Failure on a Massive Scale

Townhall.com ^ | April 3, 2021 | Peter Mihalick

[Alas Babylon!]

Retired Air Force here.

It’s been this way with every single major military system I’ve seen since I first raised my right hand and took the oath.

The F-4 got the same flack because both the Navy and Air Force used it; same with the A-7 and now the F-35.

The F-15 was too big,; the F-16 flew like a brick without computers; the M1 Abrams was inferior to the T-80; the Bradley was an aluminum death box; the B-1 bomber was too expensive; the F-111 wings would fall off and the terrain hugging radar was a POS; the F-117 was too ugly and the A-10 was too slow and would be shot from the sky by faster, superior Migs...

And that’s just off the top of my head. There are many more.

According to the crews and maintainers I know in the Air Force, the F-35 is great platform and will fill, many, many gaps and help us fight and win.

[Mouton]

Dont know history, make the same mistakes. Remember the Sec Def MacNamara’s decision to have one plane, TFX, do everything? F-111 came out for the AF, not so much for the Navy.

To me it just looks like there are two problems with our weapons development programs. One, we seem to want to fight the last engagement. As Rumsfeld said, you do not go to war with the military you want, you go with the military you have, or somesuch. Second, we have too much interplay between the military planners and designers and the contractors as we do not prohibit post military employment by the contractors.

[Alas Babylon!]

Oh, yeah, “60 Minutes”. There’s a media paragon of independent, non-biased research journalists.

They’d never have an agenda, amirite?

[Justa]

Operational. Been training flights around where I work for 2 weeks now.

[Alas Babylon!]

If we waited for the “Perfect” weapons system we’d be speaking Japanese and German.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Platforms that fly are always going to have similarities. Using those similarities does not make the design a failure.

[faithhopecharity]

there are lots of folks out here who are willing and even desirous of paying taxes for the very best possible defenses

we are stuck trusting “our” politicians and military experts to determine what defenses are genuinely the best

and of course we are (hopelessly) stuck trusting the very same people to keep the spending honest (and not steal half or more of our money from us)

conclusion: we is in deep doodoo

[Alas Babylon!]

Tyndall AFB in Florida is getting 3 squadrons of 34 F-35’s each next month.

You can lay in the sand and Sun on Panama City Beach and watch them do touch and goes!

[Bayard]

I see no point in getting rid of a platform already in service and paid for already.

When you’re 1.7t in the hole, even if it could have been done cheaper, its too late to take back all that money. Its better to make use of what came out of it at that point.

[Psalm 73]

Pilots seem to love them - of course, you would need to talk to the real brains behind combat aviation - the maintainers.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Babylon you forgot the C5A.

[FtrPilot]

I believe you are referring to Boeing's X-32. An ugly aircraft with inferior performance demonstrated at the fly-off competition.

During the competition, the X-35 flew "Mission X".

The mission consisted of a 450-foot short takeoff, climbing to 25,000 feet, making a supersonic dash, and returning to the field for a vertical landing – an aviation first.

Boeing was asked to perform Mission X with the X-32.

Their answer was that they couldn't because the inlet for the STOVL variant would prevent supersonic flight. Of course, they would fix that during the design phase.

[FtrPilot]

...you would need to talk to the real brains behind combat aviation - the maintainers.

One question...How many maintainers do their work 200 miles behind enemy lines?

[SoCal Pubbie]

I was never in the military but I’ve noticed that attitude right here on this forum. Every new weapons system gets criticized. Harshly, by someone.

To second your post, I remember I think 60 minutes going after the Abrams tank, around 1979 if I recall correctly. Everyone’s a critic.

[Yo-Yo]

50 years? That thing is already getting passed by in electronics. That would be like still flying tactical jets built in 1971. You’re blowing smoked for the short legged moonpig.

50 years isn't MY number, it's the official number that is used to get to the "costliest weapon system in history."

Read this often-requoted tripe from POGO: https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/10/selective-arithmetic-to-hide-the-f-35s-true-costs/

When all the operating costs for the planned fleet are calculated across the expected 50-year lifetime of the program, the American people will spend an estimated $1.727 trillion

The F-35 is coming into his own. The F-35A now has a 9G limit, the same as the F-16. It has a 670nm combat radius on internal fuel, greater than the F-16's 295 nm range. In dogfighting, after all G and control authority limits of the early test aircraft were lifted, the F-35 dominates legacy aircraft.

The F-111 was a dog when it was first developed, but by the F-111F model came out, it was the premier long range strike fighter.

The F-22 had a host of issues, some of which still haven't been worked out, yet today's F-22 is a beast.

The C-17 was a cost-overrun disaster when it was first coming online, but now it is the workhorse of the USAF logistics world.

The F-35, in all three flavors but especially the A model, is a great aircraft.

However, it is suffering from mission creep, and that is its main issue today. The F-35 was designed to be the "low" of the F-22/F-35 high/low mix of aircraft, as the legacy F-15/F-16 were. The F-35 was supposed to have "first day of war" stealth, followed by weeks of being a bomb truck with external stores, un-stealthy. But now the USAF has decided that ALL F-35s must have first day of stealth ALL THE TIME, and that is causing issues maintaining the Stealth coating during peacetime.

And we're buying new F-15s, which had its first flight when? 1972.

[Alas Babylon!]

As a retired enlisted senior NCO, I do not understand your question.

Why would maintainers, or any enlisted AFSC (except para-rescue, FAC or weather operators) ever be behind enemy lines?

We’d be at base, where we belong.

[Psalm 73]

"How many maintainers do their work 200 miles behind enemy lines?"

; )

[ealgeone]

Looks more like a CAD for carriers.

[Bayard]

There’s a strong cynical streak on FR at times it manifests on things attached to government corruption.

The problem is there is always going to be corruption in any system.

There’s an important question people should ask, “does it work?”

[Alas Babylon!]

Another issue is the ever-encroaching movement of partisan politics into all aspects of life.

The military leadership is political, and has always been political, but not PARTISAN—until now.

We are now opening the door to Leftist infiltration of the military, which does no good for us as warfighters.

[al baby]

Just the ones that make service calls