No cats and flaps ...... back to F35B?
hval,
I have been following your recent arguments and I have to agree with your take on things. I tried to make some of those points earlier in the thread, but didn't manage to pull all the points together as well as you have. Well said.
I have been following your recent arguments and I have to agree with your take on things. I tried to make some of those points earlier in the thread, but didn't manage to pull all the points together as well as you have. Well said.
Hval
I think your point 4 is the clincher. However, doesn't that argument and
"Until the next totally revolutionary item comes along (like the jet engine, or wings, or computers) development is going to be costly"
suggest that revolution is exactly what is needed? Because incremental development over extended periods usually results in the loss of ability to revolutionise.
Not that I'm suggesting that LO was necessarily the right revolution to follow, or to the exclusion of other performance factors, mind. That's what DDG 1000 led to and it's b8llocks.
I think your point 4 is the clincher. However, doesn't that argument and
"Until the next totally revolutionary item comes along (like the jet engine, or wings, or computers) development is going to be costly"
suggest that revolution is exactly what is needed? Because incremental development over extended periods usually results in the loss of ability to revolutionise.
Not that I'm suggesting that LO was necessarily the right revolution to follow, or to the exclusion of other performance factors, mind. That's what DDG 1000 led to and it's b8llocks.
Last edited by Not_a_boffin; 3rd Oct 2012 at 21:50.
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Courtney,
Thank you for your kind words.
Not_a_Boffin,
It is a paradox as to how to revolutionise defence solutions.
I am going to use Apple as a an example of solution provision. Up until Apple released the iPhone all other mobile telephone producers had come to an understanding that improvements in technology would be held back, releasing one or two improvements a year. In this way they could maximise their profits. Apple came along and released a "revolutionary" mobile telephone. Except it wasn't; revolutionary that is. Apple made use of technology already used, but packaged it in such a way that they produced an item that was miles better than their competitors. So, not a revolution, just look at what's available and get Steve Jobs to manage the design and development programme.
Another example is streamer technology that is used by Seismic companies. The military could learn an awful lot from the civvies at a relatively cheap price and produce an awfully brilliant towed array.
Solutions might include the use of universities (with no Chinese in attendance) to be provided with funding (low level), to make use of the mad nutter inventors that the UK is so good at producing and, stealing ideas from the Chinese (who steal them from the US).
Sorry for not continuing, time for Egyptian PT.
Oh yes; I forgot.
We don't need to revolutionise. Leave that to others. The Soviets had the right idea. Numbers matter. What they didn't have was the training. Training matters very much. Steal ideas from others once the technology is proven. a 96% solution is better than a 99% solution when you have the numbers, the skills and something that works.
Thank you for your kind words.
Not_a_Boffin,
It is a paradox as to how to revolutionise defence solutions.
I am going to use Apple as a an example of solution provision. Up until Apple released the iPhone all other mobile telephone producers had come to an understanding that improvements in technology would be held back, releasing one or two improvements a year. In this way they could maximise their profits. Apple came along and released a "revolutionary" mobile telephone. Except it wasn't; revolutionary that is. Apple made use of technology already used, but packaged it in such a way that they produced an item that was miles better than their competitors. So, not a revolution, just look at what's available and get Steve Jobs to manage the design and development programme.
Another example is streamer technology that is used by Seismic companies. The military could learn an awful lot from the civvies at a relatively cheap price and produce an awfully brilliant towed array.
Solutions might include the use of universities (with no Chinese in attendance) to be provided with funding (low level), to make use of the mad nutter inventors that the UK is so good at producing and, stealing ideas from the Chinese (who steal them from the US).
Sorry for not continuing, time for Egyptian PT.
Oh yes; I forgot.
We don't need to revolutionise. Leave that to others. The Soviets had the right idea. Numbers matter. What they didn't have was the training. Training matters very much. Steal ideas from others once the technology is proven. a 96% solution is better than a 99% solution when you have the numbers, the skills and something that works.
Last edited by hval; 4th Oct 2012 at 12:08. Reason: I forgot
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hval,
The iPhone is perhaps the best analogy I've seen about the F35! Well played, sir!
And I completely agree with your viewpoint. The handful of F35s that we'll have sold ourselves down the river for, will be so few in number that we won't be able to do all that much with them, particularly if they end up with an F22-like servicability record. Perhaps the worst part of the whole scenario, is that the other services are also sacrificing capabilities to keep ourselves in this programme.
The iPhone is perhaps the best analogy I've seen about the F35! Well played, sir!
And I completely agree with your viewpoint. The handful of F35s that we'll have sold ourselves down the river for, will be so few in number that we won't be able to do all that much with them, particularly if they end up with an F22-like servicability record. Perhaps the worst part of the whole scenario, is that the other services are also sacrificing capabilities to keep ourselves in this programme.
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... a point which has also been made over on ARRSE, Bastardeux: if you have so few in number that the loss of only one or two causes real problems, then you don't have a capability.
I can't help thinking that F-35 remains an attempt to knock on the front door when you can use the side door or even the window.
I can't help thinking that F-35 remains an attempt to knock on the front door when you can use the side door or even the window.
Last edited by ColdCollation; 4th Oct 2012 at 12:51.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
If you fight like the Americans you go in at medium level and need stealth, EW etc and large packages.
Conversely, if 15 years ago you'd asked a GR1 Sqn how they'd plan a similar attack they'd send in a pair at 50ft on a moonless night with, ideally, stacked clouds above.
Stealth isn't the only way to hide.
Conversely, if 15 years ago you'd asked a GR1 Sqn how they'd plan a similar attack they'd send in a pair at 50ft on a moonless night with, ideally, stacked clouds above.
Stealth isn't the only way to hide.
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... and if you asked friend of mine who was involved in the Tornado test programme, he say send in singeltons and not pairs.
Alternatively, you could just equip a nice, shiny (and more plentiful) fleet of F/A-18Es and Gs with stand-off weapons and not have to worry so much about sending MANNED aircraft into harm's way.
Alternatively, you could just equip a nice, shiny (and more plentiful) fleet of F/A-18Es and Gs with stand-off weapons and not have to worry so much about sending MANNED aircraft into harm's way.
Phones v planes
It is not normally my place to venture any opinions but at least on this one I think I can do it safely. I worked for Nokia and for them the game was about engineering to cost and producing very large numbers of very cheaply built phones in huge variety with nice profit margins. Each model was aimed at a particular price point and "type" of person. They were built with the latest "cheap" technology rather than the latest "powerful" tech.
Then someone built a phone that was *much* more expensive to build, e.g. had the latest 600mhz processor which was unheard of, and they had *only one model to fit everyone* and it didn't actually do much more or was inferior in some technical areas (no 3G support, multitasking) but the horsepower and expensive bits enabled them to make it easy to use ....
Hence it's not the analogy that I think one wants to support a point about numbers or cheapness.
Then someone built a phone that was *much* more expensive to build, e.g. had the latest 600mhz processor which was unheard of, and they had *only one model to fit everyone* and it didn't actually do much more or was inferior in some technical areas (no 3G support, multitasking) but the horsepower and expensive bits enabled them to make it easy to use ....
Hence it's not the analogy that I think one wants to support a point about numbers or cheapness.
That's what DDG 1000 led to and it's b8llocks.
Don't hold back, Mr Boffin, tell us how you really feel.
The fact is that requirements tend to compound themselves. If I want a fast car that is fun to drive I can buy an MX-5 Miata. If I want to haul the kids to practice, a GM SUV will do fine. If I want something that does both it's a Porsche Cayenne.
In the same way, fighters have historically become more expensive as you add a new requirement without taking away any of the old ones, production rates have fallen accordingly, and the corresponding collapse in force size has been mitigated by keeping jets in service longer. This has been a trend since the 1950s.
However, at the same time, the aerospace industry has changed. In the 1950s, aerospace led in almost every technology it used (materials, propulsion, electronics) and by aerospace one meant military aerospace, because commercial aircraft were, even then, a sideline. Hence the "weapon system" approach in which every component was specially developed and managed to schedule.
The question is whether that's appropriate today, or whether developing a weapon system should be a matter of harvesting the best technology from commercial aerospace and other industries, and developing only what you have to from the ground up.
That will help, but the fact still remains that adding stealth, STOVL, and integrated LPI sensors to a basic F-16 replacement was going to lead to a heavier and more costly airplane. JSF was an attempt to prevent that happening through high-rate production magic and new structures and subsystems, and so far it has not worked.
Don't hold back, Mr Boffin, tell us how you really feel.
The fact is that requirements tend to compound themselves. If I want a fast car that is fun to drive I can buy an MX-5 Miata. If I want to haul the kids to practice, a GM SUV will do fine. If I want something that does both it's a Porsche Cayenne.
In the same way, fighters have historically become more expensive as you add a new requirement without taking away any of the old ones, production rates have fallen accordingly, and the corresponding collapse in force size has been mitigated by keeping jets in service longer. This has been a trend since the 1950s.
However, at the same time, the aerospace industry has changed. In the 1950s, aerospace led in almost every technology it used (materials, propulsion, electronics) and by aerospace one meant military aerospace, because commercial aircraft were, even then, a sideline. Hence the "weapon system" approach in which every component was specially developed and managed to schedule.
The question is whether that's appropriate today, or whether developing a weapon system should be a matter of harvesting the best technology from commercial aerospace and other industries, and developing only what you have to from the ground up.
That will help, but the fact still remains that adding stealth, STOVL, and integrated LPI sensors to a basic F-16 replacement was going to lead to a heavier and more costly airplane. JSF was an attempt to prevent that happening through high-rate production magic and new structures and subsystems, and so far it has not worked.
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t43562,
I was obviously not clear enough in what I wrote reference the iPhone. What you wrote actually agrees with what I wrote. Nokia, Motorola et al. were taking the mickey in their marketing strategy. Apple came along and utilised components that were available on the market at the time. Apple did not develop anything, other than the operating system, the integration of the components and how the iPhone looked.
This was easy for Apple as they did not have to try too hard to produce a posh phone which did a lot more and put it on the market. I don't think you can say that Apple have made a mistake. After all where are Nokia now? Where is Motorola? Where is Blackberry? For a company that were never in the mobile phone market to wipe the floor with every other mobile phone manufacturer says a lot.
Compare that to the F35; or all three F35's. Leading edge technology to a large extent. How many years late is it? How much over budget is it? Will it actually ever work as was originally specified (white wall wheels, go faster stripe, vinyl roof and fluffy dice)?
It would have been better to utilise products already on the market; for instance B52 mainplane, A10 fuselage, A320 cockpit, Cessna 172 ailerons; that type of stuff.
I was obviously not clear enough in what I wrote reference the iPhone. What you wrote actually agrees with what I wrote. Nokia, Motorola et al. were taking the mickey in their marketing strategy. Apple came along and utilised components that were available on the market at the time. Apple did not develop anything, other than the operating system, the integration of the components and how the iPhone looked.
This was easy for Apple as they did not have to try too hard to produce a posh phone which did a lot more and put it on the market. I don't think you can say that Apple have made a mistake. After all where are Nokia now? Where is Motorola? Where is Blackberry? For a company that were never in the mobile phone market to wipe the floor with every other mobile phone manufacturer says a lot.
Compare that to the F35; or all three F35's. Leading edge technology to a large extent. How many years late is it? How much over budget is it? Will it actually ever work as was originally specified (white wall wheels, go faster stripe, vinyl roof and fluffy dice)?
It would have been better to utilise products already on the market; for instance B52 mainplane, A10 fuselage, A320 cockpit, Cessna 172 ailerons; that type of stuff.
Last edited by hval; 4th Oct 2012 at 16:58.
The point you're making is only partially fair. Their decision about *what* to do (flat rate internet, expensive but high quality, thought out experience, focus on one product) was revolutionary and their software was already very good in the ways that mattered thanks to years of spending. What they managed to do was take immediate advantage of a development where the hardware appeared that could run their heavy but good software well. They left everyone else scrambling - people who had abused their software to try and make it work on crap hardware and had not looked after it were thus unable to change direction quickly. Plus they were spreading all their development effort across many types of chipset unlike Apple (who design their own CPUs BTW).
So this is taking this analogy much too far but my general reading is that if you sleep, you're dead. If you stop working on new things, you're dead. If you don't focus all your might on making something so good that your competition are left scratching their heads for years then you can't win.
Every advance has to be thought out in terms of whether people will actually find it so hard to use that they can be bothered. If you get caught in technology for it's own sake but don't sort out the other issues that affect your users then again you can't win.
....but, if you get it all right and have an amazing product then people with no money will get into debt and sell their grannies to get it.
I promise to shut up from now on on this. :-) .. Except one more thing - every development that looks cheap usually has some gigantic bit of expense before it somewhere. Even if all the spending does in the end is to pay engineers salaries and train technicians, the stuff that they will go off and do apparently cheaply later on will be because of all the amazing ideas that they had while they worked on these expensive things now.
So this is taking this analogy much too far but my general reading is that if you sleep, you're dead. If you stop working on new things, you're dead. If you don't focus all your might on making something so good that your competition are left scratching their heads for years then you can't win.
Every advance has to be thought out in terms of whether people will actually find it so hard to use that they can be bothered. If you get caught in technology for it's own sake but don't sort out the other issues that affect your users then again you can't win.
....but, if you get it all right and have an amazing product then people with no money will get into debt and sell their grannies to get it.
I promise to shut up from now on on this. :-) .. Except one more thing - every development that looks cheap usually has some gigantic bit of expense before it somewhere. Even if all the spending does in the end is to pay engineers salaries and train technicians, the stuff that they will go off and do apparently cheaply later on will be because of all the amazing ideas that they had while they worked on these expensive things now.
Last edited by t43562; 5th Oct 2012 at 04:45.
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Morning t43562,
What you have written proves my point; even with the processers. They take an already existing ARM designed processor (e.g. the A8), get a company they bought to add a few bits on and call it the A5 and A5X. Then Apple get a company (Samsung) who have the facilities and experience to fab the A5 processor.
As for Nokia etc stopping development on new technology, they didn't. All they did was to delay the introduction of technology to the market, deliberately, to increase their profits for minimum investments. Apple came along and said "let's use all this stuff that others have developed, but haven't introduced to the market, and use it".
I generalise slightly, but hopefully you get the idea. Even with the latest iPhone 5 there is no great new technology, yet this phone is sellling phenomonally well, mainly because it does what it is designed to do well (except for maps).
What you have written proves my point; even with the processers. They take an already existing ARM designed processor (e.g. the A8), get a company they bought to add a few bits on and call it the A5 and A5X. Then Apple get a company (Samsung) who have the facilities and experience to fab the A5 processor.
As for Nokia etc stopping development on new technology, they didn't. All they did was to delay the introduction of technology to the market, deliberately, to increase their profits for minimum investments. Apple came along and said "let's use all this stuff that others have developed, but haven't introduced to the market, and use it".
I generalise slightly, but hopefully you get the idea. Even with the latest iPhone 5 there is no great new technology, yet this phone is sellling phenomonally well, mainly because it does what it is designed to do well (except for maps).
Last edited by hval; 5th Oct 2012 at 06:39.
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hval,t43562
You forgot the biggest selling factor of all - Market forces, and even that can be applied to the mil.
eg I have a Nokia N8, it does every thing I want it to do, maps, satnav mp3/4
(avi not supported) but generally quite happy. Now my brother (ex RAF Spanner W*nker) swears by the i-Phone does the very same as the N8 I cant see the difference other than cost.
Seem the same to me with mil hardware particularly in the uk. Why have an F35 when a Superbug will do? or something cheaper for that matter?
As an aside the war office asked me to get her "Something Hi-tech begining with i-" for her birthday. so I bought her and i-Ron. Do you know what it feels like to have a hi-velocity metatarsal enema? I do!
You forgot the biggest selling factor of all - Market forces, and even that can be applied to the mil.
eg I have a Nokia N8, it does every thing I want it to do, maps, satnav mp3/4
(avi not supported) but generally quite happy. Now my brother (ex RAF Spanner W*nker) swears by the i-Phone does the very same as the N8 I cant see the difference other than cost.
Seem the same to me with mil hardware particularly in the uk. Why have an F35 when a Superbug will do? or something cheaper for that matter?
As an aside the war office asked me to get her "Something Hi-tech begining with i-" for her birthday. so I bought her and i-Ron. Do you know what it feels like to have a hi-velocity metatarsal enema? I do!
Up until Apple released the iPhone all other mobile telephone producers had come to an understanding that improvements in technology would be held back, releasing one or two improvements a year.
Apple are a marketing and consumer design company, their legion of fans will buy anything they produce which gives them an advantage as they know they can get the volume.
Of course if you are utterly unaware of developments in mobile phones and first heard of smartphones when Apple released their products it must have been like white man invading America. It isn't magic.
Do iPhones do Flash?
And, does all this mean the F35 won't be able to do unlimited downloads? Does each aircraft need it's own account of does each pilot log in individually?
Do you see my point?
And, does all this mean the F35 won't be able to do unlimited downloads? Does each aircraft need it's own account of does each pilot log in individually?
Do you see my point?
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Courtney,
Totally agree. I could go on discussing this iPhone thing and what have you, but my allegory for the F35 seems to have got somewhat out of hand.
Peter,
Oooh, you mean those paragons of wonder the SE P990i, its' predecessors and the other useless telephones that were supposed to be smartphones (e.g. Nokia 9000 series, Blackberry, Palm Treo), but were not really. As for Apple fanboys being the only ones who buy Apple iPhones, I would think again. What happened to the droves of people who have deserted all other manufacturers leaving many of them bankrupt, close to bankrupt, or chasing after Apple and its' one smart phone product? I am well aware of HTC.
Apple, as I have written before, did not invent anything. They took existing products, produced an OS, stuck them all together and sold a product that was miles better than any other smart phone on the market. It wasn't the best at any one thing it did, it still isn't. The whole package is though.
Peter, I suggest we carry on this discussion by email if you wish to.
Totally agree. I could go on discussing this iPhone thing and what have you, but my allegory for the F35 seems to have got somewhat out of hand.
Peter,
Of course if you are utterly unaware of developments in mobile phones and first heard of smartphones when Apple released their products it must have been like white man invading America. It isn't magic.
Apple, as I have written before, did not invent anything. They took existing products, produced an OS, stuck them all together and sold a product that was miles better than any other smart phone on the market. It wasn't the best at any one thing it did, it still isn't. The whole package is though.
Peter, I suggest we carry on this discussion by email if you wish to.
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Courtney,
Tell her to stay away from the iPhone 5. UK doesn't have 4G so they can't make use of it. If she wants 4G then she will have to wait some considerable time. What EE (Everything Everywhere) are offering is not 4G.
Mind you, a lack of 4G doesn't make an iPhone useless.
The fact that Maps is crap doesn't help either. If your Mrs wants a phone for use as a phone then a phone is a better choice, and a dam sight cheaper. The iPhone, and all smartphones, have the problem that they tend to be okay at what they do, just not brilliant. Thats the thing with Multi Role devices, "Jack of all trades, master of none".
That should start a few arguments.
Tell her to stay away from the iPhone 5. UK doesn't have 4G so they can't make use of it. If she wants 4G then she will have to wait some considerable time. What EE (Everything Everywhere) are offering is not 4G.
Mind you, a lack of 4G doesn't make an iPhone useless.
The fact that Maps is crap doesn't help either. If your Mrs wants a phone for use as a phone then a phone is a better choice, and a dam sight cheaper. The iPhone, and all smartphones, have the problem that they tend to be okay at what they do, just not brilliant. Thats the thing with Multi Role devices, "Jack of all trades, master of none".
That should start a few arguments.
Last edited by hval; 7th Oct 2012 at 16:52.