There is an element of truth to this. It's also true that the U.S. government is a terrible customer, especially for bespoke or expensive military goods. However, you can see my other comment…
The highest priority in U.S. government acquisitions is to respect the business "rights" of suppliers and potential suppliers. It's hard to understand how tightly this is wound into the very foundations of USG…
I'm sorry, but this is basically incorrect on every point other than the limited tenure. Source: I work in this sector. PMs often come directly from industry. Once they do, there is a period over which they are not…
Replying to finish a discussion no one will probably see, but... > That the original comment I replied to is false: "Good luck designing crash resilient structures without simulating it on FEM based software." In…
What is your actual assertion? That tools like FEA are needless frippery or that they just dumb down practitioners who could have otherwise accomplished the same things with hand methods? Something else? You're replying…
I don't know about full-on nationalization, but we have plenty of evidence to show the incentives for publicly-owned for-profit companies whose primary customer is the Government are strongly misaligned with the…
This is a poor example of "Government innovation". It's more an example of legislative overreach / "pork barrel" politics, and bad acquisition practices. The Government is certainly capable of doing a shitty job, but…
We probably won't get much further going back and forth on this. For what it's worth, you seem very reasonable, I've appreciated your comments for a long time, and I'm sure we'd get along fine if we were to work…
There's more to the Linus-style jerk phenomenon than just telling entitled people to piss off (I would be reluctant to call that being a jerk if that's all it was). See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33058906 for…
> ... the idea that Musk hasn’t considered oil panning and should’ve just asked an engineer is ludicrous. The author assumes Musk must be an idiot despite all of the evidence to the contrary. I don't see anything…
Elon is well-known for firing or sidelining technical staff with whom his intuition disagrees, regardless of his own technical depth in any of those matters. His companies have a lot of success for reasons other than…
> I wonder what the situation will be in terms of fuel efficiency. Obviously it will take more energy per second to push through the atmosphere, but that may be defrayed by not having to hold the airplane up as long.…
> Give more funding to proper engineers, not physicists/chemists Materials science departments are often called "Materials Science and Engineering". How do they fall in your categorization? Without disrespect intended,…
> So it makes sense that most researchers are looking for higher efficiency. It makes sense that researchers should be considering metrics other than efficiency as well for new materials or architectures, and there's no…
I've previously written a few relevant comments that hopefully answer in parts: [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27386119 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35124271 [3]…
If commercial supersonic flight has any hope of being economically viable, one of the prerequisites will be cruising below Mach 2.
> I do wonder how much modern design can overcome, in materials, engines, aerodynamics, and flight controls. The basic physics are arrayed against you. Higher speed cruise flight already means you already fly at higher…
Carrier catapults violently accelerate aircraft to the point they are going fast enough to lift their own weight, within the takeoff length on the deck. You could likely lessen fuel burn of a supersonic aircraft taking…
> then they realized the fuel economy of supersonic aircraft peaks around Mach 3 As I noted in a below comment, there isn't a way for this statement to be accurate without a lot more qualifications. For "equivalent…
> No, it's exceptionally bad to fly close to Mach 1 and you do better if you fly faster up to Mach 3 or so. Where do you get this from? I suspect you are talking about the Breguet range parameter, which is (M / SFC * L…
I'm an aerospace engineer and I find the F-15 (esp. the C model) to be a hell of a sexy beast (so to speak), very visually stunning, and the F-35 to be relatively ugly. There's a reason the U.S. fighter community refers…
Current military thinking is "No" - the expectation, via lots of simulation, analysis, recent history, large-scale military exercises, and intel is that advanced weapons systems make dogfighting increasingly unlikely.…
There is a kernel of truth in what you say, but only that. The article is basically right, but I would argue severely undersells the atrocity of an acquisition the F-35 represents. It's certainly a poorer dogfighter…
Counterpoint: Crichton's Airframe is a great book that illustrates how journalists reporting on complex subjects they don't understand can cause great harm regardless of their intent or convictions.
It's an outstanding book about an outstanding man but still a bit of a hagiography when it comes to all the "fighter mafia's" ideas on aircraft design. However, his focus on prioritizing investments in people over…
There is an element of truth to this. It's also true that the U.S. government is a terrible customer, especially for bespoke or expensive military goods. However, you can see my other comment…
The highest priority in U.S. government acquisitions is to respect the business "rights" of suppliers and potential suppliers. It's hard to understand how tightly this is wound into the very foundations of USG…
I'm sorry, but this is basically incorrect on every point other than the limited tenure. Source: I work in this sector. PMs often come directly from industry. Once they do, there is a period over which they are not…
Replying to finish a discussion no one will probably see, but... > That the original comment I replied to is false: "Good luck designing crash resilient structures without simulating it on FEM based software." In…
What is your actual assertion? That tools like FEA are needless frippery or that they just dumb down practitioners who could have otherwise accomplished the same things with hand methods? Something else? You're replying…
I don't know about full-on nationalization, but we have plenty of evidence to show the incentives for publicly-owned for-profit companies whose primary customer is the Government are strongly misaligned with the…
This is a poor example of "Government innovation". It's more an example of legislative overreach / "pork barrel" politics, and bad acquisition practices. The Government is certainly capable of doing a shitty job, but…
We probably won't get much further going back and forth on this. For what it's worth, you seem very reasonable, I've appreciated your comments for a long time, and I'm sure we'd get along fine if we were to work…
There's more to the Linus-style jerk phenomenon than just telling entitled people to piss off (I would be reluctant to call that being a jerk if that's all it was). See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33058906 for…
> ... the idea that Musk hasn’t considered oil panning and should’ve just asked an engineer is ludicrous. The author assumes Musk must be an idiot despite all of the evidence to the contrary. I don't see anything…
Elon is well-known for firing or sidelining technical staff with whom his intuition disagrees, regardless of his own technical depth in any of those matters. His companies have a lot of success for reasons other than…
> I wonder what the situation will be in terms of fuel efficiency. Obviously it will take more energy per second to push through the atmosphere, but that may be defrayed by not having to hold the airplane up as long.…
> Give more funding to proper engineers, not physicists/chemists Materials science departments are often called "Materials Science and Engineering". How do they fall in your categorization? Without disrespect intended,…
> So it makes sense that most researchers are looking for higher efficiency. It makes sense that researchers should be considering metrics other than efficiency as well for new materials or architectures, and there's no…
I've previously written a few relevant comments that hopefully answer in parts: [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27386119 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35124271 [3]…
If commercial supersonic flight has any hope of being economically viable, one of the prerequisites will be cruising below Mach 2.
> I do wonder how much modern design can overcome, in materials, engines, aerodynamics, and flight controls. The basic physics are arrayed against you. Higher speed cruise flight already means you already fly at higher…
Carrier catapults violently accelerate aircraft to the point they are going fast enough to lift their own weight, within the takeoff length on the deck. You could likely lessen fuel burn of a supersonic aircraft taking…
> then they realized the fuel economy of supersonic aircraft peaks around Mach 3 As I noted in a below comment, there isn't a way for this statement to be accurate without a lot more qualifications. For "equivalent…
> No, it's exceptionally bad to fly close to Mach 1 and you do better if you fly faster up to Mach 3 or so. Where do you get this from? I suspect you are talking about the Breguet range parameter, which is (M / SFC * L…
I'm an aerospace engineer and I find the F-15 (esp. the C model) to be a hell of a sexy beast (so to speak), very visually stunning, and the F-35 to be relatively ugly. There's a reason the U.S. fighter community refers…
Current military thinking is "No" - the expectation, via lots of simulation, analysis, recent history, large-scale military exercises, and intel is that advanced weapons systems make dogfighting increasingly unlikely.…
There is a kernel of truth in what you say, but only that. The article is basically right, but I would argue severely undersells the atrocity of an acquisition the F-35 represents. It's certainly a poorer dogfighter…
Counterpoint: Crichton's Airframe is a great book that illustrates how journalists reporting on complex subjects they don't understand can cause great harm regardless of their intent or convictions.
It's an outstanding book about an outstanding man but still a bit of a hagiography when it comes to all the "fighter mafia's" ideas on aircraft design. However, his focus on prioritizing investments in people over…