F-35 Cancelled, then what ?
That report does not make good reading. 150 aircraft fielded before interchangeability can be assured? The cost of the retro-programme could be a showstopper in its own right.
Yes, CAS and Interdiction have some overlap. It all depends upon how "deep" a ground commander is able to see or think, and at what echelon he operates at.
It might be more accurate to say that most attack aircraft overlap between CAS and Air Interdiction roles, because if you can do one, you can do the other!
On a positive point at least the faults have been highlighted now rather than 10 years down the line!
The "it's frightening" response from military aviators (really) puzzles me.
You're still here.
Every ******* thing you ever flew was built under minimum bid.
The "work out the bugs process" in this day and age puts the development of what most of us ever flew to shame. While the days of writing flight manuals in blood are not behind us yet (see F-22 and pilot Oxygen system for a fine example of systems integration messes), the number of wrecks on the way to IOC are down.
This is a good thing.
How expensive F-35 is ... well, that's another story.
PS: from the report, I am not surprised to see that DCMA got a right bollocking. While I agree with a few of the "huh, you have to be kidding me" comments in re the CSI program, I'll not comment further on that other than to say that unless a CC is clearly identified, established, and then tracked (be it by the prime or a vendor a few rungs down) you certainly can find yourself in a "for want of a nail a kingdom was lost" situation.
Last edited by Lonewolf_50; 3rd Oct 2013 at 19:44.
Easy Street: Well said, sir.
FSCL and "other measures" are indeed where the line tends to be drawn.
As someone noted elsewhere:
"Some guy down there needs a bomb on a target. Provide him with one."
FSCL and "other measures" are indeed where the line tends to be drawn.
As someone noted elsewhere:
"Some guy down there needs a bomb on a target. Provide him with one."
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Whenever I think about all those circuit board traces shovelling electronics around at a large fraction of the speed of light to create signals that switch more than a billion times a second with a shape that better resembles a mound of jelly with spikes shoved in it than a square wave, in order to run billions of instructions translated from human-readable text into numbers by a piece of software with bugs and fed into an instruction decoder that converts them into microinstructions before being processed by a CPU that has bugs, and runs thirty-two instruction threads at the same time which all read and write to the same memory, and executes instructions before it knows whether they'll actually be reached and later decides whether to keep the results or throw them away... I have to go and lie down for a while.
Yet, somehow, it does mostly work out in the end.
Yet, somehow, it does mostly work out in the end.
Yet, somehow, it does mostly work out in the end.
To be on the other side of that equation - starting out from the beginning and making something new that must work well - seems quite a risk to me.
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Perhaps the next great leap forward in military capabilty will be to adopt Mac's OS across the board and ditch MS?
Last edited by Willard Whyte; 3rd Oct 2013 at 21:13. Reason: spelling - i've been drinking
Originally Posted by Wolf
I do not believe that the folks writing the report discovered these issues in a vacuum.
Too many project before this one suffered from allowing the difficulties to be buried for too long. It's good to highlight them and get them fixed. Especially as there isn't much of a plan B just now.
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Originally Posted by Courtney Mil
but it should also be noted that some of the issues cited in the report have already been either identified or fixed.
.....
So a lot of these challenges are already being addressed.
.....
So a lot of these challenges are already being addressed.
From another board:
Military Aviation News-2013 - Page 43
Originally Posted by Tango III 26th September 2013, 10:15
Originally Posted by SpudmanWP 26th September 2013, 11:45
Why link to a short excerpt about an article instead of the article itself?
Lockheed F-35 Quality Failings Cited by Inspector General - Bloomberg
Here is the MAIN part missing from Defense-Aerospace's excerpt:
As of yesterday, 269 of the 343 “corrective action plans” have been fully implemented, according to data provided to the inspector general by the Pentagon’s F-35 program office.
All of the corrective action plans are scheduled to be in place by April
All of the corrective action plans are scheduled to be in place by April
Last edited by GreenKnight121; 4th Oct 2013 at 05:39.
The point is missed. If a company can ignore basics on F-35, they can on other aircraft as well. If 150 aircraft are fielded before a basic safety process is fixed, then it is wrong to spin it as "It's good to highlight them and get them fixed." How long has the F-35 program been running? The reality, IMO, is they've been caught out by an excellent audit and their priority now will be working out how to transfer the cost to the DoD.
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Originally Posted by Dervish
The point is missed. If a company can ignore basics on F-35, they can on other aircraft as well. If 150 aircraft are fielded before a basic safety process is fixed, then it is wrong to spin it as "It's good to highlight them and get them fixed." How long has the F-35 program been running? The reality, IMO, is they've been caught out by an excellent audit and their priority now will be working out how to transfer the cost to the DoD.
for LRIP 6 and 7, basically every new problem can/will lead to a price increase.
The two sides will share equally the costs of all known retrofits needed for the aircraft, while any newly discovered changes could result in higher contract costs, the Pentagon said."
Kbrockman
Glad to hear the commercial & financial aspects have been resolved, but is the audit report correct? The problem I highlighted is one of many in the same vein. Recent contract amendments may just have papered over long term cracks.
Glad to hear the commercial & financial aspects have been resolved, but is the audit report correct? The problem I highlighted is one of many in the same vein. Recent contract amendments may just have papered over long term cracks.
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Originally Posted by Dervish
but is the audit report correct? The problem I highlighted is one of many in the same vein. Recent contract amendments may just have papered over long term cracks.
The real question is , with so much left untested, more specifically most of its combat systems, what problems are they going to find next?
Given the past of this program, there should be some anxiety about that , I suspect.
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Originally Posted by Glad Rag
Meanwhile back in the big nasty old real world...
No match for a U.S. Hornet: “China’s Navy J-15 more a flopping fish than a flying shark”
No match for a U.S. Hornet: “China’s Navy J-15 more a flopping fish than a flying shark”
...
According to the Sina Military Network, that has (weirdly) criticized the Flyng Shark calling it a “flopping fish”, the recent tests with heavy weapons have limited the attack range of the J-15 to a distance of 120 kilometers from the carrier: whilst it is said to be capable to carry 12 tons of weapons, when the aircraft is fully loaded with fuel, it can’t carry more than 2 tons of missiles and munitions, meaning that only two YJ-83K anti-ship missiles and two PL-8 air-to-air missiles could be carried (in an anti-ship configuration).
...
According to the Sina Military Network, that has (weirdly) criticized the Flyng Shark calling it a “flopping fish”, the recent tests with heavy weapons have limited the attack range of the J-15 to a distance of 120 kilometers from the carrier: whilst it is said to be capable to carry 12 tons of weapons, when the aircraft is fully loaded with fuel, it can’t carry more than 2 tons of missiles and munitions, meaning that only two YJ-83K anti-ship missiles and two PL-8 air-to-air missiles could be carried (in an anti-ship configuration).
While at the same time they are building 1200 more useable and affordable fighters like the J10
Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group to produce 1,200 J-10 fighters?Politics?News?WantChinaTimes.com
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Quantity has a quality of its own?
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For those that wonder if Stealth fighter development goes any better outside the US;
Warplanes: The 5th Generation Is Cursed
Warplanes: The 5th Generation Is Cursed
October 4, 2013: The Russian answer to the American F-22, the “5th generation” T-50 (or PAK-FA) is in big trouble. Several key components are facing serious development problems.