Posted on 02/05/2024 6:09:04 AM PST by Fish Speaker
the F-35 was originally conceived as a fighter bomber to compliment the F-22. Then, the Obey (D-WI) Amendment killed F-22 production by cutting off all overseas sales.
The F-35 was then committeed. With a current operational figure of 55%. Mostly due to all the changes made that were not originally planned.
An example:
Each plan can only fly supersonic for 1 minute collectively, else the skin bubbles. The plane is a maintenance nightmare of complexity.
Most known flaws will not be fixed, since the expense is too high to fix them & one would be better off starting from scratch - going well beyond previous planes ‘teething’ problems.
Because the scope of future upgrades can’t be anticipated at original design time. You can’t over engineer every support system by 100% or you end up with twice the cost and twice as heavy and half the performance.
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Why not design the aircraft to perform to the specs of the original contract and be done with it? Or is this a situation where they put too high a performing engine in an aircraft frame that was never designed for it? All the afterthoughts only create more problems of retrofitting something that is not designed to accommodate the jerry-rigging. Take for example the plumbing needs of the high-performing engine. Now they have to drill larger holes in the structure of the aircraft to accommodate the larger pipes. Where does that get you? Are they really smart enough to know whether the airframe can withstand the modification? Just throwing in my non-engineering two cents.
And, when selling this new whatever that’s never been done before to the government, be it the airplane or any of the systems installed in it, manufactures often overpromise and underdeliver initially to get the sale.
From then on, they depend on their R&D people to overcome whatever problems reality uncovers in their designs so they can deliver what was originally promised, along with whatever new requirements have been added along the way. It’s a constant battle.
If you’ve ever worked on any of these, you are familiar with the continuous evolution and improvements of the product until what had never been done before becomes our boring, old reliables that we depend upon and that sustain us until the next never been done before comes along.
Every aircraft in our inventory and every system in it, too, have all gone through this same predictably unpredictable process.
Every aircraft in our inventory and every system in it, too, have all gone through this same predictably unpredictable process.
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Yes, you describe correctly the very costly conundrum we are stuck in.
For example, the once bleeding edge, clearance-required technologies I worked on that gave our pilots combat proven superiority are now commonplace everywhere and people would be lost without them.
Life is good!
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