effect in the HN comments, as well.

One should not assume that the first piece you read about a subject is the correct one. It's not abnormal for someone to plant a story with a blogger for political gain, and something like that is actually far more likely than them planting it on a HN commenter (because it reaches a much wider audience and seems a lot more credible). If you're going to be paranoid about shills, astroturfing, and misinformation, at least be paranoid on all sides.

Yup, and comments in other threads.

>I currently work as an aircraft telemetry and instrumentation engineer,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9907687

You guys are out of line. You should be grateful that someone with professional expertise is here talking about what they know, not attempting to smear them.

Groundless insinuations of shillage and dishonesty are not ok here. They poison the discourse, and you owe greater respect to your fellow HNers. Please don't do this again.

All: please flag such comments when you see them in HN threads.

engi_nerd likes the F-35, lots of other people don't, that's fine. Have at it with arguments, not cheap shots.

Thank you. I think I've shown enough...what's an appropriate term, maybe human-ness? to effectively show that I'm not a shill. Nor do I seek to be dishonest in any way. I am not crazy about saying exactly where I work and exactly what I do, but isn't that true for a lot of HNers?

I'm willing to speak to admins if necessary, in private, should they have any concerns they wish to discuss.

I agree and this is how I've looked at the situation. The result of focusing on his points led to useful information on the subject which included spotting unreliability in popular sources and filtering down to real, risk areas on F-35 side. An example is below. Best to always focus on the what rather than the who with exception being people that want me to take their word for something. Guard goes way up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9985044

Yeah, I'm not big on "appeal to authority" (obviously, as it's a logical fallacy). Don't take my word on any of this. I've tried to link to sources where appropriate. Read them at your leisure, and see what you think.

No, it's absolutely not out of line. Gaslighting, astroturfing, and worse are real things that happen on the internet. Note that I never said shill, though I would if I saw evidence that warranted it. I simply pointed out a relevant post from the commenter's history.

If you'll note, I think that engi_nerd and I achieved an amicable understanding of each other at about the same time you were posting your comment.

> it's absolutely not out of line

It's my job to draw the line.

> I never said shill

My comment was addressed to the three of you.

[I deleted an unfair bit here.]

> Gaslighting, astroturfing, and worse are real things that happen on the internet

Yes, I spend my days combating those things on HN and my evenings writing code to combat them on HN.

Something else that's real on the internet, and poisonous, is commenters groundlessly accusing each other of those things, or insinuating them. That affects civil discourse the way salt affects a slug. We're not letting it become a thing here. See https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR... for countless further explanations.

Anyone with genuine concerns about astroturfing on HN should email them to us at hn@ycombinator.com. We promise to take them seriously. We also promise to look for evidence.

> engi_nerd and I achieved an amicable understanding of each other

I hope so. I don't believe anyone meant harm or even did anything very harmful, but we've learned that places like HN are vulnerable to tragedies of the commons: small, unintentional slips add up to systemic toxicity. That's the default, so there has to be a countervailing vector. Also, the ganging-up-on spirit that was emerging there was dismaying.

As I said earlier, dang, I am happy to reach out to you or someone else with HN and address any concerns you might have if you would like. All I wanted to do was discuss an area I have professional expertise in. It's a niche area so I don't get to discuss it much...

Thank you; I don't think it's necessary. Your comments have been civil and substantive and interesting. We very much want people who work in a given area to be discussing their area on HN. It raises the quality of the threads, often dramatically.

(I don't know who's right about the F-35, and haven't even read the comments from that angle. My point is procedural: debates here must stay factual and not go personal.)

I believe it is probably like most things in this world. It is far better than its most virulent critics would have you believe, and probably worse than its most ardent defenders would have you believe. The truth is somewhere in the murky middle.

>>Indeed, I spend my days combating those things on HN and my evenings writing code to combat them on HN. >>Something else that's real on the internet, and poisonous, is commenters groundlessly accusing each other of those things, or insinuating them.

But you haven't demonstrated why engi_nerd is not gaslighting and astroturfing.

No one is denying that he has experience that's relevant to the topic. What people have an issue with is that he has repeatedly defended major shortcomings in the design of the craft with shoddy reasoning such as "oh, guns won't come into play in most combat scenarios, so it's OK for the guns on the F-35 to not work."

If that's the type of low-quality discourse you want on HN, fine. We'll stop pointing it out. But accusing us of unreasonably calling him out is pretty shitty.

> But you haven't demonstrated why engi_nerd is not gaslighting and astroturfing.

That's not where the burden of proof lies. You can't accuse someone of these things on HN without evidence. An opposing opinion is not evidence.

It's true that working on something professionally biases one. But (a) we're all subject to that, and (b) distance from a situation has biases too. It's a foul to invoke these things as personal weapons, and we intervene when people do it because it tears the fabric of the community.

If what someone says is wrong, refute it. If you're right, you should be able to demonstrate it civilly.

>>If what someone says is wrong, refute it. If you're right, you should be able to demonstrate it civilly.

That's what I'm saying: it's not about being right or wrong. Engi_nerd has responded to every criticism thrown at the F-35 by using shoddy reasoning and hand-waving, such as "The F-35 is a complex answer to a complex question, and it cannot be so simply understood." I mean, seriously? That sounds like something a politician would say. Or a company spokesperson. So of course everyone got the impression that he has an ulterior motive.

Anyway, I'm going to stop here, but I want to say that I'm disappointed in the way you handled this. I hope you understand. Have a nice day.

There might be a misunderstanding here. I'm not endorsing engi_nerd's arguments. I haven't properly read them. They may be just as you say. But even if they're that and worse, you can't commit the foul of accusing someone without evidence. This is a narrow, procedural point. It has nothing to do with anyone's shoddy arguments, let alone anyone's trillion-dollar fighter plane, but only with the HN community, which we all have to take care of.

Making wrong and evasive arguments is bad, but destroying civil discourse (which such accusations do) is, to use a good military-industrial phrase, an existential threat. That's why we intervene when we see it.

If my arguments are bad, then people here are free to offer counter arguments. If I am unclear, ask me for clarification, and I'll try to clarify. If I am making an evasive argument, call me on it, and I'll either attempt to refine it to be more substantial or, if I cannot, then I will admit my error and move on. I think that kind of discussion is what you are trying to preserve here on HN, and I'm all for it. I really do love this site.

...It's the answer of a guy who is familiar with the hairy reality of engineering systems because he has years of engineering experience and wrestles with those systems every day. A few days ago someone was talking about John Gall and his classic work, "Systemantics". The principles described there closely relate to what I'm talking about.

1) Everything is a system. 2) Everything is part of a larger system (ex. the military industrial complex) 3) All systems are infinitely complex.

The F-35 is an infinitely complex system of systems operating in a system of systems (the MIC) that, to pull an analogy from Cantor, is a higher order of infinite complexity.

I didn't elaborate enough on that original point for you. You could have asked me for clarification and I would have been happy to try, as I have done here (look at my interactions with nickpsecurity -- I don't think I'm such a bad guy as you are portraying).

Well, if you really want to go there, the gun itself works, as I pointed out. It fires in the aircraft, on the ground, as I posted a video of. And as others said and I do not argue with, the software for full integration of the gun isn't implemented yet. I did say that the program -- rightly or wrongly -- chose to work on the gun after making sure lots of other weapons work first. Clearly this is a choice that you disagree with. That's fine. Ideally everything would be working and things would go smoothly.

While I may not be the most fuzzy warm or eloquent guy in the room, I try to stick to facts. I am more or less successful, as humans tend to be. I deeply resent my discourse being called "low-quality" and would hope to correct that impression in the future.

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith

I like this - is it similar to c2.com?

Yeah, Meatball was/is another one of the pre-Wikipedia forks of C2, focusing on the dynamics of online communities and social forces. It was a fair bit more touchy-feely than C2, because instead of the technical aspects it includes a lot of applied psychology and sociology and observances on how groups behave.

It's my job to draw the line.

Yeah well umm... Fair enough, you got me dead to rights on that one.

>You tried to dig up dirt on someone from their history. Not that it was dirt,

I was looking to see if the poster ever had anything to say about any other topic. It wasn't dirt, it was a fact. It was the poster's own words. Words to the effect that they are employed in aerospace, which was disclosed elsewhere ITT, and was directly responsive to the parent, and isn't worth concealing in any case.

>but the intent to use it personally makes it so.

Now you're being unfair to me. It's not personal. Authentication and trust are hard in a plain ASCII message board, even harder in Unicode; it's just a condition of discussion boards. Think of it as diligence.

>Indeed, I spend my days combating

Gratzi, and bless you for it. (in the non-theistic sense, or by a deity of your choosing).

>I don't believe anyone meant harm or even did anything very harmful...

No, and you're right. I am grateful to have smart people to argue with, and grateful that this place isn't a wasteland.

>There has to be a countervailing role, and for the time being that's me.

Thanks for reaching out instead of reaching for the banhammer & enjoy your weekend.

> Now you're being unfair to me.

In that case, I'm sorry. I wasn't happy with how I worded that bit, and I've deleted it from my comment.

I don't agree with you about diligence, though. There's something not right about searching through someone's personal or posting history for ammunition in an argument. It seems to me a foul in the local sport. But I don't yet know how to express this precisely.

No worries. This is the first time I've interacted with you, and I don't completely agree with everything you've said, but I do think you've been completely fair. I don't mind if you're a bit more pre-emptory than I might have been if it keeps the knives put away in these threads.

>There's something not right about searching through someone's history

But those are things that the person posted publicly. Why is there anything untoward about browsing a person's public comment history (for relevant posts)? What else is it there for? They can and should delete it if they don't want it to remain. Sometimes a quick check of a comment history is all that's needed to see a pretty consistent bias (or other problems). I'm talking about really obvious stuff. It's a reddit reflex, and not all that useful here compared to there.

I think your comments, in conjunction with enraged_camel's, might have given the impression that you were preparing to gang up on me.

I'm a little perplexed. Had this discussion been about the more normal HN fare, it would have been quite different. It's, as another user said, about the miilitary/industrial complex elephant. What would you have me do? You seem to be a decent enough person. Would you have me email you and let us have a discussion there, privately? Even then, you would still have no way of really knowing that anything I told you is true (although I would not lie to you, you have no way to verify, really).

I do tend to comment on aerospace matters. Primarily because that's what I do. I am a recreational programmer and do write some code at work...So my interests overlap a bit with what HN finds interesting. But I don't solely restrict myself to them...

>I think your comments, in conjunction with enraged_camel's

It wasn't coordinated, I can't even recall if I have ever replied to camel's posts before today.

>I'm a little perplexed. Had this discussion been about the more normal HN fare, it would have been quite different.

If it involves politics, surveillance, defense/aerospace, criminal or civil law, securities trading, feminism/women in tech, encryption, Linus Torvalds, etc, there is a likelihood of a spirited debate. I've probably forgotten a few subjects, but the F-35 is not the only issue that people get [perhaps too] excited about.

>Would you have me email you and let us have a discussion there, privately?

No thank you, I have no desire to have an argument in private about the F-35. I'm not even sure why I spend any time at all on the subject other than I like tech and flying, and in attempting to be an informed consumer of government. My email is easy to find if you need to for some reason but I really prefer having these discussions in public.

>It's, as another user said, about the military/industrial complex elephant.

There's more than one elephant. There are plenty who object to the fact that we put any effort into killing people. Various degrees of us who'd just like to kill a lot fewer people. And then those who don't mind killing people, but want it to be done efficiently. And, I think those who are indifferent to the killing of people, as long as they can get rich off of it (no, that's not meant to be a cheap-shot at salary-people who work in defense).

>What would you have me do?

As I said previously. I think you should disclose your association with the defense/aerospace industry, and you should do that when you join a discussion. I would feel the same if you were employed in most any other industry, and commenting in a similar manner. You don't need to reveal your location or employer or anything like that; and frankly, you need to tolerate or at least expect some skepticism about your motives.

>I do tend to comment on aerospace matters. Primarily because that's what I do.

Then you must no doubt be familiar with the fact that the F-35 project is controversial both inside and outside the .mil and the defense industry. The internet is lousy with these kinds of discussions; it's the greatest peanut gallery the world has ever known. In some of these discussions are a few people who'd apparently like to have us all believe that the F-35 is going to win all of the battles against any adversary anywhere, any time, at any place, ever; do it all for cheap, and then precision-airdrop hot-buttered toast and letters from mom to the ground troops on its way home. I'm glad that you've attempted to constrain your posts to facts which can be confirmed, but also remember that the facts are suspect where it involves next-get .mil-tech. The .mil may or may not [probably won't] release info that could damage the project, and they won't release full performance specs, either; under the naive notion/excuse that potential adversaries can't get that kind of information.

> As I said previously. I think you should disclose your association with the defense/aerospace industry, and you should do that when you join a discussion. I would feel the same if you were employed in most any other industry, and commenting in a similar manner. You don't need to reveal your location or employer or anything like that; and frankly, you need to tolerate or at least expect some skepticism about your motives.

Yes, I am an engineer in defense and aerospace. I haven't hidden that fact on HN (as you saw) but I didn't mention it explicitly in this thread because I didn't think it was necessarily relevant. I'm very conscious of "appeal to authority" and I don't want to make it seem as though I am saying that I must be right because of what I do for a living. And I thought I had been fairly tolerant.

Edit: I should clarify "necessarily relevant with respect to the facts". I link to public sources where appropriate. Anyone can do so, no matter who they are. Strictly in this context, my affiliation doesn't matter.

> The .mil may or may not [probably won't] release info that could damage the project, and they won't release full performance specs, either; under the naive notion/excuse that potential adversaries can't get that kind of information.

Why make it easy for them? And yes, I'm very very aware that the F-35 is very controversial. But I see so much misinformation that sometimes I feel compelled to point out where/how the correct information can be found.

Correct. No denying this. But I'm not here to be a jerk or a shill. Just talking about things I have some experience with.

You've got a connection to the industry, and an apparent emotional response to F-35 criticism. (but who wants to about a subject which they are indifferent to? That's no fun.) For all we know your livelihood may depend in some way upon the F-35. I'm not saying you're always wrong, but I am going to naturally skeptical.

I have admitted my passion elsewhere in this thread. Is the population of HN not passionate about things? This is, from my years long lurking of the site (I have lurked here since at least 2009 that I can clearly remember) one of the places on the internet where passion can be shared in a responsible way. I do not seek to bash those who doubt the plane on a personal level. What I would hope is that I address their objections from fact. Now, if the facts support their arguments, then I would like to think that I would be the first to admit that. But if the facts are otherwise, then I hope I've done a good job of linking to and explaining public information.

And this interaction has sort of confirmed why I am always hesitant to talk about what I do (aside from the obvious reasons why people in this industry are encouraged to not say much), because people see that and make some disparaging remarks. I am not thrilled.

I am not thrilled.

Only quoting final sentence since I'm typing this on a phone... Without excusing the behavior of your accusers, I think it's probably motivated by the association between the incredibly fascinating engineering work, and the military "work" to which that engineering will later be applied. It's always going to be difficult to converse productively with such an elephant in the room, but your patience in the thread is exemplary.

To be blunt: you wind up working on things that are explicitly designed to kill other human beings. That is what you are saying. That's the elephant. Many here would find such a thing immoral and unethical. I know that. I have my own personal reasons for doing what I do. They make sense for my own life.

So fnordfnordfnord already linked to a comment where I mention working on sounding rockets (in addition to the aircraft/telemetry) Those are for purely scientific research. I've done the peaeceful engineering thing, I guess.

And the program does some good science! But if you look at my comment history more, I have some comments where I talk about working in a really bad environment. Guess what? Same place, the sounding rocket program. So I left and changed jobs. To be honest, I try not to worry about all of this so much, mainly because I'm actually happy to go to work now. I am, however, usually happy to discuss this seeming contradiction of trying to be a moral/ethical person while working in aerospace... Just because I don't think about it every day doesn't mean I haven't examined and reflected upon it.

>Is the population of HN not passionate about things?

Of course. And by the way, my skepticism of your motives isn't meant to be taken personal. Apologies if you're insulted.

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's appropriate/proper to disclose in advance that you work in aerospace if you're going to argue pro or against a huge aerospace defense project.

Since the disclosure of the existence of things like JTRIG and some of the HB Gary antics I don't think it is too far-fetched that one might encounter some sketchy things in discussion forums.

>(aside from the obvious reasons why people in this industry are encouraged to not say much)

I'll tell you that a comment you made earlier made my spidey-sense tingle. You mentioned not linking some already-leaked to the public report because it is ITAR controlled, and that pretty much makes you as a person who has a clearance/connection to military/defense work.

>because people see that and make some disparaging remarks. I am not thrilled.

You can't make everyone like you, especially if your identity is tied to a politically polarizing industry; and you definitely can't make everyone like tremendously expensive weapons projects. Even then, it's not personal. Some of the people who are unabashedly critical of defense/aerospace may well have some very good reasons for it.

I don't expect everyone to like me. I don't expect everyone to like the plane, either. There are days when I don't like it very much.

What you did seemed very personal to me in the moment I read your comment. I got a sinking feeling in my chest. Because I don't know who you are, and what your motives are. Now, from seeing further discussion with you, I don't think you mean anything malicious, but I had that little momentary stab of unease.

>I don't expect everyone to like me.

You're just some random person who comments on the same message board. I doubt I've ever met you, or will meet you in person; but if we were at a backyard barbecue, who knows, we might become pals. I don't require my friends to be a facsimile of me. Like I said it wasn't personal.

>What you did seemed very personal to me in the moment I read your comment.

I found that comment on the second page of your HN history. If you don't want anyone to know it you need to rethink the kinds things you post here.

>I got a sinking feeling in my chest.

Why?

>I don't think you mean anything malicious

What could possibly have been malicious about my perusal of two pages of your post history and my post. Another poster suggested that you might work in defense/aerospace (and therefore may have an ulterior motive). I posted a snippet from your history that suggests that you may indeed be employed in defense/aerospace. Those were your words. I made no remarks disparaging defense/aerospace workers, and I don't make moral judgements against people who choose that as a career.

>I had that little momentary stab of unease.

What end do you think I was trying to achieve?

I do not try to hide it -- see other comments. I have no problems saying that I am an aircraft instrumentation engineer, nor am I under any obligations to hide that fact.

I got that feeling because it seemed as if you might have been trying to say that my affiliation with the industry made anything I say suspect. Not all of us are shills, or have some ulterior motives. I just have knowledge of what's being discussed, and I wanted to share it.

What could have been malicious? I didn't know. Probably nothing. These are emotional responses I had, they do not have rational bases.

I have no idea what you were trying to achieve, to be honest. But you have addressed that you meant nothing personal, and I accept this.

I would hope so. The government paid 1.5 trillion for it.

Please stop repeating this misconception. To date, less than $100 billion (that's one hundred thousand millions) USD has been spent on the program. Total cost of research and development is $54.9 billion, the rest is the cost of acquiring the aircraft that have been purchased thus far.

The cost to acquire 2,443 aircraft (the currently planned production run) is $257.2 billion in 2012 USD. Operations costs for the next 55 years are projected to be either $597.8 billion USD (if you believe CAPE) or $535.8 billion USD (if you believe the JSF Program Office).

Both of those organizations have projected the total cost of the program and have said either $1016.5 billion (CAPE) or $859.0 billion (JPO).

All data taken from this document http://defense-update.com/files/member/JPO-SAR-14.PDF, which is an official extraction from a much longer and more involved report, which you can view here: http://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/0...

Much more readable analysis here. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30563.pdf

It's hard to say how much we'll ultimately spend on the F-35 for complicated reasons. For example, it's hard to guess what jet fuel will cost in, say, 2030. Might be cheap, might be crazy expensive.

I am not fond of the program for many reasons, however, it's important to clarify what's going on with that number. I think your number of $100 billion is right. We have not yet spent $1000 billion on the program. One key point about the cost is, they projected using the fighter for 50 years rather than the traditional 30.

IMHO, it's the last wooden warship. I'd rather spend the money on unmanned specialized drones. But, i can grind that axe elsewhere. Thanks for the links, it did clarify some of my thinking about the F-35.

The "traditional 30" is only with 4th generation fighters -- as in, we've only had one generation with that lifespan. Previous generations of jet fighters could be designed, tested, fielded, and retired within as little as 10 years as the speed of technology development increased ever faster. The reasons why 4th generation aircraft have been able to last so long are numerous. I'll take a quick stab at it.

1) There haven't been any radical innovations in jet propulsion. Sure, the latest engines from GE or P&W are more efficient than the engines of the 80s, but not dramatically so. 2) The 4th generation fighters were well designed with an eye for systems growth, precisely because the government grew tired of continually developing new fighters. Insert here whatever impact you wish to give to the "fighter mafia". These aircraft were able to take advantage of digital data buses and fly by wire technologies, which were new and allowed for years and years of expansion and growth. Point-to-point wired aircraft just get really difficult to improve past a certain point. 3) Improvements in materials and manufacturing techniques incorporated into the 4th generation gave them longer service lives.

I could keep going. But you get the idea. The 4th generation was wildly successful.

And thank you for that fas.org link, it appears to be a good gathering of facts upon my initial perusal.

From 2012: "The government now projects that the total cost to develop, buy and operate the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be $1.51 trillion over the next 50-plus years, according to a Pentagon document obtained by Reuters"

Dunno if it's true but it's still mentioned in the Wikipedia article.

"The government is projected to pay $1.51T over the next 50-plus years" is a very different statement from "The government paid $1.5T for it."

I pointed to the latest selected acquisition report, which is the definitive document regarding program costs. It is to be considered the authoritative source for cost data related to this program. It is more recent than the document referenced in the Wikipedia article.

We're still talking about over $650 million per plane in total lifetime costs, even from the optimistic reports -- just an absolute boondoggle of a program.

That is on order of what any fighter would cost to support over that time. Jets are very expensive.

The government paid 1.5 trillion for an employment program for upper income engineers and managers that happened to produce a fighter jet as a side effect.

So what should the government have done about its rapidly aging aircraft fleet?

1. Start with a profile of what kind of missions are run and which planes do them best.

2. Identify any overlaps to spot consolidation opportunities that don't increase risk with "jack of all trades, master of nothing" results (eg F-35).

3. With or without consolidation, invest money in each plane that proved most effective in the field and simply upgrade it.

Last test I saw with F-35's vs F-16's saw the F-16's win. So, apparently it wouldn't have taken many upgrades. ;) I'd upgrade our top interceptor (eg F-15/F-16), multi-mission (esp F-18 Super Hornet), anti-vehicle (esp A-10), recon (eg U-2 or drones), and ECM craft for starters. Those would be volume while we invest some into improving premium aircraft we use in lower volumes such as F-117, F-22, and B-2.

I'd say this would be a nice start. At ten billion into each, it still wouldn't touch the F-35 program in expense despite offering way more in results.

That was not a dog fighting test. It was a test of F-35 flight controls. The F-16 was only present to provide a visual reference to maneuver with respect to. This is the kind of misconception that arises from David Axe's failure to properly understand his sources.

Ok. Let's assume your right, he's misreporting things, and work from there. I'm interested in your assessment of its dogfighting capabilities based on that test or others.

1. Can a F-35 pilot visually track whats around them as well as a pilot of F-16's or Russian/Chinese hardware?

2. Can the craft turn as well as a F-16 or Russian/Chinese current gen fighter?

3. Does the cannon fire reliably and with enough ammunition to do its jobs?

If any of these is no, then Axe is on point in terms of his conclusions. He's wrong if they're all Yes's and you can back that with testing results.

My assessment of dogfighting capabilities would be my own personal assessment. That would not be worth sharing, because it's not backed up by testing. The government is conducting operational testing now, but all you'll see made public is encapsulated here: http://breakingdefense.com/2015/07/dunford-mulls-f-35b-ioc-d...

More developmental testing will occur over the coming years. But I have nothing public to share with you. To answer your questions:

1) What do you mean by "visually track"? If you mean "with the good old Mark 1 Eyeball", no. The F-35 doesn't have the cockpit visibility of an F-16 or something like an Su-27/35. Now, if you mean, with avionics, then yes, far better. Check out this video on the EODAS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fm5vfGW5RY Spotting things hundreds of miles away is very realizable with this system.

2) Can the craft turn as well as an F-16?

Well, what kind of F-16? A clean F-16? That's going to be hard to beat even by a lot of combat UAVs. An F-16 with a usable combat load of bombs and A2A missiles? Yes, the F-35 has comparable maneuverability to this configuration of F-16, AND it carries all that ordnance and fuel internally, maintaining stealth. Check out the maneuverability section of this excellent resource for more info: https://comprehensiveinformation.wordpress.com/

3) Does the cannon fire reliably and with enough ammunition to do its jobs?

In ground tests, yes, it does well. The first in aircraft test was done last month (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1HJjcVIuJg). It fired 10 rounds without problems. More testing to come in the future.

Basically, he has an idea of the plane in his head -- like you seem to have -- and he's bending all the facts to this narrative. It's a thing that humans do. But all this reads very differently to someone who looks at this stuff every day.

Now we're getting somewhere. :)

1. EODAS looks pretty good for long-range encounters and assisting short-range. Video avoids dogfight discussion past tracking and questionable assumption that enemies are always one missile away from defeat. Guess I'll just have to wait to see how it pans out with guns.

2. That's a good situation. The DAS and HMDS are pretty badass so long as they work as advertised. You didn't mention the top Russian and Chinese planes. How does it compare to a Su-35, for instance?

3. I meant pilots hitting what they aim at with acceptable spread. Daily Beast reported it had software issues. Since it's Daily Beast... I want see testing before I'll buy their claim and there should be some for an A-10 replacement.

So, you've given me some good information to work with. Appreciate it. Your last sentence is interesting. What are the "real problems on the flight line" for F-35?

I don't mention those planes because I honestly don't know anything about them beyond what you can read on Wikipedia.

Real problems I will not comment on, but if you so desire, you can fish around in reports by the undersecretary for defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics. That's the position that the current SecDef (Ashton Carter) held until he became SecDef. It's all there in significant detail, should you desire to read it. http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2014/pdf/dod/2014f35js... There's the latest one.

Good answers. Saved a copy of that for later review. Appreciate it.

Just curious. Is there any estimation of the cost of maintaining 6 seperate aircraft versus 1 ?

That is a lot of duplicate parts, engineering effort, training etc.

Plenty of internal redundancy can be reduced by sharing components and some interfaces. However, it's not redundant if it's a necessary part of solving several different problems. We don't count as redundant buying different hardware for embedded, mobile, laptop, and servers even though they might use same ISA and Linux.

Why not replace it with drones? I thought the writing was on the wall for fighter jets and bombers and in 5-10 years they can operate autonomously just as well as your average pilot can fly them. Since there is no human in them, they can be smaller, fly faster and tolerate stronger G-forces. If a manned plane is shot down, the US public gets upset but if it is a drone, no one cares. Hell, even losing two dozen drones would hurt less than a single F-35.

You seem to know a lot about aviation so I wonder why you don't think drones are a viable replacement?

They are not as of this very moment a viable total replacement. A valuable supplement to manned aviation, yes, drones are already doing this. In a few decades, who is to say? I don't know enough to even hope to make a prediction.

So these are problems that exist now:

The data link between the drone operator and drone is a weak link. It can be intercepted, studied, and even broken. Again, the Iran RQ-170 incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid... This is not an insurmountable problem, but it means that drones are not an end-all solution at this time.

Drones are not cheap themselves. The X-47 program cost is over 800 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B Now most of that is R&D, and should the type be produced in significant numbers, expect costs per unit to be much much lower, but doing some rough figuring, I doubt that costs will ever be much below $20 million per copy. Simply based on the sensor packages that would be installed.

Drones as they are now require more staffing (they can fly for long periods of time, and you need regular crew swaps). And they're not the sexiest things to operate (see: http://www.rt.com/usa/us-drone-pilots-exhausted-demoralized-...).

First of all, manned fighter planes are dinosaurs. No human being can possibly react as quickly as a drone.

Secondly, there are existing designs that I'm sure could be refreshed for a lot less than $1.5 trillion dollars. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with them -- reboot them with new electronics, better materials, etc. They'd still be far better than what anyone but maybe the Russians or the Chinese have -- and they're probably also moving to drones quickly.

Manned planes will fly for several decades still, and even upcoming generations will most likely be optionslly manned rather than unmanned. The line will blur between manned and unmanned however. Today's "drones" have more pilots than the manned craft! Often 4-5 for even a short mission. There is no autonomous flying. Quickly reacting autonomous fighters is still sci-fi.

The problem with the F-35 project is mostly that it somehow was decided to replace the Harrier. Replacing the F-15/16/18 isn't a problems. Replacing the harrier with the same craft is an engineering nightmare.

Upgrading old platforms is done continuously, up to a point where an upgrade would be so expensive/radical that a new design is better. Sticking more electronics in an old plane isn't easy, the power and cooling requirements can require big redesigns, for example.

The planes it replaces are certainly near the end of their lifespans and have been upgraded a lot over several decades. What they should have done is not make just one plane. A replacement for the F-15/16/18 would have been much easier.

> Replacing the harrier with the same craft is an engineering nightmare.

This is another misconception. The F-35 emerged from a DARPA study in the 80s to create a stealthy STOVL aircraft. The F-35 as designed started with the F-35B. The other two variants were created through modifications to this design.

The outcome is the same: replacing the 16/16/18 with a craft that is also the future stovl craft, is an engineering nightmare.

All aircraft are engineering nightmares from the perspective of the engineers who work on them. It's a very stressful and difficult field.

That's not to really argue for or against your point, but more of a personal observation.

Drones can be jammed and even stolen (Iran did this a few years ago). And those existing designs have had refreshes and continual improvements. Look at a Block 60 F-16 and compare it to the first F-16s. But those designs have little room for growth.

Boeing has even tried to create a stealthy version of the F-15, but has found no buyers, because even that aircrafts capabilities do not compare favorably to the avionics present in the F-35.

No country is even remotely close to totally supplanting its air force with drones entirely. You speak as of these things are happening at a greater pace than they are.

>No human being can possibly react as quickly as a drone

Who do you think is flying the drones?

Algorithms.

You do know they exist for flying drones and likely for detecting, intercepting and destroying other objects in the sky ?

You do realize that an F-16 mission is flown by 1 pilot, and a drone mission is flown by 3-5 staff? It's not just manned flight it's 3-5x more manned than conventional craft, just from the ground.

The USA does not fly combat drones that do "detecting, intercepting and destroying".