Spitfire9I dunno. Dog Vinci seems to paint in a fashion unencumbered by undue influence from other artists. One might venture that the work is quite spontaneous, uninhibited by thought and – to the more perceptive – represents a triumph in its total ignorance of the figurative subtly married to an appealing absence of any awareness of the abstract. 😉
Spitfire9Fine, I’ll rephrase. What software issue can a generic aircraft face that cannot be remedied with a software patch/update.
No idea. I have no idea what is involved in designing or writing aircraft software. In the same way as someone who grows bananas won’t have any idea about what can go wrong and how that could most simply/quickly be remedied when growing mushrooms.
I downloaded Windows 10 last year. Over the next few months, it was updated with numerous patches, with major update last week that took over an hour to install. Would I therefore be justified in saying that my OS hasn’t worked for the last six months? And assuming that future patches are inbound, that it still ‘does not work’? What if calculator app kept crashing, would that lead to the conclusion that ‘Windows does not work’?
Market leaders like Microsoft (and many others) have a tradition of bringing immature (in the sense of not properly tested) software to the consumer market and letting the consumer find the bugs. It saves money on testing, since you don’t have to pay the users for testing your software. Since Windows 10 is free, it would be difficult to sue Microsoft because the software supplied did not work properly. If it worked in terms of an operating system (files were saved correctly, keyboard inputs were reflected in what was written to the screen etc) then I concede you can argue it works. But if it shuts down every 4 or 8 or 16 hours I would say it is not fit for purpose and does not work.
In fact, if we create a binary solution to all such questions, we may find the majority of fighter jets in the world ‘do not work’, facing some bug, gremlin, technical blip whatever.
Not having a go at F-35 here but it is my opinion that if you design a system that shuts down every few hours, then that system stops the aircraft working so it (the software/aircraft system concerned) does not work.
If you were driving your car along and the brakes stopped working (but only for a few seconds/minutes now and then), would you say your car worked? Or if the indicators only stopped working now and then when you engaged 3rd gear?
Spitfire9Congrats, you have just grounded every plane operated in the last 40 years as they all have had and still do have some bugs.
Don’t believe me, go look at the most recent F-18 DOT&E report.
Perhaps I have. Perhaps I would not have if the customers, having paid the manufacturers an awful lot of money to develop the aircraft, had told the manufacturers they were suing them for supplying defective software unless they – at their own cost – fixed all the bugs.
Spitfire9What software issues can the Blk 3F potentially face, that cannot be fixed with a patch?
That I cannot know. Even if I were given all the source code and I worked 1,000 hours a day it might be several decades or centuries before I could answer that question, if ever.
If we’re painting in absolutist black-and-white shades, I ought to point out that if the software ‘does not work’ (as opposed to being fielded with bugs), the aircraft will fall out of the sky.
If software does not do what was specified, it does not work. If I write a piece of software that calculates the payroll for the work force based on hours, pay rates for different jobs undertaken, whether the pay rate is hiked to a different rate because it’s on a public holiday, at the weekend, during the night etc and the software says Joe is due to be paid $999.99 or $1000.01 when the correct amount is $1,000, then my software does not work as it should do. It does not work. Needs fixing. My fault. I am liable for all costs due to my software not working.
Wouldn’t I just love to work for the military where if it doesn’t do what it is supposed to do, they’ll still accept it by changing the goalposts to say it can fall a little bit short of calculating correctly! Or accept it on the basis that I will have sorted the problem by the next version. Or accept it on the basis that I will be able to come up with a patch for the current version. Who cares anyway – it’s only taxpayers’ money I’m wasting by not getting it right. At least, got that right, didn’t I? 😉
Spitfire9Unlike defective hardware, software issues can be addressed with a simple patch…
Some software issues can be addressed with a simple patch. Some software issues cannot be addressed with a simple patch.
Also, the entire fleet will be upgraded with the Block 3F software, not just the Lot 10 aircraft. The two are linked only due to a bureaucratic/legal requirement; there’s no logical basis for it.
I’m not sure there’s no logical basis for ordering something that works and not ordering something that does not.
Spitfire9Sounds like we agree about some things. 😉
Spitfire9Three times as many of the people polled in an American poll would prefer 1,000 jobs to be created in an American-owned factory in USA rather than 2,000 jobs being created in a Chinese-owned factory in USA. Which would you prefer?
Spitfire9F-35 Acquisition Cost Drops $12 Billion
Noticed this in the article:
The JPO and contractor Lockheed Martin are currently negotiating about $15 billion worth of contracts for the ninth and tenth batches of F-35s. The JPO is “very close” to finalizing an agreement for lot nine, but lot 10 may take longer, Bogdan said.
By law, Bogdan can not sign a contract for the lot ten aircraft until Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James certifies that the Air Force F-35As delivered during fiscal 2018 will have the final Block 3F software, the version needed for full warfighting capability. Before certification, Bogdan wants to fix an issue with the stability of the latest software version and finalize a plan to speed up weapons testing, he said.
Does that mean Block 3F software which does not work yet will really have to work before an order for block 10 can be signed? Or can the bar be lowered/goal posts be moved so that Block 3F software is deemed to work when it doesn’t?
Spitfire9defense-aerospace has a field day with F-35 today:
Pentagon to Move Ahead with $3 Billion F-35 Upgrade Program In 2018
JPO Again Moving Goal-posts In F-35 Testing: Gilmore
F-35 Program Making Progress, Program Chief Tells Congress
Lockheed F-35’s Cybersecurity Flaws Cited by Pentagon Tester (excerpt)
GAO: F-35 Engine ‘Not Performing At Expected Levels’ (excerpt)
CaseBank and Canadian JSF Industry Group Statement on F-35 Jobs in Canada
Spitfire9Perspective is needed.
That jets are still being built using old technology does not make them new technology jets.
F-35, baselined in the late 1990s, is 15-20 year old technology.
F-22, baselined in 1986, is 30 year old technology.
Rafale, Typhoon and Gripen, baselined in the early 1980s, are 35 year old technology.What stops anyone from using a 2016 technology baseline to develop an new fast jet?
As said, money. But also the major buyers in the market have re-equipped in the last few years or will be re-equipping with current designs that will remain in service until 2040 onwards. NATO countries, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Gulf states, South Korea etc will have received replacement fighters over the period 2005-2030. I think that the replacement cycle is such that the number of new fighters needed 2030-2040 (when a new fighter based on today’s technology would be sufficiently developed to go into production) will be too low to justify starting development of a new fighter in the near future.
Spitfire9Software fix readied to prevent further F-35 delay
“What the pilots are seeing is when they take-off and they need to use the sensors, particularly the radar, the communication between the radar and the computer is mistimed,” says Lt Gen Chris Bogdan, the F-35 programme executive, speaking at the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces on 23 March.
As timing delays pile up, the radar enters a degraded mode or shuts down completely, he says, requiring several minutes to restart. The software causes a sensor to shut down an average of once every 4h, he adds.
Accordingly to the article, the software patch should reduce the malfunction described to once every 8-10 hours, deemed an acceptable level. That would be a malfunction rate of near 50% per 4 hour mission, wouldn’t it?
Spitfire9Successful Ground Rig Trials Completed on Brimstone Missile for Typhoon
Spitfire9Korea – lost to F-15.
Nope.. The bean counters recommended the F-15 on a cost basis and the military (the guys actually making the final decision) said that the extra cost was worth the increased capabilities… still a win.
F-35 does have a strange effect on some people, doesn’t it – there is a tender, F-15 is announced as the tender winner yet good ol’ Spud sees that as F-35 winning the tender. You would have done well working in the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s ‘1984’ where the job was to rewrite history to more accurately reflect what the Party would have liked it be! 😉
Spitfire9Netherlands – part of the JSF program
True
Japan – 2nd choice only, after F-22
But preferred to Typhoon. Could be that Typhoon being a mite less American than F-35 had something to do with it.
Korea – lost to F-15.
F-35 didn’t even qualify for selection IIRC because LM could not quote a cost below the stipulated limit for tenders. Again, could be that Typhoon being a mite less American than F-15 had something to do with F-15 being selected.
…do you really think LM and a bunch of Korean Generals decided to collude to get the F-35 selected?
See above.
Spitfire9The F-35 has not won a single competition, as of yet..
Won in Norway, didn’t it? Unless you don’t count that one because the playing field was tilted 89 degrees in favour of F-35…
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