MARKMILES77
Active Member
The one thing Trump doesn't seem to worry about is upsetting people.
F-35 Program - General Discussion
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seriously, I understand the sentiment about needing to factor all the variables in - but at the clinical technical level:
in absolute terms you cannot turn the Growler into a competitor (because that's the only platform close to some of JSF's ewarfare ability - and even then its a golden mile behind)
the executive shouldn't be talking to the manufacturer - they need to speak to the trainers and especially the USMC.
it is nigh on impossible to make a Shornet/Growler a JSF competitor - it just does not have the architectural and electronic DNA to do it
they might as well rebuild a new plane - they would end up turning JSF into the
F-22 cluster, and JSF in so many areas is actually superior to the F-22.
I despair at the quality of debate around the platform, especially when the limited info that I have is showing what it is doing - and its early days.
The briefs that I attended just left me slack jawed - and it was basic briefs, nothing like what the trainers are aware of
I can see people in the USMC getting pretty cranky if they end up having to go to a lower capability - if they're going to do a proper analysis then it should be "this is what JSF can do now" - "how will you provide that capability?" - because once you give capability to the warfighters, once they start remodelling their conops due to the new capabilities, they will be mighty pi$$ed off when you give them a Skoda instead of an Audi
Read a piece that suggested what he is doing is using activist share holder tactics, "do what I want or I will burn the place down", other wise known as "Greenmail", or, "pay for me to leave you alone or things will get worse". This is a tactic some of his mates, now advisers, have been using to shake up companies unfortunate enough to have attracted their attention for over a decade. Make them money, lets them get their way short term but is destructive and counter productive long term.
Novascotiaboy
Active Member
In no way was there any statement made regarding the A or B model. The statement regarding the US Navy and the C model is what was expressed. There is no doubt that the B model has its place as the replacement for the Harrier / AV8B in various forces around the world.
The overall program like so many defence programs are wrought with difficulty due to the complexities of the systems and the high costs. As a lay person without great understanding of the complex electronics involved it's extremely difficult to understand the capabilities as so described by those closer to the program. The experience that I have with regards to creating a multi tasker is that it is never as good as a dedicated entity.
The costs of this program are extreme but if they were compared to the costs for other defence programs over the years in today's dollars it would likely pale in comparison to the total development and production of the trident or Polaris missile submarines and and missiles.
Time will tell how the F35 rates in the history books 25 years from now.
The overall program like so many defence programs are wrought with difficulty due to the complexities of the systems and the high costs. As a lay person without great understanding of the complex electronics involved it's extremely difficult to understand the capabilities as so described by those closer to the program. The experience that I have with regards to creating a multi tasker is that it is never as good as a dedicated entity.
The costs of this program are extreme but if they were compared to the costs for other defence programs over the years in today's dollars it would likely pale in comparison to the total development and production of the trident or Polaris missile submarines and and missiles.
Time will tell how the F35 rates in the history books 25 years from now.
arrow canada
New Member
You make it sound like every military analyst thinks the F35 project has been well managed. I don't think that's the case, even the general in charge says mistakes have been made. I made two predictions, I am willing to bet money both will come true. The two predictions are:
1. The F35C will be scrapped - the Navy will acquire more Superhornets and will focus on the F/A-XX program, which has less emphasis on stealth and more on modularity and range (which is becoming a critical issue for carrier groups).
2. The design for future tranches for the A and B models will be locked down and simplified. Lockheeds leader this morning has said will vigorously look for cost savings. This is the obvious way to do that.
The F35 will without doubt be a very capable aircraft, the best military plane flying, but the pentagon and politicians have learned some lessons. I think the following lessons, among others, will impact the 6th generation purchases:
1. The scope can't be overly ambitious or allowed to creep, the design has to be set and built.
2. Modularity needs to be built in - much like how a targeting pod can easily be switched. The integration was due to stealth and electronics impacts, but there are other ways to ensure plug and play flexibility.
3. The software has to be super robust and parsimonious, not a big buggy mess of tack ons. The enormous number of lines of code isn't a triumph of technology, it's a failure of design.
4. The forces have different goals, so need own programs. The Navy were never very interested in stealth, this has been pushed on them, and they have rebelled against it, ordering few F35s which has driven up cost of C model.
5. Stealth coating technology isn't wise yet for an entire fleet - the F35 should be cheaper to operate than predecessors due to a single modern engine with computerized diagnostics, but it isn't because of those fragile coatings. Clealry LO aircraft will always be needed for forseeable future, but a better balance between maintenance and capability needs to be found.
6. It's unwise to put such a huge order for all fighters with one aircraft manufacturer. They have little incentive to be efficient without competition - we can see now how Lockheed is scrambling to do a better job with Trump opening the door to Boeing.
7. Military regulations surrounding testing requirements are outdated and need to be simplified to reflect today's technology. It can't take this long to develop and test, then manufacture, time is money, a lot of money.
Who's predictions? I've seen no reports coming out of the decision makers who matter and who will be necessarily involved if the programme gets adjusted - and if it is adjusted to govt intervention then like all contracts the vendor and its agents are all entitled to recover against the customers - and this has been exercised in the past in other military contracts.
I'm a strong supporter of Growler (esp) and SHornet - but there is no way in Hades that you can get even a similar level of capability against even early blocks of pre-FOC JSF - architecturally and electronically its just not achievable. Its a non trivial exercise and in real terms would mean redesigning and recertifying a new platform. This is not like the card trick done to get congress to support Shornets to replace Classics of days gone by - and no matter what powerpoint demonstration Boeing trot out (and I've seen their govt pitches) you can't convert existing Shornet frames to baseline JSF standards, and the lead time to greenfield UHornet doesn't exist. Boeing have never been convinced that they had a serious crack at replacing JSF despite all the hysteria - and this have never gone beyond powerpoint presentations. They like Lockmart are expending efforts on the 6th gen manned artifact - they're not burning midnight oil on the UHornet
which is not just a Lockmart problem - its a legacy of customer exec, customer user and the builder trying to be overly aggressive in advancing an artifact that was delayed initially through govt inertia - a series of QDR's and a congressional model which works against the very thing that the respresentatives are elected to achieve. More to the point, a succession of parties endorsed and blessed that process. In any acquisition, once you fail to commit or actively seek to undermine (and a lot of time its through a considerable lack of awareness and appreciation about what the tech is bringing to the table) then you pay the price across various fronts for that intellectual indolence
I've actually worked on modular combat systems, its not lego despite what seems to be a view held by some. the Shornets learnt that from the lessons of the Tomcat - the JSF is a golden mile ahead of any other aircraft - anywhere as far as modular replacement is concerned. You cannot modularise everything - and the baseline architecture has to be there.
the singular largest and most complex software on the artefact is the BAE logic engine - by any stretch of the imagination that has been the least buggy of all. they're not coding in ADA, similarly they aren't using Beans. Most of the software I've had to work with out of necessity is complex, and we've used robust established and known coding families - and I spent 6 years working on software interchange and coding interface solutions so that land, sea, air, subsea could come through a common pipe. if anyone thinks that its a simple task then they've been reading too much science fiction and not been involved with actual programmes
Not that simple and inaccurate - Navy have always been interested in LO/VLO. After the stillbirth of the whale they focussed on UAS and in the old days before systems were standardised, UCAS. they were also mid stream on EM launches, sure they are going to now go to separate manned developments rather than a single common baseline for all the services, but they were also caught out by a feckless Congress. Out of necessity they also need to operate with the USMC - whos attitude to JSF is the very opposite. Congressional reps need to listen to actual pilots and maintainers and avoid the powerpoint presentations, and they certainly need to switch off from people who quote and requote ad-nauseum stated facts which are no longer supported as time has gone on
Every single LO/VLO generational artefact fielded by the US military has used a different form of physical suppression and management - those applications are also tuned to the artefact. The issue of treatment post multi-mission was addressed long ago - and is almost a quarter of what it initially was - and its certainly superior to what was achieved on the B2. the notion that LO/VLO treatment is akin to going through a car wash is about educating the public enough but not enough to let the other side know what processes and "things" need to be addressed. Its no longer the days of just respraying "iron ball black" over the artefact
Its an executive and congressional issue - as was the issue of a single engine supplier selection. if you take away competitive tension then don't be surprised if you don't realise the same benefits. thats hardly the fault of the vendor
have you been involved in military platform selection and testing?
the C4ISR project I worked on 8 years ago changed within 3 years, and changed again 3 years after. we're now working on a different construct - why? because everytime we release a development the users come back and seek improvements - and we are running in an agile development environment. the operators seek changes because they are changing the way that they are doing their military business - if thats treated as scope creep then you are going to give your warfighters a half arsed solution which doesn't work in their contemp environment
using Growler as an example, CONOPS had to be redeveloped as the capabilities they bought to the table redefined how some missions could be conducted when working with other force elements. JSF is a quantum leap ahead of Growler in capability and force distribution. let alone platform advantages.
from my perspective, I see lots of commentary that are really demonstrative of people who are picking up bits and pieces and then crafting their own story, but when subjected to proper inspection, fail and fall as its apparent that they are requoting other sources without a full appreciation of changes etc...
you won't find anyone in here who has not been critical of the programme management, but if the vendor inherits the programme development decision from a series of Govts and congressional boundaries - then its a tad rude to have a crack at the vendor
anyone who knows me and knows where I've worked will know that I'm not shy at having a crack at the vendor
where the fireworks is polluted by animus and emnity rather than considered and up to date knowledge - well thats where I draw the line
t68
Well-Known Member
I don't think he's saying that at all, just read more sources comprehensively and look for source that verify what is being said ( look for more than one source)
I think you would lose your dough
Don't agree with that at all, emphasis of USN is long range strike when no land based options exist. Just because things are happening in the Martime environment dosen't that they dont have the same issues as the USAF in red force capabilty.
Agree, but you have to remember incremental advancements are what future blocks are all about.
the project I work on is one of the most volatile in play - ie software becomes redundnant within 3 years - the way that the users apply that tech and use it changes with each release - why - well because they are now finding new ways to fight and the tech provides them with new and tangential ways to be informed about what to do next
our baseline driver - and reinforced by the services, is agile development
in a software driven environment you have to be agile and make evolutionary changes. in fact ours was the first major project to be based on agile development
the whole driver of open architecture and open software is to try and fast track development - but at some point you have to hit integration.
the cost killer in all projects is integration. hence why all vendors will try and inject their preferred software solutions on top of anything you want - because they know that there is no such thing as simple integration - even if there are reference sites elsewhere, they invariably are not the "same"
the simple speeches about how to fix programme and project management drive me mad as there are no simple solutions. there are no text book solutions, there are certainly no academic solutions
the road runner
Active Member
The JSF is the cheapest solution for the future fighter fleet.
1. The JSF is IOC now ,why would you go for an alternative at this late stage in the game?
2..JSF will just need a software upgrade for future upgrades. Pods are so 4th gen
3.The Naval C version brings a lot more capability to the fleet with a single platform that can do EW/EA, Fighter/Bomber,ISR,Sensor for Aegis and other platforms. Its not just a bomber or a fighter. You have to get your head around this and understand it brings more to the fight than any other single platform out there
4.Its more costly to have 3 different platforms such as F-18ABCDEFG ect,different training,logistics,spares and the like. LO or stealth makes an enemy have to put up more asset's to locate a LO aircraft. That in itself will bring huge costs for an adversary trying to find a single JSF let alone a squadron of JSFs
5.LO tech is mature and has proven itself on multiple occasions dating back to the F-117s... we are generations ahead in LO. The JSF coatings are known to preform better as time goes by. This has been stated by LM
6.One platform is actually cheaper to operate as it simplify's logistic,training,spares ect. The cost to keep the US 4th gen fighter fleet flying into the 21st century has been priced to be approx 4 trillion. Thats for F-18,F-15,F-16,Harriers,A-10. the cost to fly a JSF fleet will be 1 trillion. Now show me one bean counter that will choose to pay 4 trillion for far less capability?
7.You want to simplify something that is more technologically advanced? That's like saying ..." lets go back to pen and paper over computers"
Arrow Canada you are wrong on the JSF, time will show that a 5th gen pilot has a major advantage over any 4th gen pilot's threw superior Situational Awareness.
The days of Mav , "turning and burning" have been overtaken by LO and SA.
Its not going to be a fair fight and that's why country's are racing to get into the 5th gen game.
Cheers
In real and absolute terms, JSF is the first real C5ISR fixed wing manned fighter - in a lot of situational awareness, situational appreciation, combat and operating picture management it is far superior to the F-22
they shouldn't be compared together for a variety of obvious reasons, but at a capability level improvements that can be made to F-22 are being sourced from JSF developments
I am always a bit suspicious of statements of revolutionary advances. Reminds me of 60's "fighters won't need a gun in future" so F-4 didn't have one, or 50's UK "no more manned aircraft are needed".
Maybe it is all different now, but I doubt it.
Edit - Merry Christmas to all.
This is totally different, rather than saying we don't need this anymore, or that this won't happen, the F-35 is the next evolution in air combat aircraft that is designed to do more. Rather than having to group single purpose and more limited multirole types into packages to get the job done technology has evolved to the point that the required capabilities have been combined into a single platform that does everything required. On top of that this platform also has the LO characteristics that once required a specialised single role platform.
People hardly even notice they are carrying a smartphone in their pocket that for all intents and purposes replaces and improves upon the desk phone / mobile phone / pager / personal computer / laptop / workstation / PDA/ calendar / diary / calculator / games console / etc. from only a decade ago, yet find it impossible to believe the technology of modern combat aircraft has evolved since the late 60s and 70s when most of the current types they love so much kicked off.
supposedly the bulk of it is in C/C++, though some on the net say there was a little bit of reused ADA...
and speaking of C/C++ and KLOCs:
with C/C++ you know how some editors/IDEs have a habit of introducing new lines for each opening and closing curly bracket when you start typing a program statement... we used to "suppress" new lines for brackets to drop the LOC count dramatically whenever manager types started complaining about our LOC statistics, lol...
the issue about a million lines of code is also just tosh
we're not talking about overinflated code associated with microslop products
military code often has to include explanatory texts to assist future software devlopers and integrators as the original coders have moved on long ago. So the explanation bubbles are there to inform. They will get pulled up into the count because the counting tools just don't look at bypass strings, they look at literal lines
you could have 10 lines of script where one line is a function - the rest is associative text (unless it was ADA - and then its lean and mean
)funnily enough, that logic was driven by bean counters and inservice turf wars - LeMay didn't see a need for Carriers as he believed that the only atomic force needed was SAC, The battleship Admirals fought against Admiral Towers as they believed that the battleships role was unimpeachable. LeMay didn't believe in nuclear submarines - and actively worked against Polaris, again because SAC was in his mind the only force needed. Thank god for Rickover - who also drove professionalism into the nuke forcerjtjrt said:
McNamara made a raft of decisions based on accounting principles - all flawed in their assessment, a classic example of a very smart man who operated within a brief he didn't understand.
The main difference here - and demonstrably so is that a significantly high proportion of people arguing against the JSF are regurgitating things heard from people who have no idea about modern situational awareness appreciation and application, have not seen a combat operating picture ever or whose knowledge has come from a previous generation of application where whats been done today wasn't even visible to them unless they worked in a skunk shop or DARPA/DERA of days gone by
what we can pull up in a combat picture today is nothing like what they saw even 10 years ago, they have no phuqueing idea to put it bluntly
I don't object to any debate around what the warfighters need, but I sure as heck have problems with stuff presented as fact when the majority of the time you know that you could shove them in to a room discussing what developments have come about and that they would still come out of that room as ill informed as they were before, and more likely or not, not have understood any of the critical detail as to why these platforms are critical
you fight on your terms, not your enemies. if these heroes want to go to the next war in some Boeing paper jet that will be less capable than what is available now then they need to get their bums in the seats first.
I have got zero time and tolerance for them. they're not contributing to the quality of debate, in fact they are undermining the very conops that applies to these systems advances, not just against the platform.
I reiterate, I know of a number of politicians who took populist anti-jsf stances as it suited the political climate of the time - when they got into the big chairs and had the approp levels of briefings they changed their tack very quietly and very quickly. Funnily enough, they spoke to the people who had 5000+ flying hours across multiple aircraft types and multiple air forces, and who had actually been involved with JSF - ie not second hand dribble and certainly not from the vendor (and I do subscribe to the principle that the vendor should not be involved in discussing the tech advantages and advances made if their product is used)
We pay millions of dollars to train professionals to fight our air wars for us, we should listen to those with actual experience on those capabilities
if we spend our time basing our acquisition decisions on frantic bloggers, or web site owners who haven't held a relevant clearance for the last 10 years or so, or worse, people who have never been involved in complex weapons acquisition and testing - well then, more fool us
man, that is a very primitive build tool if it's incapable of ignoring/escaping comment blocks... in industry our C/C++ build tools always report KLOCs according to compiled lines (ie. lines which generate linkable binaries) thus comment blocks/statements are not counted in the LOC statistics...
so when manager types complain about our LOC numbers they are really just referring to executable code (ie. excludes comment blocks)...
---
btw, @GF you're not a programmer are you? I have never encountered any coder who's ever referred to program comments as "explanation bubbles", ehehe... I did have a manager once call them "explanation thingies" though
it also depends on the contractual reqs for the developers.
JSF and subs for example are more complex than the space shuttle.
so code counts will be against literal functions as well total effort.
eg look at the problems of the F-22, these actually drove why JSF was developed as it currently is
Cobber, all you are doing is repeating unsubstantiated hearsay claims when you requested to provide verifiable reputable sources. I was being polite but don't ask me to get my Moderators grumpy face on because it isn't nice. I would make a very strong suggestion the you thoroughly acquaint yourself with the rules just so that there are no misunderstandings. We are not fools and / or idiots and there are those amongst us who are defence professionals, who are not just analysts, but who have served in uniform or other roles and do have some inkling of knowledge and analytical ability enabling us too sort the wheat from the chaff. There are also others amongst us who are not defence professionals, but who have very sharp, agile and analytical minds with a very good understanding of defence related matters and systems, who bring a different dynamic to the discussion and they disclose their sources, as they should.
Every project known to humanity has mistakes because humans are not omnipotent.
we call them bubbles as that's a carry over from some of the Java programmers who worked on track management developments. (its springs from the notion that the good idea fairies have "thought bubbles")btw, @GF you're not a programmer are you? I have never encountered any coder who's ever referred to program comments as "explanation bubbles", ehehe... I did have a manager once call them "explanation thingies" though
I was a punch card programmer about 40 years ago, I've had many jobs since then
I've never coded ADA (which is supposedly what the bulk of the F22 software was made in) so I can't really relate to any gauge that might be reported about how many LOCs they needed for that system...
the F35 s/w otoh piqued my interest as they say the bulk was done in C/C++, so the often reported 8-10 mil LOCs is an interesting figure... but if that value was taken from a "blind" text line count (in contrast to a build tool compile line count) then the value they report in the press is practically useless to gauge code density since it would be a bloated figure due to the inclusion of comment blocks...
man, you have known some weird programmers
I do enterprise Java development and I've never known a co-developer call comments as "bubbles", hehe...now that is way before my timeI was a punch card programmer about 40 years ago, I've had many jobs since then
though I did get started programming back when BASIC was loaded onto cassette tapes, and back then we called comment blocks, "REM"arks, lol...---
btw, happy holidays and merry christmas to you and the DefenseTalk team and forumers!
my point exactly
nope, not used by the cutters, but the team leaders oversightingman, you have known some weird programmers
I did that programming journey in the mid 80's on a Commodore PC5 with a maths co-processor. I've still got a Cambridge CPM computer in my shed. wooden front panel and 2 x 8" drivesnow that is way before my time
ditto