So we are building new stealth bombers

[Mikemcc]

$400,000 is about the cost to the government of a senior engineer, per year. This isn't their salary; it includes overhead and various carrying costs. Figure $200,000 for a junior engineer. That's per year.

The other driver is government requirements. That $600 toilet seat? With the government requirements that have to be demonstrated you met, plus the fact it's on an aircraft, the cost was probably not unreasonable. Change what is expected and the costs will come down.

One instance that I experienced was on a vehicle mounted ATE system, it had a small monochrome plasma display (mid 90s), the thing cost £20k a piece because it was mil-spec and tested to the n-th degree that it would survive in all environments. I just pointed out that we could get 100 larger, cheap LCD displays that we could throw away if it breaks...

 

[tyr_13]

Nothing. Drones are great. We should use more of them as quickly as the technology matures.

One drawback to drones, though, is that it removes human judgement from that point in the decision chain.

There may be times when we don't want to send an autonomous killbot to rain death from the sky without direct human supervision. And there may be times when the target area is one where remote data links are not reliable enough to permit remote human supervision. For those times, only a manned bomber will suffice. And that bomber should be as protective of its human crew as we can afford to make it.

Drones with weapons don't actually operate completely autonomously. They can go on auto-loiter and the like generally, but there is always a pilot monitoring it back at base (often Nevada). There is also a weapons operator (or more) running the weapons. The clearance to engage is given in much the same way as manned aircraft, except the drones are generally feeding more intel back to handlers for them to review.

That isn't actually fundamentally different from aircraft of the same generation. Even the intel only drones have people monitoring them at all times.

How are you supposed to carpet bomb cities with drones?

You attach carpet bombs to the drones. What follows is the same as with conventional bombers.

Oh I don't doubt the list of things is long. But 21 billion? And another 0.4 on top?

Someone once wrote a funny letter to The Times after the government announced a £6,000,000,000 contract to equip the NHS with computers (I'm making up the numbers). He worked out this came in at three grand per computer and offered to do it himself at half the price.

I just can't imagine what could be going on to cost that amount of money. How many people will be working on this phase? How much floor space, light and heat do they need? What materials do they require? They're designing a plane and not doing it from scratch either. I mean it's been done before, hasn't it?

The aerospace engineering program I was accepted into in 2002 cost about $100,000 a semester. An employable in that field degree took at least six years. Yes, that's more than one million dollars for the education of one engineer alone. First year grads from that program were averaging $300,000 a year at that time, and half a million a year within ten.

It's rocket science essentially. This is what gets lost many times in these kinds of discussions; the people element is one of the most costly parts. That's part of why drones are so great. You can risk the hardware, which at even one billion dollars an aircraft is cheaper than risking the pilot an co-polit (or other equipment operator), whose training and investment will exceed that number. The cost of developing a new aircraft includes paying back the training of the engineers and other staff. The aerospace engineers aren't even close to the only highly trained and highly paid staff worth considering either.

Short answer: Yes it's that hard.

 

[theprestige]

You're aware that drones are actually piloted by humans, right?

Yup. It's right there in my post, which you quoted in its entirety. I admit I blurred the line a bit. I apologize for any confusion it may have caused you. But if you read through the second paragraph, I think you'll find that we both arrive in basically the same place: Sometimes it's nice to have the pilots actually on board the aircraft.

 

[slyjoe]

One instance that I experienced was on a vehicle mounted ATE system, it had a small monochrome plasma display (mid 90s), the thing cost £20k a piece because it was mil-spec and tested to the n-th degree that it would survive in all environments. I just pointed out that we could get 100 larger, cheap LCD displays that we could throw away if it breaks...

I have proposed similar approaches many times

That said, some missions don't allow quick replacement in critical situations.

 

[theprestige]

Of course there will be corruption, incompetence, and waste--there always is.

But I think that to within an order of magnitude, the cost of this program can be entirely explained by the fact that the goal is to build some really cool stuff, and really cool stuff really does cost that much to build.

 

[theprestige]

The important thing is that Iraq is peaceful and free, and Dubya's legacy is assured.

Obama's legacy really, since he ran on ending the war in Iraq, and claimed it as a campaign promise kept.

 

[theprestige]

I haven't got anything at the moment; it's not a claim I've been all that interested in trying to prove.


Of course not. I'm wondering if you have some idea of the criteria by which you would judge whether a particular weapons program was justified.

quadraginta, I wanted to come back to this for a moment. I assume that you would not be convinced by any appeal to legitimate authority. I mean, Pentagon analysts have made a recommendation to the Joint Chiefs, and they've made a recommendation to the Secretary of Defense. The President has forwarded that recommendation to Congress, which has approved the budget for it. That's a lot of expert review, both military and civilian, at the highest levels of government. But it doesn't convince you.

Normally, I would suggest looking at what industry experts and analysts have to say, but I don't know if you view them with similar suspicion.

I might be interested in digging up whatever papers have been published by military research organs on the subject, or even technical reviews of systems like the S-300 SAM, etc. But this is the US politics forum, where opinions never change. So I figure, before I bother doing any legwork, I'd be interested to know if there's anything at all that might change your mind, and what you think that thing might look like.

ETA: I mean, it might be the case that we don't need a new bomber right now. It might be worth researching and discussing in this thread. It might be nice to have a nonpartisan, skeptical discussion of US military strategy, doctrine, and procurement. It might be. What do you think?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Really? I was always under the impression that it would cost a lot more, although it did look super cool in that Die Hard movie, so I guess it's all ok.

"In 2010, Pentagon officials disclosed that the F-35 program has exceeded its original cost estimates by more than 50 percent.[57] An internal Pentagon report critical of the JSF project states that "affordability is no longer embraced as a core pillar""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II

So yes it was originally sold as being an affordable modern fighter.

 

[slyjoe]

...snip

First year grads from that program were averaging $300,000 a year at that time, and half a million a year within ten.

It's rocket science essentially. This is what gets lost many times in these kinds of discussions; the people element is one of the most costly parts. That's part of why drones are so great. You can risk the hardware, which at even one billion dollars an aircraft is cheaper than risking the pilot an co-polit (or other equipment operator), whose training and investment will exceed that number. The cost of developing a new aircraft includes paying back the training of the engineers and other staff. The aerospace engineers aren't even close to the only highly trained and highly paid staff worth considering either.

Short answer: Yes it's that hard.

This seems really high - $300K/year for a new grad? $500K within 10?

I don't know any company that charges the government directly for the cost of training an engineer to do their job.

 

[ponderingturtle]

quadraginta, I wanted to come back to this for a moment. I assume that you would not be convinced by any appeal to legitimate authority. I mean, Pentagon analysts have made a recommendation to the Joint Chiefs, and they've made a recommendation to the Secretary of Defense. The President has forwarded that recommendation to Congress, which has approved the budget for it. That's a lot of expert review, both military and civilian, at the highest levels of government. But it doesn't convince you.

Normally, I would suggest looking at what industry experts and analysts have to say, but I don't know if you view them with similar suspicion.

The reason is that they all earn rather a lot of their money from these kind of projects. So it isn't like they don't have a financial incentive to make the case for massive spending. Pads out their retirement accounts and for the ones in the service, ensures lucrative employment opportunities after retirement.

 

[theprestige]

"In 2010, Pentagon officials disclosed that the F-35 program has exceeded its original cost estimates by more than 50 percent.[57] An internal Pentagon report critical of the JSF project states that "affordability is no longer embraced as a core pillar""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II

So yes it was originally sold as being an affordable modern fighter.

I'm glad they dropped 'affordability' -- whatever that means. Current US military spending is a lower percentage of GDP, and current US tax revenues are higher, than in 1954? So affordability is kind of a non-issue. Perhaps they were thinking of "affordable to interested allies"? And between then and now they figured out that the allies that were actually interested were willing to pay more for better features?

I think that if the funding is available, 'cost-effective' is a better goal: Identify the effects you want, and then keep costs down as much as possible while achieving those effects.

 

[tyr_13]

This seems really high - $300K/year for a new grad? $500K within 10?

I don't know any company that charges the government directly for the cost of training an engineer to do their job.

It was a very good program. Although those numbers were taken from the college recruitment material, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was exaggerated.

 

[theprestige]

The reason is that they all earn rather a lot of their money from these kind of projects. So it isn't like they don't have a financial incentive to make the case for massive spending. Pads out their retirement accounts and for the ones in the service, ensures lucrative employment opportunities after retirement.

This isn't my first rodeo. I'm well aware of the ad hominem in the room.

So.

Enough about what doesn't convince you, and why. What would convince you?

 

[Doubt]

Absolutely. The F35 was supposed to be just like the F22 only way, way cheaper.

No. The programs were developed at the same time and for different roles. The F-22 is an air superiority fighter. It has the primary task of beating any fighter that any enemy sends against it under any conditions. That assignment pretty much guaranteed it was going to be very expensive. The actual capabilities of the plane have yet to be demonstrated in combat.

The F-35 was supposed to be less expensive and built for multi role operations. It is supposed to be an even match for other countries fighters and better at many different types of missions. The cost saving were/are supposed to have come about from the scale of production because there were going to be a huge number of planes built for many different customers.

The F-22 is to the F-15 as the F-35 is to the F-16 and F-18. All are fighters but the jobs they are expected to perform are a bit different.

 

[Doubt]

Because every war plane from now on needs to have stealth. It's too important an attribute to leave out on anything manned. And now that we have quite a bit of experience making stealth planes, it's also not nearly as costly as it used to be.

That will probably end up not being true. Unfortunately a lot of work is going on that may make stealth a waste of money. Long wave radar being just one of the efforts in that direction.

China claims to have already cracked US stealth technology. Although that claim needs to be taken with a grain of salt, or maybe a bag of rock salt, the physics of detection tends to work better then the the ability to conceal things. All emitted or reflected energy against a cold sky ends up being detectable. All that is left is trying to hide it among the background conditions of a mostly empty sky.

What seems to work best for conflicts with peer military forces is a large platform that launches stand off weapons. This has been demonstrated by the USAF with early stand off weapons such as the Hound Dog missile. For conflicts with second or third rate forces you can remove whatever air defense they have at the start of the conflict with smaller aircraft and stand off weapons and then use the larger platform to drop free fall weapons as needed. Neither situation changes when you have large stealth planes.

The handful of replacements for the B-52 never matched it at those abilities. Back when the B-1 was cancelled by Carter Boeing proposed a "B-747". That plane, if it had been practical, would have carried 30+ cruise missiles. That is far more than the B-1 or B-2 and would have been and been a better match for many other missions. I suspect it would not have worked out because of the need to redo the cargo and fuel storage area of the existing 747 design. But the idea of a larger stand off platform would be more practical than building the same high end stuff that the air force always wants.

 

[Ziggurat]

That will probably end up not being true. Unfortunately a lot of work is going on that may make stealth a waste of money. Long wave radar being just one of the efforts in that direction.

That's really not true. The thing about stealth technology is that even if it doesn't make your plane invisible, it's still less visible. It will still reduce the range at which you can be seen, and that's always going to be an advantage. Advances in radar which push the range at which you can see stealth planes will also push the range at which you can see non-stealth. The advantage of stealth might be less dramatic than it initially was, but it's never going to vanish.

What seems to work best for conflicts with peer military forces is a large platform that launches stand off weapons. This has been demonstrated by the USAF with early stand off weapons such as the Hound Dog missile. For conflicts with second or third rate forces you can remove whatever air defense they have at the start of the conflict with smaller aircraft and stand off weapons and then use the larger platform to drop free fall weapons as needed. Neither situation changes when you have large stealth planes.

Also not true. Stealth will affect the range at which you can deploy your standoff weapons. And technology has now made it possible to use drop weapons as standoff weapons. For example, the Small Diameter Bomb can glide up to 60 miles from its drop point.

 

[theprestige]

That will probably end up not being true. Unfortunately a lot of work is going on that may make stealth a waste of money. Long wave radar being just one of the efforts in that direction.

Long wave radar can help you determine there's a stealthy aircraft somewhere out there, but it is necessarily useless for actually tracking and targeting that aircraft. You'll still have to go out there with a short-wave radar and try to find the thing the long-wave told you was out there. Find it, track it, target it, and engage it, all before it does the same to you.

 

[Doubt]

That's really not true. The thing about stealth technology is that even if it doesn't make your plane invisible, it's still less visible. It will still reduce the range at which you can be seen, and that's always going to be an advantage. Advances in radar which push the range at which you can see stealth planes will also push the range at which you can see non-stealth. The advantage of stealth might be less dramatic than it initially was, but it's never going to vanish.

It is quite true. Not being close costs very little per plane. However it does increase the cost of the stand off weapons. Trying to hide in the sky is very expensive and the effect is limited. If you are going to get close to the target then the most effective tactic is to be very close to the ground. Once you build the stealth plane you are stuck with the size and shape. You also have to worry about speed if you are going to fly up high thanks to thermal imaging. You can not do much to improve the ability to hide it other than a new paint job. Large stand off platforms have proven to be very flexible which is why the B-52 is still here and about a third of the B-1s are already parked in storage.

Also not true. Stealth will affect the range at which you can deploy your standoff weapons. And technology has now made it possible to use drop weapons as standoff weapons. For example, the Small Diameter Bomb can glide up to 60 miles from its drop point.

Also still true. Evidence being the same as above. B-52s are still here and a lot of B-1s are sitting in storage. Stealth is a waste of money for large bombers since it adds no new useful abilities for stand off weapons. They best way to stay unseen is to have either a lot of distance between you and the target or a terrain feature between you and the instruments trying to see you. This has been true since rocks were high tech and will remain true for quite some time. Stealth may help but the added cost and payload limits work against it in practical application.

 

[Doubt]

Dup post and mangled the quote tags even more.

 

[Doubt]

Long wave radar can help you determine there's a stealthy aircraft somewhere out there, but it is necessarily useless for actually tracking and targeting that aircraft. You'll still have to go out there with a short-wave radar and try to find the thing the long-wave told you was out there. Find it, track it, target it, and engage it, all before it does the same to you.

You are thinking of bi-static radar. Different technology. Early radars were long wave and can detect position.