[HN Gopher] It's Official: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Producti... ___________________________________________________________________ It's Official: Pentagon Puts F-35 Full-Rate Production Decision on Hold Author : clouddrover Score : 68 points Date : 2021-01-02 21:49 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com) | bfieidhbrjr wrote: | Good. The whole thing should be shut down. | ardit33 wrote: | It is not good. Like it or not, this is the only alternative | NATO has for the forceable future. The British Tempest and the | French/German stealth fighter won't be operational until | 2035-2040 | | The only alternative are modernizes 4gen fighters which are | very vulnerable to modern air defenses. | | A 'buggy' F-35 might still be a better alternative. | | Also the British are counting for the F-35 to equip its | carriers. | lsllc wrote: | I was going to correct you and say maybe you meant the | Typhoon, not Tempest, but indeed there is a proposed UK | aircraft program called Tempest: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Tempest | mhh__ wrote: | PS2Bn seems like a hilariously British amount of money to | develop a modern fighter for. | SpaceRaccoon wrote: | There's speculation that the cutting edge radars fielded by | China and Russia can detect stealth aircraft, so the | advantage may be moot now. | lumost wrote: | I keep hearing concerns that modern radars may be able to | defeat the F-35's stealth, or will be able to defeat it in | the near future. I can't help but think that it will be hard | to keep a plane flying at mach 1 hidden in the face of fast | scanning and networked phased array radars with modern deep | learning based detection algorithms. | | My understanding is that if you take away the stealth aspect | the F-35 is a sluggish fighter bomber that would be | outperformed by most 4th gens. Considering an F-35 is nearly | the price of 10 4th gen fighters the choice to "upgrade" | becomes pretty suspect for a lot of Nato partners. | bfieidhbrjr wrote: | Buggy? It barely works. Short flight time. Crap wing loading. | Not good at any of it's multi-roles. | | We could build 5-10 F-16s for each F-35, and many more A-10s, | and they'd be better despite being ancient designs. | | They're so expensive we can't even do proper flight training | in them, it'd cost too much if we break one. | dogma1138 wrote: | The Israeli's seem to be happy with it, use it in combat | and are buying more. | mhh__ wrote: | > 5-10 F-16s | | The new F-16V costs as near as makes no difference the cost | of an F-35 | strictnein wrote: | > "Crap wing loading" | | Yes, why does this super stealthy plane not have support | for lots of reflecting metal things hanging from its wings? | ed-209 wrote: | Who are these people, both smart enough and dumb enough, to build | the high tech death machines anyway? | imtringued wrote: | The individual components are well engineered, it's the | integration that is completely flawed. | mhh__ wrote: | I imagine the prospect of being able to play with genuinely | unbelievably good equipment has to help when recruiting - e.g. | think of the amount of physics, signal processing, | aerodynamics, mechanical engineering, materials science etc. | used to blow up a plane 50 miles away in a modern active radar | guided missile. | fireattack wrote: | What does "full-rate production" mean? | | I searched and find a few military/defense related articles, but | none of them really explain it in average Joe's terms. | claydavisss wrote: | 600 have already been delivered. Covid caused a disruption in | final certification, that's it. The F35 isn't being cancelled, | although I predict most comments here will devolve into a | debate of the plane's merits. The US and many allies are | committed, the US will eventually own thousands. | chrisseaton wrote: | If you didn't know, you've been hell-banned (silently hidden | from the HN that almost everyone else sees) for two years. | That's why you get so few replies to your comments. | ahupp wrote: | I see their comments like normal, is there something that | controls this? | mlyle wrote: | His stuff starts off "dead" and has to be "vouched" by | someone with karma to be expanded/seen by default. Look | at his post history. | chrisseaton wrote: | If someone like me chooses to reply they become visible. | Otherwise they're talking into the void. | ceejayoz wrote: | Basically, "will we make the several thousand we originally | planned to make?" | | For example, the B-2 was planned with over a hundred aircraft, | but we wound up making only about 20. | GartzenDeHaes wrote: | I think it's a contract checkpoint that signals a major $$$ | release to the vendor. | sschueller wrote: | Yet for some weird reason this plane is still one of the 4 plains | in the running to replace the old FA-18 in the Swiss air force. | strictnein wrote: | Which plane, exactly, is superior to the F-35? | mhh__ wrote: | Arguably nothing at the moment, at least for the role the | F-35 is designed for. | | Realistically for Switzerland these aircraft are basically | 9/11 prevention and national penis-enlargers, so any modern | jet would do the trick (subject to politics i.e. no Sukhois). | slac wrote: | I think the cost is one of the deciding factors... | lsllc wrote: | They'll just keep upgrading the F-18 design, new avionics, | better engines, airframe tweaks. Way cheaper than the F-35. | | The B-52's are still in service after 60+ years, with | pretty much everything upgraded several times over. | strictnein wrote: | You can't make the F-18 a stealth fighter. But those | planes will still be used for a long time. The F-15 may | even be making a small comeback: https://www.popularmecha | nics.com/military/aviation/a26413900... | bfieidhbrjr wrote: | Pretty much anything from the last generation. Embarrassingly | the F-16 beat it in combat, for example. | | For close air support the A-10 is vastly superior. | | The F-35 is an employment program like the TSA. | mhh__ wrote: | > Embarrassingly the F-16 beat it in combat, for example. | | What kind of combat? | | If an F-35 actually makes it to a merge somethings gone | wrong, and reports vary wildly | https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-vs-f-16-15-18-lost- | beat... | | Ultimately a lot of F-35 hysteria seems to derive from it | being the first US aircraft developed entirely post- | internet where news travels quickly - i.e. If your projects | early tests and teething problems were being reported on | publicly by everyone you'd probably look fairly bad too. | | That's not to say the F-35 is flawless in any way, but | these conversations usually end up in a reductive cycle of | arguments we can't know the answer too without security | clearance. | laverya wrote: | > For close air support the A-10 is vastly superior. | | Vastly superior for providing CAS in uncontested airspace | against enemies that struggle to acquire MANPADS, let alone | a modern air defense network or their own air force, | perhaps. | | But the argument is that the US military should be designed | for fighting the biggest plausible enemy, and that's Russia | or China, not goat herders in Afghanistan. A major | inefficiency in counterinsurgent air support is expensive | and survivable, using A-10s against a major threat _isn | 't_. | strictnein wrote: | Interesting how you heard about that one dogfight, but not | its record since then. Again, places like The Drive have | been pushing bad F-35 news because it draws lots of clicks. | | The F-35's k/d ratio since that dogfight in 2015, when | pilots were just figuring the plane out: | | 15-1 | | https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-once-beaten- | by-f-16s-sh... | | > Since then, the F-35 has mopped up in simulated dogfights | with a 15-1 kill ratio. According to retired Lt. Col. David | Berke, who commanded a squadron of F-35s and flew an F-22 | -- the US's most agile, best dogfighter -- the jet has | undergone somewhat of a revolution. | ceejayoz wrote: | It's really baffling that the US isn't looking more heavily at | cheaper, easier to field aircraft like the A-29 Super Tucano for | counter-insurgency operations like Iraq and Afghanistan. | manfredo wrote: | The A-29 is functionally not all that different than armed | drones like the predator or reaper. Except the latter have an | even longer loiter time, and take pilot losses out of the | equation. | ed25519FUUU wrote: | Doesn't the US have many combat aircraft that can fit that | service role? | [deleted] | leetcrew wrote: | the a-29 is really intended for US COIN partner nations (read: | not first world militaries). the aircraft is much less | survivable than an a-10 (which is already more vulnerable than | people tend to think), making it inappropriate for most direct | applications by US forces. | | edit: to be clear, the US _is_ looking at the a-29; they just | don 't want to risk their own pilots in it. | mhh__ wrote: | The A-29 isn't _that_ cheap compared to an F-35 (i.e. 1:4), | especially when you consider that if you buy an F-35 (at the | expense of maintenance costs) you avoid having to buy an F-35 | anyway because you have a modern BVR platform | ceejayoz wrote: | The A-29 costs $430-500/hour to run. Lockheed "hopes" to get | the F-35 down to $25k/hour by 2025. | waiseristy wrote: | After seeing what happened in Armenia & Azerbaijan, I'm wondering | if the US's customers are pushing for these cheaper drone options | instead of the F35. The F35 has been in development so long, that | it's seeing its own combat role supplanted | ardit33 wrote: | Bingo. The F-35 as a bomb delivery platform might be already | obsolete, as drones are far cheaper. You still need air | defense/air superiority fighter though. | sandworm101 wrote: | And the f-35 is neither. It is the complement to the f-22, | not its replacement. There are more effective air superiority | fighters out there for far less money. | mrtksn wrote: | Drones should be inherently better anyway since they don't have | to carry 80KG of meat that needs to be kept alive. | cblconfederate wrote: | armenia is 3 million people with old russian equipment. i think | the success of drones is overrated, after all they ve been in | use in libya & syria | nitwit005 wrote: | There were always far cheaper options than what they chose to | build. They didn't seem to care. | | They seem to care more about delays and possible unreliability | than squandering billions of dollars. | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | The F35's competition isn't a comparable enemy aircraft or a | drone swarm. It's political corruption and hostile | Facebook/Twitter troll farms. | mkr-hn wrote: | The F-35 is the Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) player of war | machines. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnpX8d8zRIA | | Perfect for the era development started in, but useless for the | era when it was finally shippable. | mhh__ wrote: | > Perfect for the era development started in, but useless for | the era when it was finally shippable. | | Are you any good at lottery numbers? | | Traditional fighters will probably lull in use in between the | proliferation of drones, _and_ the proliferation of | countermeasures to those drones. | strictnein wrote: | The Drive back again with another one of its anti-F35 articles. | It would seem that this administration is just punting to the | next one, which is probably a good idea. | | I would take anything they post about the plane with a grain of | salt. They take any setback as if it's the first time a large | technical project has ever experienced issues. | guscost wrote: | Weird theory of mine: The DoD ultimately picks these winning | planes based on which one "looks cooler" or basically has better | aesthetics. | | I think the F-35 has better aesthetics than the Boeing X-32, just | like the F-22 has better aesthetics than the YF-23. You could say | I'm used to seeing the winning designs as "normal", but I | distinctly remember having this reaction before the JSF | competition was over. | stretchcat wrote: | Oh boy I couldn't disagree more, the F-22 is doubtlessly cool, | but it has nothing on the YF-23. And the X-32 was positively | adorable (which isn't cool I guess, but I still love it.) I | think the F-35 is downright fugly though, it's too bloated and | bumpy looking. | WJW wrote: | Damen shipyards is on record for stating that they regularly | tweak warship designs to "look sleeker and meaner" because it | both makes the admirals happy and also reaffirms the beliefs of | the public of how warships are "supposed" to look. I'd be very | surprised if military aircraft designers did not do something | similar. | | In any case it's also good military thinking. Sun Tzu already | said that the pinnacle of warfare is to gain victory without | fighting, and one of the ways to do so is to look so menacing | that your opponent does not want to engage. Sleek, powerful | looking military hardware has that effect much more than | bloated and clunky stuff. | Animats wrote: | That was an issue with US guided missile cruisers when | vertical launch came in. The launchers just show as little | hatches in the deck. There's usually a modest gun turret, the | only visible weapon. There are some Close In Weapons System | units, but they just look like machine guns. | | The USSR built ships with much more visible armament on deck, | facing outward. Partly because it looked fierce, and partly | because they didn't quite trust their missiles not to launch | straight up and come back down on the ship. | Judgmentality wrote: | > In any case it's also good military thinking. | | Or more likely enemies see it as posturing and strike full | force, thinking they can pierce the superficial veil of | technological supremacy. | | Come on, security theater is bullshit. How many people | actually think the TSA does anything useful? If anything it | lulls people into a false sense of safety, making us weaker. | | If our enemies are so easily deterred that our appearance | matters more than our capabilities, then they are not enemies | worth taking seriously. | | https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the- | tsa... | | https://www.heritage.org/transportation/commentary/heres- | how... | wtvanhest wrote: | Hijackings were extremely common prior to flight security. | TSA was another level, that was extremely frustrating | throughout the 2000s, but at a minimum it prevents wildly | unstable people from boarding with weapons | | Check out this list | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings | ceejayoz wrote: | > at a minimum it prevents wildly unstable people from | boarding with weapons | | The TSA reliably fails penetration tests; they miss | between 70% and 95% of them. https://www.forbes.com/sites | /michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa... | | What's likely caused hijackings to fall off a cliff is a) | reinforced cockpit doors and b) the knowledge of crew and | passengers that the hijackers might be homicidal. | | Pre-9/11, advice was to cooperate, get the plane on the | ground, and negotiate/assault, with pretty good overall | results for the passengers. That is... _not_ the advice | today. | Judgmentality wrote: | I wrote a rebuttal with sources but on second thought, I | think you make a good point. I should look at the data | more and revisit my stance. | anonisko wrote: | It's not complete bullshit. Against other sophisticated | actors, yeah, it's bullshit. But posturing and intimidation | is important to keep less sophisticated actors in check. | Judgmentality wrote: | Who are the less sophisticated actors willing to attack a | military based solely on appearance of 'not looking | intimidating?' | | We're talking about a fighter jet, not a security guard. | anonisko wrote: | I'd see it as more about PR. | | If poor desperate people regularly see these kinds of | badass weapons that a foreign power has, it's just going | to be that much harder to recruit for organizations that | violently resist oppression, because the individuals you | need are fearful and demoralized. | | Then you need crazy things like religious indoctrination | that promises rewards in heaven for fighting such an | unassailable power. | HPsquared wrote: | Human factors are real. | sandworm101 wrote: | Sun Tzu didnt have stealth aircraft. In many ways, if they | see enough of you to be intimidated then they can see enough | of you to kill you. The f-35 wants to make the kill before | the target even realizes it is in danger, let alone sees the | aircraft comming. I doubt Sun Tzu would have encouraged his | spies or saboteurs to stand out from the crowd. | stretchcat wrote: | The enemies of America are presumably meant to see American | stealth aircraft in movies and TV shows, not over their | capitols. | | However, I think these airplanes are indeed designed | foremost for function. The similar appearances of the B-1 | and Tu-160 suggest that when two planes are designed using | similar technology with similar mission requirements, they | tend to have a lot of similarities. (In the years since | they were initially designed, the way these aircraft are | used has changed. But they were initially designed to meet | similar requirements.) | asdff wrote: | How many decades will it be before we see an F35 used in | film? | ben_w wrote: | On the other hand, the foreign government may see pictures | of the plane and go "that's scary" and not start the fight | which the less-scary-more-stealthy alternative can win | better. | pjc50 wrote: | Not in the skies, in _Jane 's Defense Weekly_. | pjc50 wrote: | Used to be done with uniforms. Hence the Pope's guards with | Michelangelo uniforms, and the Nazis with Hugo Boss. | stretchcat wrote: | I could be wrong, but IIRC Hugo Boss was one of the | companies that made Nazi uniforms, but did not design those | uniforms. | manfredo wrote: | The F-35 also has a better (lower) radar cross section than the | X-32 which had exposed turbine blades. And crucially, the | prototype X-32 failed to demonstrate simultaneous VTOL and | supersonic flight, while the X-35 did. Seeing as this was the | main characteristic the military wanted, this is a pretty | significant shortcoming. | | It's true that more conservative designs have historically | prevailed over technically more impressive exotic designs. I | think this is not about looking cooler (the YF-23 looked cooler | than the F-22 IMO), and more about risk aversion when billions | of dollars and people's lives are on the line. And there are | still exceptions to this like the B-2. Although it drew on | experience from the XB-35. | enw wrote: | I think this is much more common and crucial for success than | we admit. Aesthetics have a very real impact on customers and | observers, but we like to pretend it's not that important. | [deleted] | porphyra wrote: | I don't think the F-22 has better aesthetics than the YF-23. | The YF-23 looks super awesome with its diamond-shaped wing. | | The Boeing X-32's frog-mouthed appearance is a bit ugly though. | DanCarvajal wrote: | YF-23 is 30 years old and still looks futuristic. | mhh__ wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Bird_of_Prey | | That makes this positively alien then | mrtksn wrote: | YF-23 looks like what the non-human enemy would have used. | | It's cool but it doesn't look like "ours". I guess that the | "If we are the goodies why the weapons look alien" question | comes to mind since people would always think that they are | the good ones and the foreigners are the ones that we should | be suspicious of. | systemvoltage wrote: | This is not your weird theory. There is some truth to it. Look | up Kelly Johnson's account on several books about military | airplanes. | | In case if anyone doesn't know he is: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer) | | Basically his philosophy, at some corner of his brains was "If | it cools beautiful, it will fly well." The way I think of it is | - streamlined shapes are generally more pleasing to human | vision system. Not sure why, some innate | biological/evolutionary trait. So, Kelly designed a lot of | beautiful planes with his gut instinct when there is no | data/objectivity, but only some instincts to rely on. Legendary | engineer! | anonisko wrote: | I'd be shocked if the military doesn't include aesthetics when | considering which new equipment to use. | | You'd want to look badass and cool to the people you serve and | hellish and terrifying to those you attack. The psychological | impact in both directions almost certainly has important, real | world consequences. | stretchcat wrote: | I think _to an extent_ the public will decide ugly planes | look badass if the planes are presented that way in media. | The F-117 was a really bizarre plane, but became so iconic | gamers today still buy computer mice that look like it. | | This said, I think there are limits. I don't think the F-35 | will ever achieve the same level of coolness that the F-22 | has; the F-22 look very sleek while the F-35 looks like it | ate too many hamburgers. | ardit33 wrote: | The Boeing was not just ugly, it failed to do both stovl and | supersonic in one fighter, which was a requirement | | ' Due to the heavy delta wing design of the X-32, Boeing | demonstrated STOVL and supersonic flight in separate | configurations, with the STOVL configuration requiring that | some parts be removed from the fighter. The company promised | that their conventional tail design for production models would | not require separate configurations. By contrast, the Lockheed | Martin X-35 concept demonstrator aircraft were capable of | transitioning between their STOVL and supersonic configurations | in mid-flight.[4] | animex wrote: | I feel like there's an orchestrated PR campaign around making | these F-35s sound like a success. I wonder what exists for | objective reporting & analysis in this space. | strictnein wrote: | I mean, there's real life, like Israel taking out advanced | Chinese radars: https://defence-blog.com/news/source- | israeli-f-35-destroyed-... | | Which China claimed could detect the F-22: | https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a23846/chi... | ceejayoz wrote: | Damascus is less than 40 miles from the Israeli border, so | it's entirely possible that they detected the F-35s just | fine; you can hit quite a few targets in Syria without ever | actually violating Syrian airspace. | | Flying from Japan to China might be a little different. | andromeduck wrote: | __with drop tanks attached | andred14 wrote: | As an IT professional, from what I see here in Sidney Powell's | 270 page report there is SOLID evidence of election fraud: | | https://wpcdn.zenger.news/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2419082... | | President Trump will remain President Trump | belval wrote: | Can someone more knowledgeable than me in this matter explain why | fighter jets still require human pilots? Why aren't they | completely replaced by drones? | bodhiandphysics wrote: | Drones are dependent on an active satellite link to function. | What happens if the enemy jams the satellite? | jacobwilliamroy wrote: | Peace at last. | fishnchips wrote: | Wouldn't jamming the satellite affect F-35, too? | mhh__ wrote: | Yes and no. The whole thesis of the F-35 is apparently an | airborne sensor fusion and electronic warfare platform as | well as a modern BVR jet - it's going to be harder to jam | because of both redundancy and the amount of hardware real | estate the designers can play with to counter said jamming. | | On the subject of electronic warfare - I assume it's still | very classified but given that the current teen series | aircraft apparently have some serious EW magic in them (I | don't have any citations for exactly what they can do other | than I read some comments by IIRC an Australian ground | radar operator and apparently they were completely | outgunned - i.e. fake formations rather than mere jamming) | I think we will be reading about exactly they can do at | great length on the hackernews's of the future. | fishnchips wrote: | Radar jamming and other magic aside, I'm just wondering | to what extent the equipment in a modern jet like F-35 | depends on satellite link. So to what extent putting a | human in the machine actually changes its capability as | opposed to a drone with an autonomous mode. | mhh__ wrote: | > I'm just wondering to what extent the equipment in a | modern jet like F-35 depends on satellite link. | | Not very much, the datalink is sort of peer-to-peer - the | F-35 is one of the first aircarft to have a satellite | datalink. | onepointsixC wrote: | Sure but a human doesn't have issue still executing their | mission, making decisions based on changing circumstances, | and successfully return to base. | mhh__ wrote: | 1. Technology isn't there yet - the recent AI vs. F-16 thing | was a publicity stunt: The performance of the AI was | impressive, but it was both cheating and competing in an | environment where the pilot wasn't really comfortable (IIRC | Simulators are almost never used to practice combat tactics, so | they might as well've got a competitive DCS player in) | | 2. A pilot isn't just a sack of meat that uses monkey-instincts | to steer the plane forward, they are a cog in a very large | machine both making decisions and following and interpreting | orders as the situation changes around them. | | Drone jets have existed for decades, they're called cruise | missiles. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-02 23:00 UTC)