The F-35 is already obsolete with the supersonic air defense drones and bomber drones being developed How do I know this? Because if anything the defense companies look to the future. Unmanned vehicles will be able to fly higher, faster, longer and pull G's that would kill a human. New missiles will be 95% first hits from hundreds of miles away. Dog fighting is over. It's the cavalry charge of modern warfare. The Navy and Air Force won't like it but they're going extinct.
1
Part of the inefficiency is how spread out the manufacturing of these is. Each of the participating nations contributed resources to its development hoping to receive some portion of its development and manufacturing jobs.
As a consequence, you have the F-35 being built and parts constantly shipped around the 10 participating nations and countless states. I wouldn't be surprised if Lockheed (and the rest of the Military Industrial Complex) are in every single state simply to sway votes and voters.
I'm not against the military: just centralize much of the manufacturing and the taxpayer would reap major savings.
1
My question is: why are we still building manned fighter jets when we could instead build fighter drones for a fraction of the cost and you would neither need to train pilots nor risk a pilot’s life to fly them. All the space and equipment in the F-35 that now exists only to support the pilot could instead be used to enhance and expand the planes capabilities and capacities. The only downside would be that military contractors would not make billions of dollars.
I guess my last sentence just answered my question.
1
It is with articles such as this one that Times comments are their most useful. It is unfortunate that the number of comments are usually inversely proportional to the degree to which an article is of the "boo!" or "yaay!" variety. However, I'll accept that, so that articles such as this one, with no great titillating or gossipy clickbait, is there to elicit few but often informed comments.
After two days there are only 34 comments, but they bear out my hope I expressed earlier:
"I appreciate an article that, rather than proffering "certainties", poses questions, even if indirectly. It is often in these "non-sexy" articles, that one finds the fewest but most useful and informative comments.
Hopefully a number of people with experience or perspective will read this article and comment here. I remember how before Syria blew up, the occasional article about it (and Turkey) elicited few, but informed and helpful, comments."
Thanks to those of you who have engaged and added to my understanding and perspective regarding the topic.
2
When evaluating the cost, as well as the developement and production time frames for the F-35, consider the following (from Wikipedia) regarding the almost 4000 B-29s produced during World War II.
"The $3 billion cost of design and production (equivalent to $42 billion today)—far exceeding the $1.9 billion cost of the Manhattan Project—made the B-29 program the most expensive of the war."
How many years was WWII? How many years has the F-35 been in developement?
2
The f35 is there only to make money for DoD contractors and the generals and admirals who sold their connections for cushy 6 figure make work post retirement employment. Meanwhile, there is a quiet war being waged on the enlisted, especially those that have injured themselves on the job. Strained a back muscle jumping out of a plane that's going to take 6 month to heal? Unless you're a technical specialist in a hard to recruit MOS big army is trying to push you out, with maybe (if you're lucky) enough cash to keep your family housed for the next few months. In almost 15 years as an army wife I've seen 4 NCOs get medically discharged at 19 years in service because they couldn't make their run time or do enough pull ups (unsurprising as decades in the service puts a lot of wear and tear on the body) denying them and their families of pension benefits and replacing it with tiny monthly checks for service related injuries. Starting pay for enlisted just crossed 20k this year and the work is both mind numbingly boring and physically demanding but the college, tricare, and pension benefits made it a fair exchange. However, since sequestration, the DoD has looked for every way it can renege on those promises to the people who do the actual work in the military (the enlisted) all so there's more money left over to shower on Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, and Halliburton. Disgusting. The Pentagon's colossal corruption is a galling waste and makes everyone less safe.
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@Redd
This recent comment merits a response.
Again we migrate to the extremes.
For the Military Industrial Complex, every campaign is necessary, every sacrifice legitimate, and every $7,000 hammer worth the price.
For the Anti-War Movement, no battle is worth fighting, every death is an atrocity, and every sword must become a ploughshare.
Americans who rise above our “self-centered” stereotype and look beyond the American “frying pan” discover some rather troubling fires abroad. We are compared unfavorably with about 25 smaller and more homogeneous countries (out of 200) whose liberal social experiments take place under our defensive umbrella. It’s not just the money those countries save. They also avoid the moral perils of being the ultimate defender of the order under which they thrive.
American supremacy is not a threat to the world, provided it is not abandoned either to militarists or to pacifists. Americans must stay involved, as citizens and as soldiers. Citizens must reward soldiers for the danger they face, and promise to care for their loved ones, simply because that is fair. But doing so may also aid in recruitment, and military salaries and benefits favor the domestic economy. Soldiers must also have every possible advantage in arms, again because it is right, but again with economic benefits. We must accept the cost of domestic production to control sources and guard technology - and elect government to control costs, but not simply cut them.
1
@Ben
Thanks for your perspective, Ben. In addition to its substantive contribution, it validates my hope expressed in an earlier comment I made.
To wit:
"I appreciate an article that, rather than proffering "certainties", poses questions, even if indirectly. It is often in these "non-sexy" articles, that one finds the fewest but most useful and informative comments.
Hopefully a number of people with experience or perspective will read this article and comment here. I remember how before Syria blew up, the occasional article about it (and Turkey) elicited few, but informed and helpful, comments."
1
This is a tragedy, especially since the same thing was tried with the F-111 in the early 1960s. A plane designed to fit the needs of the Air Force and the Navy. Except with the F-35 they added in VTOL for the Marines.
Why the F-111 experience wasn’t learned from I’ll never understand.
8
I greatly appreciate your insight and writing on the F-35, but if you're to argue it's the most notorious, I think you should consider some history, and not that old. The history of the F-111, both it's development & deployment, still stands as a "watershed" in the history of US military development, driven by both poor government bureaucracy and contractor mismanagement. But the F-35 still has one BIG distinction from the F-111: Pilots love to fly the F-35 whereas by the time the F-111 was deployed, nobody wanted it. especially the Navy.
2
"War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men."
--- Clemenceau
And this President.
1
“War is too important to be left to the generals.”
--- Georges Clemenceau
And to this President.
1
One wonders if the events of the past week imply that Denmark, one of the coalition of builders and buyers, will cancel their order. Turkey just got removed from the group, so there goes those orders.
On a more interesting note, from reading the (extensive) Wikipedia history of the different versions and early experience, it seems that Israel, at least, has defined the viability of the stealth features as in the range of five to ten years, and have opted to write their own software, this on something expected to be flying for the next half century. Something whose keel was laid before 2005. Regardless of cost, the continuum of operational problems, and the unlikely prospect of stasis in military technology over decades, my personal guess is that this plane is simply either going to be irrelevant or underproduced going forward.
2
U.S. debt levels look much more dangerous, with a misinterpreted 2nd Amendment as a close 2nd.
1
"Newer" is not automatically better and "old" is not automatically obsolete. Look at the B-52.
2
We waste our resources on creating thousands of different kinds of high-tech weapons, all kinds, and their components, while the true threats to our future — a dying biosphere especially — are ignored, even sacrificed to their production. And those few who do protest are either ignored by world leaders, who could stop the madness, or repressed.
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A trillion dollars for a plane that’s supposed to last until 2070...does anyone seriously doubt that new technology won’t be available before then making this entire program obsolete?
4
@Michael K. Sure, but that’s not the big issue. The plane can evolve over time, and certainly will, but the missions for which the three or more variants are intended, may not be relevant for very long. I’m guessing that the big carriers are already the last of their species, any combat, air-to-air, air-to-ground is likely to be defined by non-piloted, low cost and very fast machines, and so forth. That is, even if a few thousand of these are built, they may have no significant roles to play. Nobody, though, is going to place their bets on peace breaking out. It never does.
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@Michael Kauffman
By 2070, technology might be stone knives and bear skins.
2
Paraphrasing: "no simple answers" versus "more than $1 trillion". I agree, we can at least do better.
1
A huge factor is the debacle of the F-35 is the myth of 'concurrency'. That is where you design/test while at the same time building production planes. In theory it sames time but if you run into any issues you end up with 'mistake planes'. Those are planes that need to be repaired/modified, usually at high cost, so that they work. Sometime, because of a fault in the airframe, you can't fix them so you have a $70+ million piece of junk.
Interesting point about the F-35: The Pentagon doesn't own the software, which is critical to the plane, LockMart does and they really don't want to give it up. That means any changes HAVE to go through LockMart. Including the critical automated logistics network which doesn't work. When Israel got their F-35's they said they were going to make changes and dared LockMart to say 'no'.
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Considering Boeing’s lame bid on the F35 I doubt they would have managed the program any better than Lockheed.
4
Every development program has terrible problems in the media. If they were all cancelled we would have no weapons systems. Examples are Humvees, CH-53E, and most all of the current artillery systems. Every English major journalist thinks they are exposing some dark evil secret when it is nothing more than normal development. The worse program was the TFX. A concept developed by an Accountant, Robert McNamara that would do everything for everyone but did nothing for anyone.
1
@Rich Murphy 1.5 trillion isn't normal development when our national infrastructure is falling apart as we speak. It's a gross misuse of money. How many Americans are going to die the next time a bridge collapses vs how many are saved by a plane that hasn't even flown in combat? The Pentagon, as it is now, is a tumor on America's brain and must be excised before it kills us all.
You want to look for a single root cause? Here it is: In most countries, the defense establishment exists to provide for the nation's defense. In the United States, the defense establishment exists to make defense-industry executives and investors richer. It's exactly the same problem in the health care industry, the education industry, the energy industry, and more, and somehow we've all been conned into going along with it. But it's more consequential in defense because the future of the country is at stake. We've reached the point at which an adversary with plenty of cash and no crony capitalists to satisfy could equip its armed forces with better weapons than ours in every category, simply by shopping the best of the world market.
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Lets all cheer for Lockheed Martin, 1 Trillion Dollars! How many schools, hospitals, universities, roads and bridges rehabilitation programs, jobs created, could this have paid for?
7
This is absolutely the "mission creep" monster , certainly when you look at budgets. Still, the Bradley may be the textbook example of how many ways there are to let lots of smart people do stupid things.
It's not on the scale of the F35, but the Pentagon Wars was a modest HBO film that captured how things can, do, and continue to go wrong when accountability is a far second to profit, promotions and a system that punishes critical thinking.
5
I appreciate an article that, rather than proffering "certainties", poses questions, even if indirectly. It is often in these "non-sexy" articles, that one finds the fewest but most useful and informative comments. Hopefully a number of people with experience or perspective will read this article and comment here.
I remember how before Syria blew up, the occasional article about it (and Turkey) elicited few, but informed and helpful, comments.
1
I appreciate an article that, rather than proffering "certainties", poses questions, even if indirectly. It is often in these "non-sexy" articles, that one finds the fewest but most useful and informative comments. Hopefully a number of people with experience or perspective will read this article and comment here.
I remember how before Syria blew up, the occasional article about it (and Turkey) elicited few, but informed and helpful, comments. These days, not so.
1
@Steve Fankuchen
Pls, like there is any depth to be plumbed in corporate America's desire for more profit. You truly were born yesterday.
1
One of the most likely problems is the "design by committee" issue that plagues projects such as this. Too many people want their pet system in place while not realizing it mucks up the works many times. It takes a long time to clear the problems typically...but sometimes they never work.
The mostly notorious weapon ever is the AK47, also a multi-purpose tool. It is a compromise between a rifle and a submachine gun.
It might help to think of the F35 as a stealth-age replacement for the outdated and nearing retirement Harrier. Once one builds this version - the one that can deal with the physical constraints of vertical landings - one migh as well build a more capable version for the Air Force and possibly another one for the US Navy.
If we want our allies to stay in the aircraft carrier game and possibly even in the offensive air power game, which has a lot of advantages for sovereignty and deterrence, we had to build a stealthy STOVL jet as giant carriers are far too expensive for every country except possibly our own (and it is debatable if we should switch to all STOVL carriers in the medium-term future).
This machine is a monstrous set of technical challenges and way over budget. Our alternative was to buy replacement copies of F15, F16 and F18s and hope they can survive in contested airspace and that one can recruit pilots willing to find out. The world is changing, and waiting until something with a decades-long lead time is proven obsolete is far more risk than we would or should tolerate.
In my workshop I have a "3 in 1" tool. It was an expensive mistake. It performs three functions badly, each one compromising the others. Having followed the F35 and even having briefly worked on part of it, I suspect that this is what they have created, when in fact they already had a set of highly capable, mature aircraft available that met their needs at a far lower cost.
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@andro. A probably exact analogy. Multipurpose tools tend to not only perform each function inefficiently, but also suffer from availability issues. The attractiveness of this plane to less-knowledgeable legislators was obvious, and those who had a better grasp also relished the vast profits to be had. What pilots like is really unimportant. The main issue is whether or not this system is the best defense both for function and cost. Could be the first time in the history of aircraft that the answer is not part of the discussion.
4
Where's the money going? American towns and cities? American workers? Walmart and Kroger? Schools and services? Is this a form of country-wide structured wealth distribution? Follow the dollars all the way down to the end of the direct and indirect beneficiaries.
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Yes, distribution upward from American taxpayers paying for all this to the stock portfolio dividends of the wealthy who own military contractor stocks - which usually gets rolled into buying more stocks.
14
@PGK
Suppose you dismanttle the plane. Then you dismantle the large parts. Next you dismantle the medium-large parts. Then the medium parts...
After how many dismantlings are you finding parts that have nothing to do with American towns and cities? A visit to Lowe's or Home Depot suggests that point may be pretty far up the value chain from nuggets of ore.
In case these planes must be used in an emergency (which, since they're warplanes, one could define as "any time these planes are used in earnest") we must trust that the inventory of horseshoe nails is sufficient that the riders will not die of the quartermasters' (i.e. Congress') embarrassment.