No WW3 for a while yet then. Thank God!
Your F-35s need spare bits? Computer says we'll have you sorted in... a couple of years
Delayed upgrades to F-35 fighter jets along with bespoke logistics software that displays spare part lead times in years are keeping some aircraft grounded, according to a report from the US air force station where the core of Britain's future F-35 operators are being trained. Lockheed Martin's Autonomous Logistics Information …
COMMENTS
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 13:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
I wouldn't count your chickens too soon, if socialism starts to take a proper hold (Spain, Italy etc..) then the only outcome will be war. Trade wars, protectionism, nationalism and crazy wannabe dictators with a small hand are all good markers as well.
That's my cheery Friday comment done.
-
Friday 1st June 2018 14:04 GMT wolfetone
"if socialism starts to take a proper hold (Spain, Italy etc..) then the only outcome will be war."
Er, right...
"Trade wars, protectionism, nationalism and crazy wannabe dictators with a small hand are all good markers as well."
I've heard him called many things, but I have never heard of Trump being called a socialist.
-
-
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 14:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Bizarro world
Actually I have, Spain are swearing in a socialist prime minister whose mandate is effectively zero, he won't be able to do or change a single thing. Italy have formed a government of populists and nationalists (racists in other words), so yeah it's not a socialist government but it does leave it all a bit messy which is where a socialist movement could rise. The problem we have from my viewpoint is that capitalism is only working for the few and the more the gap widens, the more poor people we have, the more chance you have of socialism rising and when it does it's mandate is to change the status quo which will never be allowed to happen by those it will effect. It's either socialism or nationalism and either will lead to war. That's what I think anyway.
-
Sunday 3rd June 2018 07:09 GMT Androgynous Cupboard
Re: Bizarro world
The outgoing PM in Spain lost a vote of no confidence, with well over half the MPs voting gainer him. He didn't have any mandate either. But I don't see you railing against the massive corruption in politics Rajoy represented, presumably as that's not the axe you are here to grind.
-
Sunday 3rd June 2018 12:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Bizarro world
and what axe do you think I have to grind? Do you think I'm a socialist because I believe capitalism doesn't work? Do you think I support either PM? Hate to break it to you but I'm not a supporter of either. My point which is still valid is that the world is on the brink and it'll go one of two ways, socialism or nationalism will rise causing another war. That as I said is my opinion, yes it's bleak but look around you, so is the world. There are no politics that aren't corrupt, that's an opinion you form once you open your eyes to it all. It's funny how people read into your words what they want to see and make assumptions without thinking of other possibilities.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 17:06 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: We don' need no F-35
we just have to suspend Mr Putin's debit card for a while.
Not sure about that. The 1Bn+ Abramovich withdrew from UK investment project (firing tens of people who were working on the Chelsea Stadium redevelopment for him in the process) have been followed by others.
So if we are to suspend his (and his friends) debit cards that better be done now. In a couple of weeks time the money will NOT be in the accounts. In fact, what makes you think it is there now?
Well you can say one thing, no ones going to bomb London anytime soon without annoying the Russians.
It is a question which Russians do you annoy - the one that are on good terms with the one holding the launch keys or the opposite ones. I would not be so sure that the "fear of annoying the second group" is a viable anti-missile defense. As far as the first group, I suspect it is following Chelski to more hospitable and warmer climes now (along with their money).
-
Friday 1st June 2018 18:59 GMT macjules
Re: We don' need no F-35
Well, the thing about money-laundering is that sooner or later you have so much freshly-laundered money that you are now a completely respectable, legal businessman and not at all someone who used to sell rubber ducks and retreaded tyres with a sideline in diverting large diesel shipments. When that happens you no longer need a football team in order to help wash your wealth.
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 17:06 GMT Daniel von Asmuth
What Weird War?
You can call it the Second Gulf War or the War Against Tea, but we've been fighting it for almost 17 years now and it involves a rather long list of nations in one role or another.
......
so if the enemy manage to shoot down an F-35, it will phone home and order a couple of millions of spare parts before hitting the turf, kool!
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 13:09 GMT Gti Jazz Blue
I'll have some of that business please
Are they serious £23m per plane to give it a software upgrade or does that include hardware upgrades to allow the software upgrade?
I realise that there is going to be a lot of man hours in Dev, Testing and QA of the upgrade but that is serious wonga for a Software Upgrade of one unit.
-
Friday 1st June 2018 13:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'll have some of that business please
I can assure you that even if the software upgrade requires a hardware upgrade, the cost of the hardware upgrade fraction would be a very small part of the "£23m per plane" mentioned.
Software will be the death of military avionics. It really will.
Read Arthur C Clarke's 'Superiority' just to get a sense of where we're headed.
-
Friday 1st June 2018 14:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'll have some of that business please
"Are they serious £23m per plane to give it a software upgrade or does that include hardware upgrades to allow the software upgrade?"
I'm not saying this is at all a reasonable price, but avionics software costs have a tendency to escalate dramatically when your "integration test" involves having someone tool about at transonic speeds over the ocean in a small, fast jet so you can see if your new radar software works as expected.
A jenkins build this is not.
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 14:20 GMT Commswonk
Re: I'll have some of that business please
£23m includes the cost of the extended warranty and a premium rate phone call to the customer care team at Lockheed Martin.
"So that we can deal with your query properly please tell us in a few words about the problem you are experiencing."
...
...
...
"I'm sorry I didn't get that; so that we can deal with your query properly please tell us in a few words about the problem you are experiencing."
(repeat, ad nauseam)
-
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 16:52 GMT ciaran
Re: I'll have some of that business please
Frankly they are lucky that the older F35B are still usable. The aluminium structural components need a special treatment called "Laser Shock Peening", which is basically impossible after the plane has been built. Of course that only became evident, or even possible, after the testing showed that the plane was dead without it.
I love it when Lockheed Martin claims that the change to aluminium bulkheads from Titanium - only for the B variant - has absolutely no effect on the lifespan of the plane. That kool-aid must be good, but I'll stick to the beer...
-
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 03:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'll have some of that business please
A N e-m suggested, "...actual software engineering time is probably just a fraction of the cost. Most of it is probably made up by all the paper pushers..."
DO-178 software, let's assume DAL C, *is* (literally) at least 95% paper pushing. Except it's part of (the new style of) software engineering, so the Coders get to do all the documents. If they're very well behaved, then they might even be permitted a few hours of actual coding.
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 23:02 GMT Barry Rueger
Re: I'll have some of that business please
Are they serious £23m per plane to give it a software upgrade or does that include hardware upgrades to allow the software upgrade?
This is a truly bespoke service, and one which avoids the security risks associated with USB sticks or networked connections: each software upgrade will be typed in manually by a technician seated in the plane with a wired keyboard in her/his lap.
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 01:37 GMT GrumpyOldBloke
Re: I'll have some of that business please
> each software upgrade will be typed in manually by a technician seated in the plane with a wired keyboard in her/his lap.
That was the original approach but led to problems. Critical code tended to be stubbed:
eject() {
return false;
}
closeCanopy {
return false;
}
Now they use paired programming for critical systems. The junior programmer seated in the plane with a wired keyboard in her/his lap. The mentor sitting in a bunker 300 yards away with a remote video feed, a wireless keyboard and some sort of good luck charm like a bobbing Elvis.
-
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 06:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'll have some of that business please
I see you need a refresher course in Biz 101.
Q: "How do you set the prices of your products?"
A1: "Charge enough to cover your costs plus a fair margin".
A2: "Charge every cent the market will bear".
If you chose A1, go to the bottom of the class. And YOU'RE FIRED.
-
Sunday 3rd June 2018 18:06 GMT Dave 15
Re: I'll have some of that business please
mmm, and if it is as good as the latest windows 10 fuckup which has disabled all the computers my wife used for work and has caused us to start a long overdue move to linux then the upgraded f35s will be bluescreening and rebooting regularly at all sorts of inconvenient times... thought you were going to shoot that missile, well sorry, that caused a memory problem you will just have to wait... landing gear down? so sorry but it appears some critical part of the boot software has crashed and we will need to restart everything... or is that just crash everything into the deck?
The saints preserve us from yet more American crap, lets dust off the drawings and build some Harriers , at least they worked, could be built here, WE were allowed to service the damned things without sending them to Italy and Turkey
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 13:19 GMT Peter2
Broadly, it appears from his comments that too many jets to servers results in the system at that location becoming noticeably slow.
Which would be fair enough if we were talking about many hundreds of jets to a single server, but I don't think they've even built that many yet. Sounds like a serious design flaw on the server side of things.
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 13:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Israel F35
Found The Aviationist article. The author of same appears to be a bit of a dough-head. He can't estimate 12 NM as compared to image of land ~60° down in photo? Seriously? He doesn't even contemplate the radar reflectors being stowable during flight (true or not, they should be).
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 14:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Israel F35
"Stealthy" doesn't mean "cloaked". Maybe the reflectors would change the radar signature so that the Russian-supplied air defence systems can't get all calibrated and ready for it in its natural state. You know, a bit like when a newly-designed car goes out for road-test and they paint it with patterns to disguise the shape. Or perhaps it deploys the reflectors when it's in friendly airspace to stop commercial aircraft bumping into it all the time.
-
Friday 1st June 2018 14:01 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: Israel F35
Pick from:-
A) Disguising the radar profile of the latest, greatest and stealthy aircraft from all the surveillance Syria & Russia have looking for it. And given some of those radars have very long range detection, could potentially get intelligence from any F-35's pootling above Israel, Turkey etc.. Which might be another reason why NATO would prefer a friendlier and less nosy Syria.
B) So Israel's air controllers can detect it.
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 12:50 GMT jason 7
Re: Israel F35
Well if a 'stealth plane' takes 20 years to become operational you don't think that radar technology hasn't also advanced in that time to take account of such things? I bet radar tech moves much faster.
The radar system just has to have an inkling of what to look for whether its a plane or a 'large seagull'
-
-