[jessaustin]

Wow, my first comment on the thread, consisting entirely of a quote from expert analysts, and already I'm a "luddite Reformer". (Idiosyncratic capitalization also doesn't help you seem balanced and rational.)

This turkey was designed in the 1990s. The contract was awarded in 2001. The first f35 flew in 2006. When will this "technology" no longer be "new"? Presumably it will be some time, since the entire fleet was grounded again last week due to safety concerns.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-29/f-35-flee...

[spamizbad]

I think the reason why you're getting some pushback is because we've heard all these before with another aircraft that had similar teething and development problems: the F-15.

The F-15 project was supposed to be a small and light fighter but feature creep" blew the project up into a massively expensive boondoggle. Some of this was due to the fear of the MIG-25; an aircraft we later learned wasn't so scary.

Yet today, the overpriced, chronic cost-overruning F-15 sits at an impressive 109:0 kill to loss ratio, making it the best performing aircraft in the United State's history.

But you would be correct in saying the F-35 is no F-15. It has a stealth coating that is expensive to maintain (this is true for all stealth aircraft). It also flies with a ton of electronics to function as a "sensor network in the sky".

But in many ways, this is similar to the complaints about the F-15 and its (For the time) dizzying array of modern technologies: An advanced lookdown/shootdown radar, support for BVR missiles, IFF, EW and ECM systems all linked to a central computer. Technically other aircraft had these technologies in the 1970s, but none until the F-15 had them all in the same aircraft. Fast-forward a few decades and that "feature creep" doesn't even quality as "bare bones" for any air superiority fighter.

Anyway, if you want a multi-role aircraft without the stealth or sensor network gizmos of the F-35 there's the Gripen E series. Its purchase price is greater than the F-35 but its operating costs are much less. If you don't envision your country's airforce performing too many SEAD missions this tradeoff might make sense... but there's no free lunch!

[bumby]

I believe the list is long of airframes where you could initially find this complaint. I think the F18 had similar concerns after it originally lost its experimental competition to the F16. But the F18 found itself as a capable workhorse for the Navy for decades. Same with the Space Shuttle, etc.

[spamizbad]

The F-16, incidentally, got loaded to the gills with expensive gizmos after the fact because the Airforce (and other F-16 customers) quickly realized it made the aircraft a far more effective platform.

[ncmncm]

Space Shuttle is a clinker, here. It never did anything well, and its costs gutted other, overwhelmingly more valuable programs.

[bumby]

Generalization (not specialization) was it’s strong point as well as it’s weakness. The reason why it was a design boondoggle was because it had to meet the requirements of many masters. People forget it has a number of DoD missions in addition to the more publicly known NASA missions.

[ncmncm]

The DoD missions its design was compromised for did not happen.

[bumby]

There were plenty of joint NASA/DoD missions that were performed using the Shuttle. Why do you think NASA, an agency built upon freely sharing scientific information, occasionally had classified payloads aboard the Shuttle?

"Between 1982 and 1992, NASA launched 11 shuttle flights with classified payloads, honoring a deal that dated to 1969, when the National Reconnaissance Office—an organization so secret its name could not be published at the time—requested certain changes to the design of NASA’s new space transportation system."[1]

NASA has a long history of working with the military. The first astronauts were all military test pilots (Armstrong gave up his military commission so NASA wouldn’t appear overtly militarized).

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secret-spa...

[jessaustin]

Don't forget, this is an F35 thread. b^)

[bumby]

That wasn’t an oversight on my part

[mr_toad]

> Yet today, the overpriced, chronic cost-overruning F-15 sits at an impressive 109:0 kill to loss ratio, making it the best performing aircraft in the United State's history.

Not to mention Israeli history.

[some_random]

As far as I know you're not a Reformer, which is a proper noun and therefore capitalized, but the "expert analyst" you quoted is. Honestly that tells me enough about your familiarity with this subject

[jessaustin]

Please link to any source that indicates "Luddite" shouldn't be capitalized or "reformer" should, especially with Capt. Grazier cited as some sort of exemplar of the concept. You've had lots to say ITT but haven't cited a single authority to indicate you're not just making it all up.

[Armisael16]

The Reformers were/are a group arguing for a particular class of weapons and vehicles in procurement, mostly focusing on relatively low-tech solutions. They’re most famous for their influence in the Fighter Mafia and in the Bradley (see: Pentagon Wars). They’re… controversial.

That one gets capitalized because it’s a proper noun (is that a confusion name? sure).

Luddite strictly should be capitalized as well, but there isn’t any confusion around that one and it isn’t the focus, so I can understand why it wasn’t capitalized. I wouldn’t’ve.

[philwelch]

The Reformers aren't even the only group of people involved here. There's a lot of bad press for the F-35 that can be linked back to competing firms such as Boeing. Also, Russian media in particular likes to push stories that make the US look bad. Obviously there are crossovers (e.g. Pierre Sprey, one of the most notorious Reformers, made numerous appearances on RT).

[bumby]

You do understand that most new airframes take a decade or more of R&D before they are put in service, right?

[jessaustin]

This thing is in service, so conventional wisdom about how long it takes to do stuff before that is irrelevant. From the introduction of my original link:

Despite more than 20 years and approximately $62.5 billion spent so far on research and development alone, program officials still haven’t been able to deliver an aircraft that can fly as often as needed or to demonstrate its ability to perform in combat, which places military personnel in jeopardy.

I would have said the "R&D decade" was the 1990s since JAST began in 1993 and developmental contracts were awarded in 1996, but POGO are conservative in their judgments.

[bumby]

Your first comment was about suspended development, implying you think the system should be part of a continuous R&D cycle. Yet this comment implies you think the system should be outside of development. It's hard to tell what you're criticizing when your points are inconsistent.

I question some of the critiques in your link. For example, they claim the JSFs 61% availability rates are far below the standard of 75-80%. But if you look at published numbers, none of the legacy aircraft F15/F16/F18 variants (which have had decades to work out reliability issues) are above a 60% availability.[1]

What, specifically, are you critical of in terms of the JSF capability? Is that criticism due to what you perceived as mismanaged development or mismanaged priorities (e.g., the tradeoffs of a single platform)? And what is the base rate for comparison?

[1] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57713

[jessaustin]

I don't agree that any of my statements have had any of those implications. USA citizens have the right to complain about any expensive government program. F35 is a $1.7T program, which qualifies as expensive. It's perfectly ordinary to see administrators of non-military programs called before Congress and raked over the coals for spending that seems excessive to some legislator playing to the basest instincts of voters. We recently decided, somehow, that a few billion dollars was too much of a tax credit to justify keeping millions of American children out of poverty. [0] We never see any elected politician complaining about military spending, however.

It's a commonplace that we spend more on the military than the next ten nations put together, most of whom are our allies. That obscures the more amazing fact that over a third of the military spending in the world is spent by USA. Obviously the Pentagon budget should be halved if not quartered, as we were promised before the Saudis dropped the WTC. In such a context, there would be no room for a plane that offers the prospect of more expense instead of more capability. Northrop lobbyists and their employees at think tanks and in the media might be able to dry-lab some "rates" and "figures" to distract from the obvious state of the F35 program. The scale of the disaster cannot be hidden from unbiased investigators. Even if it never makes the evening war media news, those who care to know can consult experts like POGO.

However, if you insist on a criticism in the proper jargon, F35 will never, ever, regardless of how much is spent, be as capable at close air support as the vastly less expensive A10 "Warthog". You can ask any American serviceman who has served on the ground in the last two decades. This isn't the only important role for a military aircraft, but it is an important role.

[0] https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/monthly...

[philwelch]

> We never see any elected politician complaining about military spending, however.

You see it happen all the time. That's part of the broken incentive structure that led to the F35 in the first place. Politicians cancelled or curtailed the B-1, B-2, F-22, A-12, and V-22 just to name a handful off the top of my head. The B-1 and V-22 got uncancelled, and the B-2 and F-22 programs produced significantly fewer aircraft than they originally intended to (thus making these programs more expensive on a per-unit basis since the R&D couldn't be amortized effectively).

Therefore the F35 was intended to fit the requirements of three separate services (protecting it from interservice rivalry and more broadly amortizing the R&D expense) as well as exported to several allies (in order to further amortize R&D and make it safer politically). If there was the political capital necessary for a Harrier successor to be funded on its own, it wouldn't have been rolled into the F35.

> However, if you insist on a criticism in the proper jargon, F35 will never, ever, regardless of how much is spent, be as capable at close air support as the vastly less expensive A10 "Warthog".

This is not actually true. The A-10 is a death trap that is notorious for creating friendly fire casualties. The machine gun isn't effective against armored vehicles, and if you fly the plane low enough to use the machine gun, you're basically committing suicide against modern anti-aircraft weapons. Other than that, it's basically a missile truck, which lots of other planes can do with better accuracy and survivability. Even Ukraine doesn't want it.

[bumby]

I agree with much of what you say. The citizenry have every right to criticize and lobby for their tax dollars to be spent differently. But it appears you've already come to the conclusion that the JSF isn't worthwhile. Put differently, what would the JSF need to show capability-wise in order to change your mind?

I would like to see us spend less in the military if it goes to better use instead. Particularly when commanders are advocating getting rid of programs and Congress keeps them anyway. The US is effectively subsidizing NATOs military capability and mitigating the blowback requires more thoughtful analysis than just slashing the budget. I'm not convinced yet that POGO are the experts worth listening to because they seem a bit out of touch (see my last comment about what they claim the availability should be vs. the parity that matters).

As one of those service members who was supported by the A10 overseas, you're right. Grunts on the ground love the sound of that cannon overhead when close air support is needed. But you are comparing the one very specialized thing the A10 was designed to do. I don’t think it’s a slight to a decathlete to point out there’s faster, specialized sprinters at the Olympics. Stray in any direction away from that and it loses the comparison miserably. Compare avionics, speed, maneuverability and munitions capability etc. (really, anything outside of the cannon) and the JSF is just far superior. In other words, if I was only allowed to have one plane in theater, it wouldn't be the A10.

[jessaustin]

...what would the JSF need to show capability-wise in order to change your mind?

My objections are not limited to the plane's capabilities. No capabilities would justify especially egregious costs. A sure-to-be-revised-upward $1.7T is probably egregious enough. Similar criticism applies to the military overall.

...if I was only allowed to have one plane in theater...

This seems an unrealistic limitation. Very few aircraft (or ground craft) can protect themselves from all threats. Perhaps the B2 can, because at night it's apparently invisible? Certainly the Warthog is vulnerable to many fighter jets. (Although in several recent wars, fighter jets have not been a threat?) I assume that even the best 4G fighters are vulnerable to the latest AA weapons. However, I think you have helped me answer your first question. At this time it's clear that no command staff would contemplate operating in a particular "theater" with only F35s as combat aircraft. We would have to consider F35s as capable in some sense, if any forward airbase or carrier group would host them without also hosting F15s, F16s, F18s, F22s, etc. That will never happen, but if it does many people will have to eat crow.

...spend less in the military if it goes to better use instead.

Here is our real disagreement. We should spend less, full stop. Nothing justifies a nation with 5% of the world's population spending 36% of the world's military expenditures. The fact that most of us believe there are such justifications indicates deeper problems. We are constantly gaslit by commercial news media, politicians, academics, movies, etc. that the world is very dangerous for us, that we should fear people who live far way, and that we should probably have special operators and deathdrones terrorizing them on a regular basis just to be safe. Most Americans haven't admitted to themselves that not only do we never enter a war for the reasons cited at the time, not only do we kill and impoverish far more innocent people than ever appear on the news, but having entered those wars we never win, and never accomplish any beneficial military objectives. That isn't to even mention the many wars we fight without admitting them, which of course have had worse results. That isn't to even mention the terrible boomerang effects that all our horrible stupid wars have had on our own society.

Everyone else in the world, who aren't constantly subject to the mixture of news and entertainment that never considers whether we should spend less money killing innocent humans, knows this secret that very few Americans can publicly admit. What drives this flood of misinformation? Adults only get one guess... money! USA cable news industry has almost $6B/year in revenue. USA military spending is over 100 times as much. Few are foolish enough to invoke "Hanlon's Razor" here. We all know that greater spending on political campaign "donations" is firmly in the interest of interested industries. Obviously hiring and editorial decisions in media, as well, can be influenced by advertising and access when resources are so far out of balance. On top of that, the three-week ratings bonanza whenever a new TV war starts are enough to make a network profitable for the whole year.

Start by remembering the unanimous push in the war media to get Saddam's WMDs. Then remember that ObL left Afghanistan entirely less than a month after we invaded. Recall that Qaddafi had outlawed both polygamy and slave markets, which have returned to Libya since his violent overthrow. If our military had fewer resources, it would menace the world less, and regular Americans would be safer.

[formerly_proven]

> This turkey

Spreyian detected, opinion discarded.