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'
-
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 13:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
ILS 101
Logistics is funny. They'll set (for example) 95% Availability, and then be completely mystified why the 5% Non-Availability would ever occur. They'll make a series of WAGs (wild-ass guesses) for the input assumptions, and then be perplexed by the 5% turning out to be 17%; the phrase 'Sensitivity Analysis' might as well be Greek. They'll see a critical and expensive part, absolutely essential about once every six years, sitting unused for five years, and thus decide that it must be immediately disposed-of. Because that shelf isn't free. Being ITAR, the expensive item is crushed and ground to dust. Then it's desperately required the following week. They're really bad with wear out items; the sudden surge in demand for Brake Pads after 3 years would catch them off guard.
On the bright side, they're experts with Pivot Tables, which they feel qualifies them for a Fields Medal.
-
Friday 1st June 2018 13:57 GMT Milton
Re: ILS 101
Please accept an Upvote for that nice line.
On the bright side, they're experts with Pivot Tables, which they feel qualifies them for a Fields Medal.
It could easily be used to describe a good-sized minority of corporate fauna throughout the world (and a solid majority of everything above middle management, especially in the truly woeful US and UK worlds of corporate imbecility): they fanny about with Excel, get some cells to go red and imagine they know all about IT. They'd be funny if they didn't do so much damage.
-
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 14:21 GMT Milton
Re: There's an old saying.....
If the engines are Pratt & Whitney the seat better be Martin Baker.
I wasn't aware of the saying, or the justification for it, if any: but the fact is, there's only one engine. ISTR some Candian idiot (=politician) being asked a few years back, during controversy over that country's deeply incompetent F-35 acquisition process*¹, what he thought about an eyewateringly expensive single-engined fighter experiencing an engine failure in the far north—his response: "It won't." Facepalm, anyone?
I'd be particularly concerned about the F-35B, with its fearsomely complicated gearing and transmission for the lift fan (which is deadweight and wasted space for 99% of the mission), which has to reliably transfer enormous horsepower in the most testing conditions of temperature and stress at the most critical times (landing on a flight deck already a-gaggle with birds swilling with fuel and laden with ordnance).
Despite their (absurdly premature) declaration of initial operational status, the US Marine Corps may be the best hope for the RN not to have an early tragedy on one of its carriers: with luck, USMC will get the bad news before we do, and some kind of risk mitigation can be put in place. (Though what that will be, considering our government was too stupid to specify CATOBAR carriers, I just don't know.)
Either way, it would be embarrassing to put one of our carriers out of action even before it's seen the full 24 hours of life expectancy it can hope for in a war involving anyone who has subs and/or anti-ship missiles. (Lousy planes + too few escorts = carriers fit only for Third World ADPTO*² missions. There's nothing like a £275,000 strike resulting in the write-off of one rusty SUV and a cannabis-steeped goat-fondler.)
*¹ Yes, I accept that any procurement which results in an F-35 purchase must by definition be incompetent, but even so ...
*² Do try to keep up with the military terminology: ADPTO = Anti-Datsun-Pickup-Truck Operations. A very important component of the Global War on Terror™
-
Friday 1st June 2018 16:00 GMT phuzz
Re: There's an old saying.....
"landing on a flight deck already a-gaggle with birds swilling with fuel and laden with ordnance"
I'm pretty sure they only park them on the flight deck fuelled and armed when they're in fully working order, so I doubt this is a situation the F-35 will encounter all that often.
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 14:23 GMT Filippo
Logistics software?
Here we have a device that's full to the brim of so much cutting-edge tech that it costs very nearly too much to be actually used, and they trip on logistics software? A problem that, while admittedly hard, gets handled by tens of thousands of companies worldwide every day, and has been for decades?
-
Friday 1st June 2018 14:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Logistics software?
Combining two areas of concern, Logistics with Software. (See posts above.)
I'd rather have an office next to a bomb disposal workshop than be within the half-mile disaster radius of Logistics Software.
"Did you order the replacement parts?"
"No, the software says that you've used zero. So it predicts zero usage."
"There's none in stock. We've been grounding aircraft."
"So you've not used any. See?"
"Correct. Of the zero stock, we've been issued zero."
"The software is very advanced. Beyond human comprehension."
"Not just a linear extrapolation then? Can you enter negative five, just there?"
"Yep, oh look. It's ordering five now. They'll be here on Monday."
"Thanks."
-
Friday 1st June 2018 15:56 GMT Wellyboot
Re: Logistics software?
J.I.T is fine for the cavalry to arrive in a cowboy 'B' movie, During a shooting war where the delivery truck may be a target - not so much.
For a real logistics setup take a look at the RAF repair operations during the battle of britain. Dozens of shot up & flight hour limit Spitfire & Hurricane were were returned to service daily, enough to make a substantive difference to the sortie rate. I know they're much simpler planes but the 'no widget = no fly' was just as relevant.
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 03:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Logistics software?
Wellyboot mentioned Just In Time (JIT).
JIT can be a very good thing for manufacturing, where almost everything can be planned in advance.
Applying JIT to Logistical Support of Repair Stations, which must respond to failures which can only ever be roughly modelled in advance, is simply being thick. Repair Stations needs shelves. Or plenty of parking spots for grounded aircraft.
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 16:20 GMT SkippyBing
Re: Logistics software?
Do not underestimate the military's problems with logistics, generally when the budget gets cut the easiest/only way to make the necessary savings is to not buy the spares. When combined with buying into a just-in-time procurement policy invented by Japanese companies making more cars in a day than you have aircraft then you're setting yourself up to fail.
-
-
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 03:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Turkey shooting
I'm the spirit of 'Chicken Tax'-avoiding Utility Vehicles from Turkey, the freshly-repaired F35s will be sent back to the USA with an inexplicable set of bench seats and temporary side windows installed in the back.
[Obscure Reference Alert. But hopefully funny to those that can connect the dots.]
-
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 16:26 GMT Norman Nescio
Re: Two for the price of two?
Do we get to buy two so that one can be kept in the air and the other used as a donor for spares to keep the other one in the air?
That was exactly the same strategy as adopted by the owners of classic Jaguar cars. If you were spotted trundling about the streets in one, it showed you could afford to have the other in the garage being fixed/being a spares donor. The nouveau riche simply bought expensive cars that worked, and so could be spotted a mile off, and avoided.
My method of avoiding the riche of any sort was forced upon me: I could only afford to travel by Routemaster and watch the antics of the haves from afar.
-
-
-
Sunday 3rd June 2018 13:55 GMT Norman Nescio
Re: Two for the price of two?
Cpt Blue Bear is correct, anything up to and including the XJ.
A bosses boss of mine had an XJ-S HE, and loved it, but commented that it needed a season ticket for the garage, it went back so often. That said, it spent a lot of its time on the newly opened M40, commuting between Warwick and London.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 1st June 2018 17:17 GMT Voland's right hand
Bingo.
As a matter of fact it does not need to hack ALIS. It is sufficient to prevent an update of data into ALIS by whatever means for an aircraft to refuse to fly. Last one I heard was 45 days.
Additionally, ALIS also has mission assignment and command functionality. So if you do not have a link at least some aspects of getting an aircraft ready to go out and kill someone or something cannot be done.
It is truly what it is - "If the wars were fought using the Cloud". Who, when and how in NATO countries agreed to it needs to be tried for grand treason and hanged. Publicly.
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 06:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Who, when and how in NATO countries agreed to it needs to be tried for grand treason and hanged. Publicly.
Lots of suitable flagpoles at MoD Abbey Wood. But still a few weeks work to get through the thousands of civil servants who need cleansing. And, being bureaucrats they'd want to be euthansed according to a "methodology".
I propose a method of computerised random selection. Technically it counts as a process, particularly if it is written down, but the uncertainty - well, they'd hate that.
-
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 09:14 GMT Sanguma
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
by Stanislaw Lem.
"Where's those spare parts I ordered?"
"ALIS says you ordered them in 337 BC."
"What?"
"They'll be delivered in a thousand years' time. Please be patient."
Or maybe that's from The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy, still retailing for significantly more than five Altairian Dollars with revision charges still to be added on ...
-
-
-
-
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 21:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
"a metal part would probably needs replacing once a year, which you can just make in 2 hours on a 3d printer"
I fear you do not understand the limitations of 3d printers.
Currently very few strong parts can be made with them, and those which can probably take a lot more than 2 hours. The Bugatti brake caliper takes 45 hours to print, then has to be heat treated, then undergoes a mechanical treatment, and then needs another 11 hours to CNC finish.
-
-
Sunday 3rd June 2018 13:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Wow, that's interesting. Do you work in that sector?"
No, I stopped bashing metal in 2000. But I've followed developments since out of curiosity because the holy grail has always been a magic manufacturing method that produces the part to net size in one hit, and it's interesting seeing how close (or far) things are getting.
Information about the Bugatti part is available on line. The real advantage of 3d printing is that you can have internal features that simply cannot be achieved by external machining. But that doesn't mean that you get the resulting part quicker or cheaper, just that its properties will be better in some way.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Monday 4th June 2018 11:09 GMT Zmodem
Re: Zmodem mentioned, "BAE"
as far as the whole 3d metal printing goes, there is a startup company, which is building a whole space rocket with custom metal for their own custom metal printer, and a interview is > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxyUygCO_Zs
-
-
-
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 10:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Something I don't understand about the purchase and sale of military equipment is that if a country buys, as in this example, fighter aircraft from another country what is the guarantee that replacement parts and even replacement aircraft will be available in the future? I understand that design and manufacture of many pieces of advanced warfare equipment would be difficult for many countries but there's no national security in that context without a nation building their own. I think Trump and Erdogan illustrate that nicely.
Conversely, where are protections of the, possibly, new technology used in a nations technology that is built into these aircraft, insert any advanced device, once that device has been sold to another nation?
If a nation does buy aircraft from another nation the only way to guarantee the purchasing nation's ability to keep those in the air and have replacement aircraft is to have the ability to build all the parts for that aircraft within the nation that has purchased that aircraft.
So, the nation or company that developed said aircraft would then sell the design specs and material manufacturing specs to another nation I suppose. There'd have to be an agreement to not sell any of that on.
The F-35, to my limited understanding, looks like a semi-functional money pit. I wonder how the Saab Gripen stacks up and what are other potential replacements?
https://saab.com/air/gripen-fighter-system/gripen/gripen/
As a side note, neither nor anyone I know have any connection to Saab or any of it's subsidiaries, of which I am aware :)
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 13:24 GMT Zmodem
everything is expected to last 30 years before new is brought again
if you want an upgradable plane, you buy the eurofighter and easily fit it out with all your custom classified hardware and turn it into the RAF typhoon which can take down a lockheed raptor in a dog fight
the only thing that is the same on the eurofighter and the RAF typhoon, are the physic's of the flyby wire system and the design
-
Sunday 3rd June 2018 18:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Something I don't understand about the purchase and sale of military equipment is that if a country buys, as in this example, fighter aircraft from another country what is the guarantee that replacement parts and even replacement aircraft will be available in the future?"
During the 1980s the company I worked for was approached by someone apparently loosely connected to the FO with some machine parts, and enquired if we could replicate them. One of our engineers, who had spent a lot of time in the ME, remarked that they looked remarkably like bits off a certain model of Russian tank. They were.
It seems the Russians had supplied Saddam Hussein with said tanks, and then expected favours in return for spare parts. Certain persons at the FO had had the bright idea that if we supplied Saddam with these frequently required spares, he would be more amenable to the suggestions of HMG.
Knowing as we did that there were certain export controls on these things we politely indicated that it wouldn't be possible without full engineering drawings, materials specifications and the rest, and he buggered off. When the Matrix Churchill case happened, I was relieved but unsurprised.
Putin to Erdogan: "Want some F-35 spares cheap along with those S-400s you ordered?"
-
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 14:34 GMT DaemonProcess
Long lead times are nothing new for an aircraft at the start of it's service. Tornado engines took over a year to build and ship for a long time. When you buy an aircraft you should keep long lead time spares for the next 10 years. Back in the 90s the RAF had some spares that were 30 years old and yes they had wasted money on certain items that were hardly used while other items became unexpected consumables. I'm sure the same is true of the navy and army.
The UK is already completely reliant on the USA for defence, there's no going back now. If we dared to buy Mirage or Saab there would be repercussions - the USA could simply start refusing to repair F35s until we changed our mind. The top end example of UK/USA reliance is AWE is run by a joint company with Lockheed Martin being the majority shareholder, according to the FT.
-
Saturday 2nd June 2018 18:56 GMT Zmodem
the f35 is rubbish, BAE Systems exists so britain can be independant, because america stole the TR-3B research during the lockheed martin merger and it was all tits and tantrums so the MoD setup BAE Systems for classified research,
britian has "100" typhoons before the MoD stopped saying how many they really have, and does'nt care for stealth and only needs the f35b to replace the harrier for basic patrol operations, the stealth typhoon has been in the making for years with the taranis stealth drone being the stepping stone
-
-
-
Monday 4th June 2018 21:55 GMT Zmodem
its a classified top secret secret which is let out in aload of 1990s UFO documentaries that are made in britian with people from the MoD and military knowing exactly how the TR-3B works and everyone saying its american
if america had true anti gravity and pulse propulsion and a dark space program and everyone likes to dream of, a railgun would have been easy
-
-
-
-