Is the F-35 officially a failure?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/sitrep-is-the-f-35-now-officially-a-failure/

by belter • 5 years ago

30 72 5 years ago

msingle• 5 years ago

Judging solely by Betteridge's law of Headlines, the answer should be "no", but maybe that's just referencing the "official" part.

But yes. It's a failure. Throw some more money at A-10s and F-22s (or upgraded versions).

idiocrat• 5 years ago

The government of my country have bought a pile of F35s using my tax money.

Can I get a piece of it? Perhaps a commemorial dial from the onboard watch?

Or they should put them out in a city center, next to the central well, next to the church, so the children can play inside on sunny Sundays.

craftinator5• 5 years ago

Just wait till one crashes, then go pick your piece. Bound to happen within a few years.

t0mas88• 5 years ago

The F-22 is even more expensive than the F-35 and production of it has been shut down. So they can't throw more money at F-22s.

dublin3• 5 years ago

Interestingly, in a first-ever move (AFAIK), the Pentagon ordered the tooling for the F-22 destroyed when they shut the program down. In every other case I'm aware of (and I participated in both shutting down and bringing back things when I worked in the aerospace industry), tooling and documentation/artifacts are carefully stored and preserved for possible future use. If there's one thing the DoD does know how to do, it's configuration management and archival/storage.

GhostVII• 5 years ago

Isn't the A-10 an entirely different kind of fighter? I don't see how a close air support plane would replace the F-35.

craftinator5• 5 years ago

Isn't the A-10 an entirely different kind of fighter?

Doesn't matter. The A-10 is a fully functional aircraft, which puts it far, far ahead of the F-35.

I don't see how a close air support plane would replace the F-35.

For some reason, they tried to design the F-35 to do everything. What the original comment is saying, I believe, is that the A-10 and F-22 were very successful and capable aircraft, and between them could handle most all of the situations the F-35 was supposed to be able to handle (but can't). If we spent even a fraction of the cost of the F-35 on updating their design, they could be even more capable.

flohofwoe• 5 years ago

It's the other way around, the F-35 was supposed to not only replace the F-16, but also the A-10... and the F/A-18, and probably a couple other aircraft types in other NATO countries.

mcv• 5 years ago

Of course it can't, but the F-35 was meant to replace the A-10, as well as a host of other fighters (F-16, F-15, F-18, Harrier, and probably more). But with stealth.

Some standardisation in fighter design doesn't sound like a bad idea at all, and you can certainly question why you'd need all three of the F-15, F-16 and F-18. But also the A-10 and the Harrier? Those are very different planes with very different roles. I think cramming those two requirements in there is what sunk the F-35. There's no way to make one fighter do all of that and do it well.

x86_64Ubuntu2• 5 years ago

A-10s don't do well in near peer competitions. They are only good for harassing people in the third world who don't have any kind of anti-air capabilities.

captainredbeard8• 5 years ago

Is that due to radar cross-section, speed, or heat signature?

chalcolithic2• 5 years ago

I admit that I'm completly clueless when it comes to aircraft and I understand that the final price tag on F22/F35 is very upsetting but I don't understand why those programs cannot be salvaged. Couldn't those planes be simplified/optimized to lower their cost?

toyg• 5 years ago

You’re getting dangerously close to a position whereby, if a process fails, what needs to be done is to add more processing.

redis_mlc• 5 years ago

I study warfare and am a pilot.

The doctrine of the US Air Force is that they will have the best airplanes at any cost to achieve air dominance. They literally don't care about price as long as they get the lethality and qty. they want.

Hence they will never look at low-cost fighters like the F-5, A-10 or A-29 for their own use, except as maybe trainers or Marine use.

The F-22 is no longer made. Around 189 were built and there's about 150 left. It's a great plane, but the low count is a great concern in case of war (with China.) You can lose 150 planes in a couple of days in a kinetic war.

The F-35 has numerous show-stopping problems, plus even more numerous irritating problems. The US needs about 1,000 operational ones, plus another 1,000 for our allies, to be an effective deterrent to China. (Since the US has 11 carriers, that's enough F-35s to populate them.)

The reason we need so many planes is that China has almost 18,000 ships, which can be used to blockade (defend) the S. China Sea (a tactic they accidently discovered in the last Taiwan Strait conflict.) So that leaves aerial/ICBM attacks.

The US MIC has prioritized pork instead of results, so we need to work on qty. The Biden administration is perceived as weak gobally, which is unacceptable for a superpower - that gets millions of people killed until the US demonstrates dominance again.

(WW2 in Europe started due to US isolationism. Both Germany and Japan thought of the US as country bumpkins in 1940. Today, the CCP thinks of us as decadent and divided, thanks to BLM and antifa.)

During a border dispute in 1969, Russia decided to nuke Beijing because they wouldn't take no for an answer, but the US foolishly told them not to. The CCP has already threatened in 2020 to use nukes against the US if the Three Gorges Dam is attacked.

The only reasons the CCP hasn't successfully invaded Taiwan yet are:

- the Taiwan Strait is about 80 miles wide at the narrrowest. Considering Germany couldn't invade Britain, which is only 20 or so miles from France, you can see how 80 miles is a very strong deterrent.

- Russia told the CCP to stop saber-rattling on previous attempts

- The US came to Taiwan's aid in the last two attempts, and has a policy of including Taiwan under its umbrella (like half the world's countries.)

So here we are, on the brink of war with a President who can't climb a flight of stairs on his own.

snypher• 5 years ago

The Biden administration is perceived as weak gobally, which is unacceptable for a superpower - that gets millions of people killed until the US demonstrates dominance again.
Russia decided to nuke Beijing because they wouldn't take no for an answer, but the US foolishly told them not to.
So here we are, on the brink of war

There seem to be some wildly conflicting points here? Are you advocating for the use of nukes and also complaining about warmongers?

robert_foss2• 5 years ago

(WW2 in Europe started due to US isolationism. Both Germany and Japan thought of the US as country bumpkins in 1940. Today, the CCP thinks of us as decadent and divided, thanks to BLM and antifa.)

Surely protesting against racism is what is makes the US weak. Not income inequality or the almost complete lack of social security net or poor access to education.

</sarcasm>

tlear2• 5 years ago

Would not expansion of submarine fleet be a much safer alternative? Or sell some subs to Taiwan, I know US helped brocker sole deal to help them build indigenous boats with MHI help, but this might take too long

EliRivers• 5 years ago

Today, the CCP thinks of us as decadent and divided, thanks to BLM and antifa.)

They're symptoms so obvious that even we can see them. I suspect that the CCP was well aware of the divisions without needing to have it pointed out to them by BLM and Antifa.

x86_64Ubuntu2• 5 years ago

Goodness gracious. Your rhetoric is reminiscent of 2003 when the US portrayed Saddam and Iraq as being beyond reason, and that the West HAD to attack lest Western civilization be toppled.

..nukes against the US if the Three Gorges Dam is attacked.

I'm not sure this statement paints the CCP as the villain you imagine it does. No country with options is going to stand by while the largest hydropower dam in the world is attacked, and possibly millions of their citizens are killed due to flooding and famine.

scolby33• 5 years ago

I think you'll find that the president who led America through WWII couldn't climb a flight of stairs on his own. Whether or not your assertion about Biden is true, it doesn't seem to matter one way or the other when it comes to leading a nation.

bigbillheck4• 5 years ago

I've got a number of concerns with the accuracy of your historical analysis here, but I'll limit myself to a couple:

(WW2 in Europe started due to US isolationism. Both Germany and Japan thought of the US as country bumpkins in 1940.

In 1940, Hitler's actual words, which presumably were not too different from the rest of the Nazi leadership, were "WHAT is America but beauty queens, millionaires, stupid records and Hollywood?" That doesn't sound much like bumpkinism to me. (Not to mention the Henry Ford connection, or the IBM one)

Considering Germany couldn't invade Britain, which is only 20 or so miles from France, you can see how 80 miles is a very strong deterrent.

How do you explain June 6th 1944? The Nazis didn't do Operation Sealion because it was too far, they didn't do it because they didn't have air and naval superiority.

skystarman2• 5 years ago

So here we are, on the brink of war with a President who can't climb a flight of stairs on his own.

I seem to remember a major conflict in the last century where we had a POTUS that similarly couldn't climb a flight of stairs on his own and we seemed to do just fine...

But great to have some diversity of thought from MAGA facebook here on HN, it does get a bit echo-chamber-ish

captainredbeard8• 5 years ago

Historical quibbles aside (I agree, BTW), this is a very accurate take on the modern day situation.

bigbillheck4• 5 years ago

During a border dispute in 1969, Russia decided to nuke Beijing because they wouldn't take no for an answer, but the US foolishly told them not to.

Are you trying to tell me that Leonid Brezhnev, in 1969, was going to let Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger dictate foreign policy to him?

The CCP has already threatened in 2020 to use nukes against the US if the Three Gorges Dam is attacked.

At attack on Three Gorges would be a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions (Protocol I, 1977). The US has not ratified Protocol I, but the PRC has.

In the event of such an attack, what would you consider a reasonable level of retaliation?

chalcolithic2• 5 years ago

Thank you for such a detailed reply. Couldn't the show stoppers be resolved with some work on the current plane? It's not like they've found out that the airframe is no good and they have to literally start from scratch, right?

FooBarBizBazz• 5 years ago

You made a bunch of good points, which you undermined with partisanship. As a result, everyone is missing the 70% truth into which you've mixed pro-Trump nuggets.

For example:

Today, the CCP thinks of us as decadent and divided, thanks to BLM and antifa.

You're right that internal division is a major geopolitical liability, but you're missing half the story. Yes, when rival powers see BLM-themed looting they lick their chops, but they also do that when they see a QAnon-themed "capitol insurrection". It takes two or more to tango. If you had talked about division more generally it would have been better-received.

But yeah: Can you imagine the US having a draft? Very few people would get shot at to defend "America as an idea" any more. Pretty sure that millions of Angry Youth have more conviction in their cause than Americans have in theirs.

The Biden administration is perceived as weak gobally [...]. [...] So here we are, on the brink of war with a President who can't climb a flight of stairs on his own.

First of all, I'm not convinced that Biden's administration is perceived as weak, relative to Trump. Yes, he's more conciliatory on the surface with China, just like Obama was -- but it was Obama/Biden who started the Pacific pivot. And Trump, while more "hard on China" on the surface, could well have been perceived as inexpert and flatterable/manipulable.

(And Biden's physical state is mostly irrelevant. FDR was in a wheelchair and Timur was lame. Whatever. Dude doesn't go out and punch geopolitical adversaries with his fists.)

But when you say

[The US] is perceived as weak gobally, which is unacceptable for a superpower - that gets millions of people killed until the US demonstrates dominance again.

... you're right. You were also right with your first six paragraphs. And your observations about strategy and tactics were interesting. These are areas where you could educate HN, if you toned down the Trump/Biden stuff.

During a border dispute in 1969, Russia decided to nuke Beijing because they wouldn't take no for an answer, but the US foolishly told them not to. The CCP has already threatened in 2020 to use nukes against the US if the Three Gorges Dam is attacked.

This is the most interesting tidbit. A quote from [1]:

William Hyland, the author of this paper, was a Soviet analyst at CIA's Directorate of Intelligence before he was recruited for Kissinger's NSC staff. In this memorandum, Hyland critiqued an interagency study on Sino-Soviet relations that Kissinger has requested in National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 63. In the course of the analysis, which Kissinger characterized as "1st rate," Hyland acknowledged that a limited Sino-Soviet war was "by no means a disaster for the US." For example, implying that a war would involve Soviet strikes to destroy Chinese nuclear facilities, Hyland observed that it might be a "solution" to the China nuclear problem.

The relevant Wikipedia article is also interesting [2].

[1] https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB49/

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict

alfiedotwtf• 5 years ago

I study warfare
WW2 in Europe started due to US isolationism

... you may want to start reading non-US-centric books

mc323• 5 years ago

For WWII planes went from design to production in months. Obviously technology was much simpler and you didn’t have thousands of entities working on one design (or committees in the middle), but taking the best part of two decades to get something up in the air is a very bad sign of how government things get done.

Imagine where SpaceX would be if the government got in there making sure everyone was happy and all 50 states got a piece of the action.

silexia2• 5 years ago

The simplest solution is don't buy or build things you don't need. Wait till we actually have an opponent where advanced fighter jets would help defeat them. America's founders tried to prevent a standing army for this reason and also because most militaries get used against their own citizens more frequently than getting used against foreign enemies.

stirfish2• 5 years ago

"Alexa, order a fire extinguisher."

chipsa5• 5 years ago

Yes, wait until we have an opponent which requires advanced fighter jets, then order development to start. Only will take 2 decades to reach production. And hey, maybe we won't need them by the time it reaches production!

minikites• 5 years ago

Imagine where SpaceX would be if the government got in there making sure everyone was happy and all 50 states got a piece of the action.

The government landed men on the moon fifty years ago and SpaceX is still blowing up rockets regularly, I'm not sure your comparison is particularly flattering to SpaceX.

mc323• 5 years ago

I don't think it's fair to compare the budget (in real terms) NASA had with the one SpaceX has when you make that comparison.

Moreover, I fee like our government today would have a hard time pulling off that feat. In the early 60s we still had somewhat nimble areas of government. I don't think it's true today. We allow too many interests to have too much pull and negative influence causing some kind of paralysis as well and franken-projects that are impossibly encompassing.

craftinator5• 5 years ago

The government landed men on the moon fifty years ago

And cannot accomplish that task again today. And did it by investing massive quantities of money and resources in a project, which no business could possibly hope to match, unless they print their own cash flow, as the government does.

orlovs• 5 years ago

I don’t think its failure, its just obfuscation of reality. Make promise that you will be able put 3x (or more) different use-cases in to same plane. You have to make many tradeoffs to put into same design: carrier jet, conventional jet and jump jet. Actually you have built 3x pretty “mediocre” jets (if we look from perspective) how it could be if there would be 3x separate designs. I can bet costs would be comparable

dublin3• 5 years ago

The F-111, which eventually (and accidentally) became useful in a role other than the several it was designed for and failed at, should have been a warning beacon here.

Eisenhower was right, though, and the military-industrial complex (which now pales in significance to the Social/Tech-Government complex)rammed through a monster one-size-fits-all plan that was farcical on its face, but successfully stole well over a trillion dollars from the taxpayers, and delivered a plane so unreliable it's unflyable 75% of the time, and in trying to do everything, winds up being good at nothing.

Really? The F-35 a replacement for the A-10 in its low-altitude, tight-turning, monster-gun close air support role?! AND a world-beating air superiority fighter (to rival or surpass the F-22, Su-57, and J-20), AND a top carrier-based fighter, AND a stealth fighter/bomber to replace the F-117,AND a supersonic VSTOL Harrier replacement? The very idea is completely ludicrous. The real-world F-35 is even worse than the old SNL commercial for Shimmer - It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping! (but with HappyFunBall's unpredictability...)

Anyone with the sense God gave geese can clearly see that one airplane could never do all this (again, especially after the F-111 debacle), but the corrupt Pentagon, Congressmen (but I repeat myself), and military-industrial complex took all of us for a ride on their trillion-dollar turkey.

The worst thing is that we've wasted decades worth of R&D and procurement money on a plane that does not and cannot work and be useful in the real world. We had better pray we never need this airplane in a fighting war, because it CANNOT be relied upon, and we can't afford enough of them anyway!

captainredbeard8• 5 years ago

The situation isn't that dire but the F-35 program is still a screw-up. At a minimum, it still can perform its primary role - get into contested areas stealthily, gain and share firing solutions to well-equipped friendlies in the area, bugging out, and rinse/repeat.

chipsa5• 5 years ago

The F-111 was always useful in the role that the USAF wanted it for: light bomber. It's the USN role that it failed miserably at. And the experience gained from the F-111 directly fed into the F-14.

The F-35 program hasn't cost over a trillion dollars. It's supposed to cost over a trillion by the time they retire it, sometime 50 years from now. That is to say, over the 70 years that the program is expected to last, it'll have cost over a trillion.

The F-35 is a replacement for the A-10 for CAS, but it's conception of how to do CAS is different, because we expect enemies that aren't just guys with a rifle to have the ability to hit stuff at low altitude. So we don't want to have our new stuff operate at low altitude. Literally every aircraft in the USAF/USN/USMC tactical fleet can do CAS in the way the F-35 is supposed to: drop munition from medium altitude. The F-35 is just supposed to be generally better at it (better sensor fusion, etc). Hell, we even have B-1 bombers doing CAS, by dropping bombs from medium altitude.

The F-35 isn't supposed to rival or surpass the F-22. It's supposed to complement it.

zcw100• 5 years ago

That depends. If we manage to move on to a next generation aircraft without getting into a conflict where it's needed then it can be seen as a success. You were able to do a massive amount of R&D and push the state of the art without the consequences of not having gotten it quite right and apply those lessons learned to the next generation. If we get into a conflict where it's needed and fails to meet the operational requirements than it's a failure. Only time will tell.

dublin3• 5 years ago

Yes, the Trillion Dollar Turkey is officially a failure. Next question?

thrower1232• 5 years ago

The F-35 reminds me far too much of the misguided concept that was floated in the Windows 8 era of a unified experience across everything from phones to tablets to laptops to desktops to game consoles to AR whatever-Hololens-was-supposed-to-be.

That concept also produced a rather terrible jack-of-all-trades experience that we've slowly been working our way back from, after an enormous amount of collateral damage and opportunity costs.

zaychikk• 5 years ago

The F-35 is not a failure, its procurement process is. In the future, the USAF absolutely wants to do this differently: cheaper, quicker, better. However, the F-35 is arguably the best multirole fighter in the world right now, especially when compared the the lack of uptime and supply of peer fifth-gen fighters.

Is the F-35 officially a failure?

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