Apple iFighter? Ping!
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Posted on 07/23/2012 9:44:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
In a time of tight budgets, the Pentagon needs to free up the defense-contracting business for a new era of competitive enterprise—like the one last seen in World War II.
Mitt Romney has been touting his experience at Bain Capital as a qualification for fixing Washington and the economy. Certainly there's one part of the federal government that desperately needs a president with business savvy: the Pentagon. Should they rise to the challenge, Mr. Romney and his defense-policy team can learn a lot from the last time businessmen took over from the bureaucrats in arming this country, in World War II.
Seventy years later, we need help again. Despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on defense over the last decade, our armed forces are desperately in need of modernization. Most of that money was spent fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not replacing fighters, helicopters, ships and submarines that often date back to the 1980s and '90s.
The F-35 program began in 1996 but has had so many requirements piled on it that the jet still is not operational.
People used to joke about the B-52s (last produced in 1962, despite numerous upgrades) being older than their crews. Now that's coming true for those faced with the computer-software designs that power our planes and ships.
But that modernization isn't going to happen until the Pentagon reinvents how it buys the weapons and equipment it needs. This is especially true as defense budgets inevitably will shrivel over the next decade, with or without the automatic cuts of sequestration. If we're going to maintain our military technological edge over current and potential foes, it's time to take a second look at World War II, the most rapid and successful modernization of forces in history.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I have found that articles that appear to be mostly behind a paywall can sometimes be accessed by searching on Google for a quote from the displayed portion of the article.
So I searched for:
"with business savvy: the Pentagon."
(quotes included) and was able to click through to the full article.
You know why the Sherman would light so easy right? It ran on gasoline
"STOP codes" sound inappropriate for an aircraft.
That's a very good point. The revolutionary approach does carry the risks of cost overruns and subsidizing artistes with engineering degrees, but the mother lode is a weapons system that's so new, no enemy has any idea on how to defeat it.
It's pretty obvious that the revolutionary approach grew in the wake of the atom bomb, which was such a weapon. Very expensive to develop, took a long time and a lot of manpower to deploy, but it was scary enough to force a quick unconditional surrender from the Japanese Empire.
Unfortunately, many expensive and high-tech weapons systems are designed by clever people who don't see how such systems can be defeated in the field by using surprisingly ordinary means. If the Pentagon's adavanced-weapons department were wise, they'd contact hard-headed gadget-heads like the ones found in the Sipsey Street Irregulars and here. Then: swear the group to lifetime secrecy; give them limited top-secret clearances; show them the hot new hi-tech weapons designs; and then, ask them how those revolutionary weapons systems can be taken down by ordinary gadgets. Doing so would weed out the too-clever-by-half designs that can be thwarted by good old-fashioned mechanical aptitude.
Not to mention: a secret consulting group meeting in secret is far less visible than the inevitable field-testing.
Of course that fighter is so easy to use, a ten year old could fly it. I don’t know if Apple could do that.
Applause. Very, very well done. :)
“It ran on gasoline”
So did the Panzers.
In World War II, we didn't have Socialists sabotaging our efforts. If we're going to maintain our military technological edge—we need to stop accepting domestic enemies into our military.
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Wasn’t the last businessman to run the Pentagon a guy named MacNamara in the ‘60’s?
Thank you! That always irks me.
It’s pretty damn rude to post a link to a subscription required page.
- It wouldn’t be able to communicate with any other asset in the inventory.
- Pilots would run over each other to get a chance to fly it, to show how cool they are.
- After they get their shot, pilots would spend all their time talking to each other about how cool they are, and how uncool the other pilots are.
- Meanwhile, all the other planes would do the real work of winning the war.
Blame Lesley J. McNair, he obstructed the building and deployment of the M26 Pershing, because of his views on Tank Destroyers and anti-tank doctrine.
The procurement whizzes also stuck with inferior (and defective) torpedo designs far too long, resulting in the loss of some U.S. submarines and their crews.
It is worse than that, the factory and their friends in Congress threw up multiple road blocks in fixing the problems and getting good torpedeos. Every procurment flaw you can think of occured in that fiasco.
AH! I love the sound of ignorance in the morning! :-)
You’d suffer more than a BSOD and might not be able to eject in time....
I think we actually had a warship go dead in the water when it switched over from UNIX to Windoze.
Avionics are pretty proprietary systems anyway. This way you could just download them from the iTunes War Store.
All the weapons attached to it would be painted white. (what, most already are? oh...)
Machined aluminum look, going retro to the days when jets were silver.
The ECM system would take down enemy air defense systems by RickRolling their C&C bunkers/systems.
Isn't that against the Geneva Convention?
All the weapons attached to it would be of a proprietary nature.
Actually, instead of requiring Apple-specific plugs for things internally, you'd get several high-speed ports on the outside that you could plug anything into, even stuff built for Russian and Chinese jets.
An internet open-source project would soon start showing how to build your own iFighter-like aircraft out of a 1992 Chevy and the Android OS. But doing so would somehow void the warranty on your DVR.
And they'd say it's as good as an iFighter.
Hitting severe turbulence in flight would be misinterpreted as shaking, and erase all the maps stored in the navigation system.
Or crash going across the International Date Line. Oh, that already happened.
The HUD would be a touch screen, and all pilots would have to get gloves with capacitive/metallic fingers in order to operate it.
Okay, that would suck. More likely, Apple would make the thumb area of the throttle a multi-function touch-screen.
Navy aircraft carriers would be re-branded as iFigher docks.
Old dock connector or new connector? All old iFighters will have to get an adapter.
A new version would come out every year or so, and cost more than the last model. But air forces that pre-ordered would get a discount.
Next-generation Apple products tend to cost as much as or less than the previous generation, only with higher specs. My old Core2 Duo 24" iMac cost $200 more than a Core i7 27" iMac today. Wouldn't it be nice if our fighters worked this way?
During the second year of production an unfortunate programming error would cause a bunch of crossover Apps to appear in the iPhone App Store. Things like "Chaff & Flares" and "Ground Attack Munitions" and "BVR Air-to-Air". A 14 year old would accidentally install and activate the "ELINT/ECM/ECCM" App and shut down the cell network in Cleveland for 3 days.
Interesting, what real-life example is this based on?
Apple and the Air Force would jointly sue the US Coast Guard over trademark infringement because their cutters are painted white - an obvious attempt to ride on the iFighter's brand.
Metal and jet-shaped.
Here's to the crazy ones. No, really. Dude was flippin' crazy. But boy, could he build planes.
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