Another F-35 lost, 1/24

Another? Ain’t like they are dropping like flies and this one seems to be a deck mishap, not necessarily a problem with the airplane itself. There are a ton of things that can go wrong in carrier operations.
 
So basically, they poured approximately $120 million into the drink or is it more now?
 
kyleb said:
Another? Ain’t like they are dropping like flies and this one seems to be a deck mishap, not necessarily a problem with the airplane itself. There are a ton of things that can go wrong in carrier operations.
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One would hope that with all of the automation that approximately zero would be lost, but such has not been the case. For a very expensive and advanced plane, several have been lost for what appear to be mundane (predictable) reasons. (I briefly worked on what was called JSF back in the day, prior to any flight testing.)
I suppose that only one percent or so have been pranged, which is likely a good number, but losing such a plane to, say, "spatial disorientation" is still shocking. Those days are supposed to be gone.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
One would hope that with all of the automation that approximately zero would be lost, but such has not been the case. For a very expensive and advanced plane, several have been lost for what appear to be mundane (predictable) reasons. (I briefly worked on what was called JSF back in the day, prior to any flight testing.)
I suppose that only one percent or so have been pranged, which is likely a good number, but losing such a plane to, say, "spatial disorientation" is still shocking. Those days are supposed to be gone.
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Not really. Current prices are all well under $200, and A models are under $100. Compared to legacy, the accident rate has been good. Current delivered acft are over 750 nearing 500k total flight hours.
 
Military flying is inherently higher risk, with carrier operations probably being the highest outside of combat. Unfortunately losses are expected. Glad to see no lives were lost. Equipment can be replaced.
 
aterry1067 said:
Not really. Current prices are all well under $200, and A models are under $100. Compared to legacy, the accident rate has been good. Current delivered acft are over 750 nearing 500k total flight hours.
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Selling price, or amortized cost? The former, to be sure.
The rate is good, but for the development cost, it should land itself on a carrier. And I'm not being snarky, or joking.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Selling price, or amortized cost? The former, to be sure.
The rate is good, but for the development cost, it should land itself on a carrier. And I'm not being snarky, or joking.
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for sure and for certain you are being completely unrealistic.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
The rate is good, but for the development cost, it should land itself on a carrier. And I'm not being snarky, or joking.
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Mode I CV approaches have been a thing for decades, development costs are at least partially amortized in unit costs, and attrition is part of the cost analysis. I don't think you're being snarky or joking, I think you're being unrealistic or perhaps just uninformed.

Nauga,
from all sides
 
nauga said:
Mode I CV approaches have been a thing for decades, development costs are at least partially amortized in unit costs, and attrition is part of the cost analysis. I don't think you're being snarky or joking, I think you're being unrealistic or perhaps just uninformed.

Nauga,
from all sides
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It shouldn't be unrealistic. It should be expected. Some of these things are available in GA aircraft. Computers are much better than humans at SA, and quickly react to changes. Also, given just the publicly available development costs, they are gonna have to build and sell a lot of them to get the final amortized average per-unit cost under $200,000,000. A whole lot of them. I doubt that will happen. But it doesn't have to, given the taxpayer subsidy.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
It shouldn't be unrealistic. It should be expected.
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Have you seen how military technology "evolves"?

Just look at the KC-46 program and how much trouble Boeing and the USAF have gone through to move the boom operator to the cockpit. It was much simpler to just install a window in the back of the airplane, but no..........

Reminds me of the disproven urban legend of NASA spending millions inventing the pen that could write in zero gravity, and the Russians used a pencil.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
It shouldn't be unrealistic. It should be expected.
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I think you misunderstood. Most carrier-based airplane are already capable of hands-off approaches and landings. The Navy trains with and without them for the inevitable cases where the systems are not available. A hands-off approach and landing also provides no assurance that other systems may fail (e.g. cross-deck pendant or hook failing, to name two).

Nauga,
who lives in an imperfect world
 
midwestpa24 said:
Only because of vast levels of funding with no expectation of ROI.

The civil world would go broke.
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Just because the return is not a financial one does not mean there is no return on the investment through other operational considerations. The civil world would also go broke, or more likely not adopt the technology, if it was not able to leverage the technology transfer from the military and other gov't agencies.

Nauga,
and his TRL
 
nauga said:
Just because the return is not a financial one does not mean there is no return on the investment. The civil world would also go broke, or more likely not adopt the technology, if it was not able to leverage the technology transfer from the military and other gov't agencies.

Nauga,
and his TRL
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Oh I don't disagree at all. Much of the technology in today's society can be traced back to the military and other government agencies research and development. Especially if we are talking about aviation!
 
I shouldn't be surprised, but still, I do get surprised by how much faith people have in the state of art of software and computer technology.
 
Bob Noel said:
I shouldn't be surprised, but still, I do get surprised by how much faith people have in the state of art of software and computer technology.
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They are merely extensions of us; when done properly, they make life easier and safer. Or MCAS is not.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
One would hope that with all of the automation that approximately zero would be lost, but such has not been the case. ….
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Which is why people who say full self flying (FSF) planes are right around the corner don’t really know what they’re talking about.
 
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Kenny Phillips said:
They are merely extensions of us; when done properly, they make life easier and safer. Or MCAS is not.
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Automation, even when done properly, becomes a failure mode of its own. As with any new technology, those failure modes may not be entirely fully understood until they happen.
 
nauga said:
Far faster than in the civil world, in my experience
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is this because of a more readily available source of money, or different (lighter) regulatory burdens, or more urgent needs/demands that aren't beholden to traditional supply/demand laws? Or is it a combination of all of the above
 
Reading between the lines, it was a cross deck pendant failure. When they go, people get hurt or dead and airplanes get wrecked.
 
Craig said:
Reading between the lines, it was a cross deck pendant failure. When they go, people get hurt or dead and airplanes get wrecked.
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but, don't worry, automation will fix that.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
One would hope that with all of the automation that approximately zero would be lost, but such has not been the case. For a very expensive and advanced plane, several have been lost for what appear to be mundane (predictable) reasons. (I briefly worked on what was called JSF back in the day, prior to any flight testing.)
I suppose that only one percent or so have been pranged, which is likely a good number, but losing such a plane to, say, "spatial disorientation" is still shocking. Those days are supposed to be gone.
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So did I. Worked for the SPO in Crystal City. Where were you working?
 
Bob Noel said:
but, don't worry, automation will fix that.
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Automation can likely recover from an incident which leaves the pilot in a WTF condition.
Automation is not without risks, but once sorted, you can, say, move tens of millions of people in tin cans seven miles high without incident. Unsorted, you have MCAS.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Automation can likely recover from an incident which leaves the pilot in a WTF condition.
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Specific to the CDP failure @Bob Noel was posting about, no amount of automation will save an airplane dribbling off the front end with too much energy for brakes yet well below minimum endspeed. :rolleyes: It's a solution to some problems, not all problems.

Nauga,
and snap decisions
 
nauga said:
Specific to the CDP failure @Bob Noel was posting about, no amount of automation will save an airplane dribbling off the front end with too much energy for brakes yet well below minimum endspeed. :rolleyes: It's a solution to some problems, not all problems.

Nauga,
and snap decisions
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In that scenario about the only solution is a well-timed pull of the ejection handle. Even that may leave a mark, and doesn't begin to address the potential injuries to deck crew.
 
nauga said:
Just because the return is not a financial one does not mean there is no return on the investment through other operational considerations. The civil world would also go broke, or more likely not adopt the technology, if it was not able to leverage the technology transfer from the military and other gov't agencies.

Nauga,
and his TRL
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That’s not the point. Anything government can do, private sector can do it much cheaper and more efficiently ( if not necessarily faster )
 
At any rate this accident sounds like it was a ship issue and had nothing to do with the F-35.
 
Warmi said:
That’s not the point. Anything government can do, private sector can do it much cheaper and more efficiently ( if not necessarily faster )
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My post was exactly my point. To yours, much of the development in government programs is done by the private sector under contract. "The government" is not designing and building the technology that gets fielded well in advance of commercial aviation adoption.

Nauga,
and his CRAD pot
 
Will one of you smarty pants just out the tractor beam the aliens gave us and we can be done with mishaps like this supposedly was.

Please!
 
Tantalum said:
is this because of a more readily available source of money, or different (lighter) regulatory burdens, or more urgent needs/demands that aren't beholden to traditional supply/demand laws? Or is it a combination of all of the above
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Its because military solutions don't have to have an ROI. They are life or death solutions, maybe for a pilot, maybe for your country's existence. You spend whatever it takes to guarantee that (particularly the survival of the country). In private ventures, you must generate a profit, so it is often better to let someone else (Uncle Sam, in many cases) live on the bleeding edge of technological development. Once the technology becomes affordable, private industry jumps in line for it.
 
On the automation note, as Nauga mentioned, Mode 1 approaches have been around for years. But as he also mentioned, the system itself is frequently down (the ship's portion of it), and also often can be so out to lunch that it isn't safe to use. Beyond just the ACL system, I don't think the nut has been cracked yet on how to automate a carrier landing to a pitching deck......a not uncommon thing for a CVN. Just one of many challenges to fully automating landings in the carrier environment. Yes, I am aware that we did it for UAVs, but I am also not sure what their operational limits were in the (so far only) test environment. I imagine with the deck swinging, they weren't landing. I could be wrong though
 
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