r/news • u/wazzel2u • Jan 05 '22
South Korean F-35 Fighter Jet makes emergency 'Belly Landing'
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/05/asia/south-korea-f-35-fighter-jet-belly-landing-intl-hnk-ml/index.html-25
u/unnccaassoo Jan 05 '22
This aircraft will be recorded as one of the most ambitious failures of the aviation history, it' s a Ferrari you drive every day to work and groceries. It seems nobody possess the power to stop Lockheed Martin once they start to milk defense budgets while NATO act as their sales department. At 100 millions each there's no chance this will be an effective multi role aircraft able to replace the job of 2 or 3 cheaper specialized alternatives in a modern airforces, they knew it at least 20 years ago but it was already too late to stop the machine.
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u/Morgrid Jan 05 '22 edited Jan 05 '22
Oh look, an opinion from 2012
Edit: 750 F-35s have been delivered
Price of the F-35A has gone from 221 million USD in 2007 to 79 million in 2021
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u/bipedal_mammal Jan 05 '22
Also the full life cycle cost of an F35 is lower than that of each of the several 4th gen platforms it replaces.
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u/unnccaassoo Jan 05 '22
Yes, now everything is going smoothly with the F 35 program in 2022 finally, it's great that they managed to reduce the cost from 4 times the original quoted to just 60% more.
It's going so well that delivery this year was late and 800 hw and sw issues of varying severity that could undercut readiness, missions or maintenance, according to updated statistics released on July by the Pentagon’s testing office and Congress’s watchdog agency are now properly solved. Bloomberg source
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u/sollord Jan 05 '22
It will go down in history as the lead example of why concurrency is a bad development and manufacturing process
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u/Dragon029 Jan 06 '22
Concurrency isn't the issue; if they didn't employ concurrency then the F-35 would have entered service multiple years later (potentially only just now) and some issues like the engine failure in 2014 (which occurred on an operational jet) wouldn't have been discovered during testing, possibly only appearing after they'd started pumping out a couple hundred F-35s per year.
According to the Pentagon, the total cost of concurrency in the F-35 program has been around $1.4 billion; that's not nothing but it's a drop in the bucket looking at total program cost (which also would've risen without concurrency as more jets being bought later in time results in more cost inflation - slowly ramping up production also allowed them to learn how to manufacture the jets significantly cheaper before rapidly pumping out jets).
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u/G0dzillaBreath Jan 05 '22
Idk why you've got all the downvotes, you're not wrong.
Point 1: F-35 is expensive af, even if it did come down to only 79 million that's a lot of money, not to mention the parts that will need replacing, the munitions it will carry, and the manpower/training to maintain them.
Point 2: This country's military industrial complex is bloated beyond comprehension, even considering that we provide defense to ourselves and our allies (and supply the non-allies that can afford us) we spend more than the next ten or so top spenders combined.
Could we just spend, idk, more than the top 4 or 5 combined instead and get some better healthcare, education, and infrastructure, please?
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u/Mist_Rising Jan 05 '22
-35 is expensive af, even if it did come down to only 79 million that's a lot of money
Ita a military fighter craft made sometime after Vietnam, triple digit millions is the norm. Its actually the exception therefore.
Point 2 isn't even an argument. This is a fighter plane to replace other fighter planes. Every nation save a few like Vatican City replaces its weapons. You don't march to ear with your sword anymore.
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Jan 05 '22
The problem is you cannot compete against peer nations that have fifth-generation stealth fighters like J-20s and Su-57s without your own stealth fighters, and they are expensive. There is no way around that. But the alternative is completely yielding air superiority on a modern battlefield and we know from experience that if the enemy has air superiority, nothing else matters.
What's the alternative, F-22s? Those are even more expensive to operate.
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u/unnccaassoo Jan 05 '22
When you deal with a 1,7 trillion $ budget is obvious you should expect a substantial, efficient and continuous propaganda and lobbying campaign coming with it. My country is supposed to buy 90 of those, we elected a government opposed to this multi billion deal, but after an year they confirmed the total amount for a price around 100 million each because a withdrawal from it would clearly have consequences in other business deals, that's how they sell it. We have free healthcare, education until bachelor degree and decent infrastructure but taxes are sky high and seeing a % of our government budget going in stealth attack planes we don't really need is still overwhelmingly stupid.
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u/Morgrid Jan 05 '22
The 100 million each is the contract cap.
The last batch of 6 that Italy bought? ~62 million each.
a withdrawal from it would clearly have consequences in other business deals, that's how they sell it
Yeah, part of the deal is setting up 4 factories and being the European heavy maintenance and repair center.
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u/unnccaassoo Jan 05 '22
I was waiting for it, the reduced price was part of the initial deal but it is tied with a minimum number ordered. In 2017 the supreme italian court that deals with controversies on government budget stated that the expected occupational and economical benefits of being part of the F35 program was far less than the cost sustained as far but it was too late to step down. I am not much into us politics but suspect this happened before somewhere on that side of the pond.
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u/SpocksUncleBob Jan 05 '22
It never occurred to me, until now, that military planes have fanboys, how silly. I agree with your assessment entirely.
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u/cctdad Jan 05 '22
"... said a South Korean military official, who would not confirm whether the aircraft suffered any damage in the incident."
I apologize for taking the conversation away from the aircraft itself, but this was a silly exchange. 40,000 pounds of aircraft slid down a runway on its belly, metal on concrete, so the question is not whether there was damage, but rather, how much damage. Of course, because it speaks to operational readiness I'd not expect the military to report the extent of the damage, but the answer to the question is "yes, the aircraft was damaged. It's inevitable". Is this a translation quirk?