The US DoD would sooner buy all Super Hornets or Silent Eagles or revive F-22s than buy foreign.
Ironically, even Norway and Denmark (though not Sweden ;)) are level 3 partners in the F-35 project and are planning to buy a number of the planes in a few years…
The US actually already does buy non US fighters as adversary trainers, I only said get a test squadron then re-negotiate… Again your entire argument boils down to corporate socialism and “too big to fail”. I am essentially saying the US government (and the Australian government) as the biggest clients should hold Lockheed Martins feet to the fire and get a better deal. Do you agree with that or not?
The UK is the other big player…Australia is a level 3 partner, while the UK is level 1.
Of course the US/UK and everyone else who has ponied up money for the plane should hold their feet to the fire to get what was promised. I think that’s happening already. But the disconnect with you and your article is that this is a cutting edge (hell, bleeding edge) fighter with an extremely ambitious list of new generation capabilities, and so there are bound to be a lot of initial problems. As that article linked to earlier said, many if not most of those problems are in the software, not the underlying hardware or aerodynamic, which would be far more worrying. Software can and is being updated and refined.
What do you expect Lockheed to do? Worry that the US is going to end up getting a contract for Eurofighters, which are both far less capable as the F-35, and more expensive? What plane do you think Lockheed would honestly be worried about winning a fly-off against?
Nope sorry you fail. This is the point I made in my initial post. Sensor fusion of the level that the F-35 needs simply might not be possible on the current specced embedded computer CPU’s. It might need entirely new embedded hardware to achieve what was promised in Block 3F, which means more weight, more space, more heat, more power, none of which the F-35 has to spare. This is the only plausible explanation I can think of for the ridiculously long delays on software block promised abilities.
Again as a capitalist (which I am) there is nothing wrong with saying “deliver block 3F without any further money towards the F35, we have already paid you far more than we agreed”, otherwise, finish all the current contracts but no new contracts until Lockheed Martin delivers on the F-35, that is just good business practise and government accountability. And to YamatoTwinkie, yes I expect Lockheed Martin to deliver, otherwise they don’t get any new government contracts, there are other US companies that can make 5G fighters, Boeing was pretty keen, why aren’t we getting them to compete with each other to get a better deal?. Eg the government should pay for and then own the intellectual property and they then get multiple manufacturers to compete on actual production and delivery. That would be a sane way to do procurement.
You are aware that it has taken 20 years to design, compete, and start building the US’s second 5th gen fighter? And that investment has already started on 6th gen fighters? And you’re suggesting that we’re just going to go off and start a clean-sheet 5th gen fighter program because the software on this one is troublesome?
Good lord, dude. I don’t know what line of business you’re in, but I would certainly be circumspect enough to learn more about your industry before I go off an pronounce that you’re doing everything wrong.
One point you may want to pause and consider is that Dr. Gilmore’s memo includes a half dozen recommendations on how to address the software deficiencies. I think all of those recommendations are quite reasonable, and none of them involve ultimatums of shutting down the F-35 program unless some threat is met. Gilmore’s recommendations essentially boil down to, “the government is going to end up paying more money to complete development and testing on these various things, so let’s get a move on and not screw this up any more.”
So, I’m basically in agreement with Dr. Gilmore, and you aren’t. Chew on that.
Yeah, me and the guy who has actually flown the plane and has been working in the program directly for several years. 
:dubious: Pure speculation on your part. Personally, having actually worked in software development, I can see reasons why they aren’t there yet that don’t warrant throwing the jet fighter out with the bath water.
You might be a ‘capitalist’, but you haven’t worked much with government contracting…it simply doesn’t work that way. And this particular contract, because it’s so cutting edge, has a lot of clauses in it for just these sorts of contingencies. You can believe what you like, but the government doesn’t just pay for non-compliance, regardless of the circumstances. If they seemingly are, then I’d suggest checking your premise and reading the contract, perhaps with the COTR’s and contracting agencies, because there is definitely a disconnect between what you believe and the reality.
Again…check your premise. It’s flawed.
Suppose the F-35 just simply goes ahead with less-than-the-best software. Isn’t this like iPhone 6 vs. iPhone 7?
No my premise is not flawed, the entire US defense procurement system needs a top to bottom overhaul, and one possible solution to that is that the US government pays for research but then owns the IP and then gets manufacturers to compete. McCain’s article above says that the system is broken and need an overhaul.
Again, why is it wrong to simply state that Lockheed Martin should pay a price for their failure to deliver? They should pay a price in both stock value and yearly profits. In any other industry this would be the case, why should the defense industry be immune to actual performance benchmarks? No one can honestly state that the F-35 has met the performance benchmarks on time that were implied in Lockheed Martins bid for the F-35. So you don’t deliver you don’t get paid, or you continue work on your own cost until you do deliver. That’s business.
Probably a bit more serious on the one hand and less so on the other. The hardware is there, unlike the iPhone 6 to 7 where the hardware changed and the OS just got more refined. However, some of the capabilities that define a 5th gen fighter might not be there, which would mean we weren’t getting the maximum out of the air frame, and some of the ones that aren’t currently working right definitely would limit the F-35s capabilities. Of course, no one has an actual, working 5th gen fighter (except the US), and even stunted as it is right now it’s more capable than most 4.5 gen fighters. Still, I think that a lot of these issues do need to be addressed.
Of course, they are being addressed right now, and the software is being refined, updated and integrated. I really don’t think that the OP or a lot of people really appreciate how ambitious this program and design really were and even are, and how far we’ve come on this program. Yes, there is still a ways to go for full acceptance, but the plane is solid…the core features are there and the basic design and aerodynamics are good and solid.
Your premise IS flawed, because by your own admission here that’s how the system works. You are bitching about how it SHOULD be (in your opinion).
Because they haven’t failed to deliver by the specs of the contract. They have merely failed, in your mind and opinion, to deliver based on your perception of that contract and how you think things SHOULD be.
No, they have objectively failed to deliver, the F-35 project actual combat capability is 10 years late and $183 billion over budget, do you dispute that? Again you are arguing that corporations should never have to take responsibility for their failures? Trying to argue that somehow Lockheed Martin is in the right here is both offensive and bizarre. You deliver what you promise or you don’t stay in business, generally that is how it works, and yes Lockheed Martin made implicit promises during the bidding process.
Your argument against me is directly corporate socialism, that they should get paid no matter what they delivered and the government should suck up the costs. Well I can’t say in this forum what I think of you but I say I can say “fuck thats a shitty idea”
You should probably research the difference between a fixed-price contract and a cost-plus contract. You seem to be under the impression that all business contracts are the former, and that the F-35 program in particular is also under one.
I dispute that these voided or broke the actual contract that was signed, and that you have any understanding of government contracting in general or this specific contract.
No, of course not. I’m arguing that you are basing your understanding of how government contracting works on what you THINK it should be, and that you don’t actually have much knowledge of general government contracting and how it actually works in the real world today, nor do you know the specifics of THIS series of contracts and revisions or how the COTRs are interpreting it and looking for compliance.
And trying to argue about something you obviously know nothing about is, well, par for the course here on the 'dope, so not really either offensive or bizarre.
And that’s the key disconnect right there. Do you even know what was outlined in the actual contract that LM signed? Do you know what revisions were made and approved by the contracting officers and contracting agencies? I’m guessing the answer to those questions are ‘no’. Again, if there is a disconnect in how you think it should be and what’s actually happening, you should check your premise.
No, to summarize my argument, you don’t have a clue about how government contracting works and you haven’t read the LM contracts for the F-35 and what they are actually responsible for or not responsible for.
You can, of course, take me to the Pit if you feel that strongly about it. Would be nice if you actually understood what I was saying, but as with other things under discussion that seems to be difficult.
No sorry I understand these perfectly. But at a certain point in a cost-plus contract you say “well fuck this is not what we estimated or even allowed for as an overage, deliver the product or we are done”. The idea that the US and partners has to keep throwing money at the F-35 no matter what the results are is offensive and stupid.
And none of this is relevant to my point, the F-35 is in a death spiral and this is a fact. The necessary resources are being cut (my cite is the memo), this will further delay delivery and drive up costs. I have already stated earlier what I believe needs to be done to escape the death spiral, if I see the F-35 program does this then I’ll acknowledge that.
Sorry I win, you think that Lockheed Martin can fall 10 years behind schedule and $183 billion over budget and pay no penalty. All I can say is that 95 percent of the population doesn’t agree with you.
Please, please, please read this and take a moment to think about it. Comparing advanced technology development to “any other business” is problematic, and here is why.
Let’s just say that you build houses. You tell me that you will design and build me a house for $200 grand and it will take six months. I agree to those terms, but you fail to deliver. You should be penalized because you knew what you were bidding on and you made a firm commitment to deliver within cost, schedule, and scope. And when you put your bid together, you have probably built hundreds of houses before, so while you knew that there may be little quirks that you’d have to deal with during construction, you actually know how to build houses with a high degree of confidence.
Now compare this to building a fusion reactor. Nobody has ever done it before. There may be many parts of the technology that are low risk, but this is a first-of-a-kind thing, so the unknowns and the risks are so great that there is no way that you can make a firm commitment to deliver a fusion reactor at a certain price, with guaranteed attributes, on a certain schedule. Even if you and your customer agree on a schedule that you think is reasonable, and give a good-faith estimate of what you think it will cost, there are so many things out of your control that you can really only promise to work as hard as you can to meet those expectations, with the understanding that you’ll be fairly paid for meeting that commitment.
Now, programs like the F-35 are more like the fusion reactor than housing construction. There are times when contractors mess things up in such a way that the customer should not be expected to pay the costs to resolve errors. A perfect example right now is that the Air Force has found that fuel lines in a couple dozen F-35s are corroding at an unacceptable rate, with the risk of fouling fuel tanks. So the boss of the F-35 program has called up Lockheed and said, “Look, you screwed this one up.” And according to today’s news, Lockheed is going to pay to fix the problem.
So, if I hire you to build me a fusion reactor, and I sign a contract with you that you’re going to do your level best to make progress and that I will pay you for that, then the only way that such a deal falls apart is if you’re not actually trying hard to produce something. And the complicating factor here is that the problems with the F-35 are not simply that Lockheed hasn’t given its best effort, it is also that the Government went in with unrealistic expectations, and has frequently changed those expectations.
If you went back just a few years ago, there was no Block 3i and 3F. There was (IIRC) Blocks .5, 1, 2, 3 and 4. Block 2 ran into big problems, so the government told LM, “We’re going to split block 3 into two parts, and oh yeah, there’s a hardware refresh in there.” Imagine if you’re building that fusion reactor and suddenly I change the specs on you, even if for a very good reason!
The “best effort” concept of this contract allows the Government to change its mind and redirect the contractor to do things differently – and sometimes for very good reason. But such decisions inevitably mean delays and costs, even if the contractor is meeting the absolutely best standards it can possibly provide.
I read your posts and you seem to think that the overwhelming bulk of blame for the F-35s poor performance so far is Lockheed’s fault. I disagree. If I were to assign blame for how this project has turned out, I would assign the majority of the blame to the government for a variety of problems such as dubious conception of three jets sharing one essential design (which has never been the case), rushing into production well ahead of testing, and fundamentally not recognizing the great technical risk in what we are trying to build.
Exactly. That’s the disconnect that the OP is operating under. It’s amusing to see him continue to claim victory without even understanding the basics.
ETA: Good analogy btw with the fusion plant scenario. That’s pretty much spot on.
And what will you do when the F-35 delivers (grievously late, horrifyingly overbudget, and (to be charitable to your analysis) fewer unit deliveries over lifetime)? And then goes into sustainment. Development is done, LRIP is done, production delivery is done, the plane is in operational service.
Are you going to continue to insist on a death-spiral on a completed program, simply because they didn’t live up to your expectations?