Unfortunately, I think it's easier to fund something like the F-35 because it can be framed as a way to avoid an existential threat. It's difficult to do the same with fundamental science
That argument only holds because it was purported to replace different weapons systems that were needed for mitigating a threat. The threat is the primary motivation and cost reduction is secondary. I.e., if not but for the existential threat there's no need for the JSF or any system it would replace.
The F-22 was sufficient for threat mitigation. The F-35 raison d'être was cost reduction, after that was exportability which again was supposed to help with cost reduction.
Edit; comparing the logic of a 'but for' vs a 'necessary' condition. Was the F-35 necessary for threat mitigation. No. Was it framed as the necessary for cost savings, yes.
Your oversimplifying and missing a lot. The F-35 is not a replacement or substitute for the F-22.
The F-22 is an air superiority fighter. The F-35 is a multi role strike aircraft. The F-22 would never be allowed for export, because it has features we don't want to share even with allies. The F-35 was designed for export to allies from day one.
There's no scenario where just buying more F-22's made more sense than building the F-35. The F-35's project problems, primarily driven from the joint acquisition strategy are their own thing, completely independent of the F-22.
The F-35's problems as I understand it stem principally from the Navy wanting a VTOL craft. That whole system seems to be front and center when "stuff not working" comes up.
Marines not Navy, though they're a sub org of the Navy so a reasonable thing to say.
There's a Rand study on it. They concluded that the attempts at commonality didn't just fail, they proved counterproductive. They did a historical review of joint acquisition programs and found basically all of them hit the same flaw. As appealing as it may seem to congress, it's a bad strategy.
The F-35's problems as far as budget and schedule slippage were largely in the software section, and a lot of that goes back to structuring it as a single source cost plus contract. That incentivized LM to make the project as big and delayed as possible.
LM is infamous for this sort of thing. They turned Aegis into a clown circus of a billion different ship specific variants where they could charge N times to fix the same flaw in different nearly identical codebases. The Navy has been trying to extract themselves from it for like 2 decades now, with some signs of success finally showing up.
In short, LM is behaving in bad faith. This is unsurprising. They basically invented these tactics some decades back.
Back when Ash Carter was Sec Def, he called in LM and demanded they start hitting the promised numbers on marginal airframe costs. Reportedly the conversation went something like "do this or we'll curtail our buy" to which LM responded "by how much?" As replied "how about none?"
Suddenly they started hitting the numbers, surprise surprise.
We're about to have the same conversation about sustainment costs. I hope Austin drives as hard a bargain.
If you've read any of the limited info coming out about some of the AF's new projects like the B-21 or NGAD, it's pretty clear they took the lessons from the F-35 to heart and are using a very different approach, one where they hold the reigns of integration and can create competition at any time.
Their designed for slightly different roles. The F-35’s R&D looks hard to justify vs simply having more F-22, but the F-35B can do verticals takeoff for example and the F-22 can’t.
So, the real question is if the F-35’s should have had fewer versions and thus been more capable in it’s remaining roles.
There's similar analogies here to the space shuttle.
For the shuttle to get approved, it had to meet the demands of many masters. The fact that it had to meet DoD missions as well as NASA missions made it a bit of a boondoggle. Likewise, the JSF needed to meet the Marine Corps demands of VTOL to take the place of the AV8B.
It's hard to remain focused when you have so many stakeholders. As the saying goes, a camel is a horse designed by committee.
The space shuttle wasn't as bad as its reputation though. Both accidents had organizational causes and were entirely avoidable. And its huge payload bay and the fact it was a mobile base allowed for the construction of the ISS.
It just failed at reusability, it was more like refurbishability :) But many lessons have been learned from that.
I'm speaking more to the shuttle cost overruns, both in design and mission. I'd argue that the reusability aspect was central to the idea of a "shuttle" and if it failed at that, it missed its mark.
I agree 100% that there are organizational causes to past mishaps. As to whether or not it was avoidable...I tend to think they are rooted very much in human psychology and we think about risk. The same issues occur today within NASA (EVA 23 is a good example [1], despite the 'organizational' fixes put in place after Challenger and Columbia). Humans are really, really good at rationalizing the answer we emotionally want.
It has a thrust-to-weight ratio > 1, but it can't really take off vertically in the same sense as the AV8B or the JSF. The F22 still needs some appreciable runway so it's really a "short takeoff". I think the thrust vectoring maxes out around 25 degrees, where the JSF can be configured to 90 degrees.
>Was the F-35 necessary for threat mitigation. No. Was it framed as the necessary for cost savings, yes.
I think we're saying the same thing. The argument is, "Was the F22/F18/Fwhatever/weapon-system necessary for threat mitigation? Yes."
With that said, if proponents of the F35 want to frame it as "threat reduction + cost savings" that's how they get the budget approved. But the point stands that without a threat, there's no basis for the cost savings argument. I'm not saying it was effective as cost reduction.
To circle back to the original point, it's much easier to get a budget approved when the basis is existential threat, rather than "science is cool."
I don’t think it’s a great example of using existential threat for sales, when the whole thing was sold as a cost saving. Pretty much everyone at the time just wanted more F-22s. I was a technical advisor on the project.
>I don’t think it’s a great example of using existential threat for sales, when the whole thing was sold as a cost saving.
Again, if there is no threat (perceived or real), there is no need for a weapons system, period. Think of it this way, if there was a proposal for a cost savings for an anti-spacecraft/anti-asteroid system mounted to the JWST? I'm saying no, because there is no credible threat that would prevent. You need the threat first, in order for the cost savings of a program to have meaning if the basis of the program is threat mitigation.
>Pretty much everyone at the time just wanted more F-22s
Not really, unless you're only talking about a specific branch. Only the Air Force wanted F22s. As was stated by another commenter, the JSF was needed because it was because it fulfilled desires that other services had that the F22 does not provide.
Threat mitigation is largely nuclear shield; but if you’re taking about maintaining air superiority then the F-22 is where it is at. The Navy carrier fleets and Marines are force projection.
The JSF were sold around cost savings; half the price so you could buy twice as many.
I think you're taking a very narrow definition of what a threat means to make your point. To a Marine in Afghanistan, the threat was not mitigated by a nuclear arsenal. To them, close air support from a technologically inferior aircraft like the A10 did a better job of eliminating a threat than the F22 in many instances. To the original point, this is why it became difficult to retire the old plane despite the JSF and F22. It could be tied to a specific threat, and that meant it was politically much easier to defend keeping it around even if the business case was that it costs too much money. At the end of the day, politically defending a budget is much easier if it can be concretely tied to a credible risk.
It was canceled because the Navy said it wouldn't work, both because of cost and take-off weight of the proposed Naval variant relative to the capacity of then-current and in-development carriers.
