...speaking of
Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove ... the development of
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter Program reminds me more of Steve Martin's
Sgt. Bilko.
And it is not because Lt. Gen. Bogdan talks to the House Armed Services Subcommettee members like a bunch of children, in simple speak, talking about Millions of USD as in 'tiny number' - which it is, compared to the price of it all, with a smirk in his face. (Also: Canada = smirk face).
Where to start. Delays. Cost overuns. Fundamental technical failures, et cetera. Granted, developing any 'next-generation' airplane always took longer and had bottlenecks, which allowed the engineers to come up with new solutions. There are great stories about earlier airplane development, if you are interested in the
history of aviation. I just point to the A-10 as a reading list favorite.
But the development, since 2001, of this new airplane, has some ridiculous, fundamental flaws, which highlights a combination of bureaucracy, incompetent managment, simple greed and hybris? The "learing curve" does not build on previous lessons learned, but starts from scratch, as it seems.
And I am not even up to speed with all the stories, which slipped the PR firms, who are eager to clean up the Internet from 'negative stories' on behalf of
Lockheed Martin.
Oh, and there also was this Lockheed Martin scheme of using taxpayer money to lobby for taxpayer funded programs (see Washington Post article}).
F-35 Total Costs Soar to $1.5 Trillion; Lockheed Defends Program **
Who knew that a single-engine airplane would be a vunerability? Some engineers did. Who knew that the costs would double? And we are talking about hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. The development and maintanence will end up costing around a
trillion USD.
The basic idea was to make 'one' airplane for all services. It would be modular, adjusted to each services needs. It would be easier to maintain and the costs would be shared with the partner countries, which would join the program.
But nothing goes ever like intended.
At this point, I always like to point to the Wikipedia page about "single point of failure":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_point_of_failure.
There is also the
cost-of-production increasing cost theory in economics, which basically explains what every ordinary human knows: estimated costs are never the final costs. Things are more expensive than people want to think they are, or want you to believe they are. Googlebing any government funded development or learn life lessons on this one on your own.
It all sounds so nice on paper, but suddenly the already solved engineering and design and software problems become 'new' problems, nobody knows how to solve, before wasting 100s of millions and billions of taxpayer dollars.There is this old anecdote about the difference between the U.S. Space Program and the Soviet Space Program. The U.S. Astronauts found out that trying to use a ballpoint pen in zero gravity was rather impossible. They asked their Soviet rivals/collegues how
they have solved this problem. The Soviet Cosmonaut answered: "we used a graphite pencil".
Old - working - tech, vs. 'new', imaginary, wishful thinking. And everyone is eager to defend their career foodchain plateau, fearful of losing 'face' and position ... and your and my taxpayer money.
*) WaPo article:
http://wapo.st/1JN0aEE**) 1.5 Trillion:
http://breakingdefense.com/2012/03/f-35-total-costs-soar-to-1-5-trillion-lockheed-defends-program/ #economy #government #military #F35 #LockheedMartin #engineering #design #aviation
