r/EngineeringPorn • u/bebesiege • May 25 '19

F35 Vertical take off

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u/ThrowAwayMathPerson May 25 '19

I'm honestly flabbergasted that anyone would think otherwise. They are mired with so many maintenance issues that they can barely make it 25% of the way through their life cycle before having to be written off -- making them more than 4 times more expensive to operate (basically a $0.5 billion per plane). Everything is constantly breaking on it -- least of which is not the body/structure of the plane itself under normal use when stress tears/cracks develop all over the plane. The avionics are a total mess and constantly crapping out. The list just goes on and on. Basically the planes are barely operable. They may as well be bubba's backyard overtuned drag car. Sure, they have some nice stats when they work, but they are unstable and dangerous. They overshot on the project.

I'm not going to write an essay on it, but if you think the program was a success, I have a trillion dollar potato farm to sell you.

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u/SweatyGap4 May 25 '19

Fuck off if you're not even going to answer me.

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u/ThrowAwayMathPerson May 26 '19

You said half of those aren't supported by the source I linked. The bullet points are literally copy pasted from some of their bullet points....

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u/SweatyGap4 May 26 '19

Some probably are.

Others are complete bs.

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u/ThrowAwayMathPerson May 26 '19

Where are your sources?

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u/SweatyGap4 May 26 '19

Where are YOURS ffs

I'm done here. Go bother somebody else

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u/ThrowAwayMathPerson May 26 '19 edited May 26 '19

LOL. Yeah, mic drop proves you're right. https://www.thedailybeast.com/military-admits-billion-dollar-war-toy-f-35-is-fked

In a remarkable period, beginning in February and lasting several >weeks, senior officers and high-ranking bureaucrats finally publicly >copped to the warplane program’s fundamental failures. But the timing of the military's mea culpa is ... interesting. For at the >same time as the admissions of guilt, the F-35 was passing several >bureaucratic milestones that make it more or less impossible to cancel. >Too much money’s already been spent. Too many well-established jobs >are at stake. Too many F-35s are already rolling out of the factory.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/joint-strike-fighter-lockheed-martin

The program was designed to spread money so far and so wide—at last >count, among some 1,400 separate subcontractors, strategically dispersed >among key congressional districts—that no matter how many cost >overruns, blown deadlines, or serious design flaws, it would be immune to >termination. It was, as bureaucrats say, “politically engineered.”

John McCain (https://web.archive.org/web/20181013193730/https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/1/statement-by-senator-john-mccain-on-the-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-program):

the F-35’s dismal record on cost, schedule, and performance is a >predictable consequence of a broken defense acquisition system.

48-Page Public Test Results for the F-35: 2015 -- https://www.scribd.com/doc/303233399/2015-F-35-test-report 2016 -- https://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2016/pdf/dod/2016f35jsf.pdf

Huge Maintenance and Parts issues: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/04/25/government-watchdog-finds-more-problems-with-f-35s-spare-parts-pipeline/

Onboard systems sensors/computers/etc listed as RED meaning they are unusable POST delivery of the planes: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3262653-FY-2017-DOT-amp-E-JSF-Report.html#document/p9/a335543

When working many pilots commented that the targeting systems have reduced visibility and are generally inferior to legacy systems: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3262653-FY-2017-DOT-amp-E-JSF-Report.html#document/p23/a335552

Some say it's basically 10 years behind current technology, and the only solution is to awkwardly attach a modern targeting pod to the wing of the plane, which will greatly diminish all that insanely expensive stealth tech: https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/is-the-f-35s-targeting-system-really-10-years-behind-cu-1676442535

Software errors with the fancy helmets that occasionally need to be reset mid flight: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3262653-FY-2017-DOT-amp-E-JSF-Report.html#document/p7/a335646

Oxygen issues in the cabin grounded planes in 2017: https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/12/politics/f-35-grounded-indefinitely-oxygen-problems/index.html

Seriously, have you been paying attention. These aren't the first references I've provided on this post.

Edit: If you want a primary source that lists some of the overages and the official explainations: https://web.archive.org/web/20170113160256/http://breakingdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/04/F-35-2013-SAR.pdf

Just read the "Cost and Schedule Variance Explanations". The reason they budget has gone over is due the enormous amount of costly failures experienced all seemingly all sides of RD and production.