Talk:Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II

Criticisms Section

The criticisms section is both misleading about industry opinion wrt the F-35 and avoids actual controversies in the F-35's development. This article is mainly about the NGAD program but it also covers many of the issues US Secretary of the Airforce, Frank Kendall, had with the F-35's development process. Performance isn't even mentioned. Instead the issues highlighted revolve around failing to secure the intellectual property around the jet and the "concurrency" approach to procurement which lead to the F-35 going into production during development. This seems like a much better fit for the criticisms section. Humorless Wokescold (talk) 03:09, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

This whole section should be removed. All it does is literally quote two articles written by the same author, David Axe. Steve7c8 (talk) 03:19, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:Criticism, "In most cases separate sections devoted to criticism, controversies, or the like should be avoided...". -Fnlayson (talk) 16:03, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:CRITICISM is an essay, not a Wikipedia policy or guideline. It only represents the opinions of some Wikipedia editors. Nbauman (talk) 18:01, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:CRITICISM is based on WP:NPOV#Article structure, which is policy, and needs to followed. BilCat (talk) 19:52, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

• Thanks or with the WP:STRUCTURE shortcut. -Fnlayson (talk) 16:53, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

  WP:NPOV doesn't prohibit a criticism section, it merely says that it may result in an unencyclopedic structure. It also says that there are varying views. There are a huge number of WP:RS that have criticized many features of the F-35, so they clearly belong in the entry. I think the clearest way to put them would be in a criticism section. Where would you put them? Nbauman (talk) 20:45, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

• No one said prohibited, just discouraged as stated in WP:Criticism that is quoted ("should be avoided") above. This is because Criticism sections are often magnets for unbalanced coverage. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:39, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly. High-profile programs such as this one garner a lot of criticism, and such sections tend to grow exponentially as every other readers tries to add some criticism they saw somewhere, much of it just opinion from professional critics and activists. Genuine and specific criticism should be included where relevant, but not indiscriminately or in an unbalanced way. BilCat (talk) 21:55, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

  WP:NPOV "means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." Would you agree that if there was a lot of criticism in WP:RS of the F-35, the Wikipedia entry should reflect that? Nbauman (talk) 23:25, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

  In the article, yes; in a dedicated criticism section, no. BilCat (talk) 00:44, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  The September 2023 GAO report https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105341.pdf , which is a WP:RS, cited several critical problems, and many WP:RS reported those problems:

  • Heavy reliance on contractors
  • Inadequate training
  • Lack of technical data
  • Funding prioritization
  • Lack of support equipment
  • Lack of spare parts.

  Where in this entry would (or do) you include those problems?

  In biology, there is a concept known as "emergent properties." You can study the heart, the lungs, the circulation, and the immune system as separate  entities, but when you put them all together, they have properties that aren't apparent when you study them as individual organs -- for example, heart failure. That happens in Wikipedia articles as well. You can examine the individual problems with the F-35 one at a time, and come up with a solution or justification for each one, one at a time, but when you put them all together, you have a different problem -- it's difficult to manage overall. It's like taking a car to a mechanic, who says, the valves are worn, the rings are worn, the brake piston needs replacement, the muffler needs replacement -- individually, you can take care of each one, but when you put them all together you have an old car that isn't worth fixing.

  WP:NPOV says that a Criticism section may be appropriate, or may not be. When you have "emergent properties" -- when the whole adds up to more than the individual parts -- a Criticism section is appropriate. Nbauman (talk) 15:37, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

  All of these problems are outgrowths of the concurrency development process and failure to acquire IP rights for the technology behind the F-35 which I explicitly mentioned in my first comment. It's why the NGAD program is taking the approach it is. To quote Sec Kendall, "We’re not going to do that with NGAD. We’re gonna make sure that the government has ownership of the intellectual property it needs. We’re gonna make sure we’re also making sure we have modular designs with open systems so that going forward, we can bring new suppliers in." From the article I linked earlier. Humorless Wokescold (talk) 18:55, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

This article entirely deserves a criticism and a controversy section. In Canada alone, this procurement has collapsed governments. All I see in the above talk pages is article bias, and biased Wiki "editors".Andwats (talk) 05:40, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Specifications for the same variant are internally inconsistent in the same article

In the "General characteristics" section for the F-35A Specifications, "Empty weight" is listed as "29,300 lb", and "Max takeoff weight" is listed as "65,918 lb"; and yet, in the "Differences between variants" section, "Empty weight" is listed as "28,999 lb", and "Max takeoff weight" is listed as "70,000 lb"; the differences between the range figures seems particularly glaring as well ("1,500 nmi" vs. ">1,200 nmi"). Please track down the cause for the discrepancy and issue the required corrections. 74.104.187.84 (talk) 22:39, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Bad source for financials

Just want to head off any use of this article for financial info on the F-35B. The NYT is normally top-tier, but this reporter has misunderstood the term base year (BY) in her source and refers to a cost "as low as $70 million in 2012" which makes no sense. "$72.1M (BY 2012)" in 2023 dollars would be closer to $100 million. GordonGlottal (talk) 21:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Example of bad design

Here's a lecture at the Norwegian Developers Conference by a computer user interface designer who uses the F-15 as an example of bad design. The title, "Wouldn't it be cool..." refers to the F-15's replacing mechanical switches with a touch screen, whose buttons fail 20% of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGUqyb6mzDw

“Wouldn’t it be cool…” and other bad design approaches - Billy Hollis - NDC London 2023

NDC Conferences

May 16, 2023

Nbauman (talk) 21:16, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

The talk is about the F35 not the F15 (guess a typo). Also it is a one hour lecture, can you give a time when this is discussed? Also what is exactly the suggestion for improving the article you are making with your post? Arnoutf (talk) 10:16, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Apparently, that guy isn't involved in the F-35 program, and is just giving an anecdote which may not even be correct. If so, he's not a reliable source on this, and we couldn't include anything from this vid in the article. By the way, what's the fail percentage of several dozen mechanical switches in a fighter cockpit? Without knowing that, the comparison is practically useless. That's not even mentioning the pilot workload involved in knowing where every single one of those switches is in a cramped cockpit, and making sure one selects the correct one. Pilot overload was a huge problem in analog cockpits in late-third-gen fighter cockpits, many of which were very poorly designed ergonomically. BilCat (talk) 01:07, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Is this because the F-35 has touch screens that this has been posted here? And is this about the article (eg: a suggeated edit) or is this just a general comment for interest's sake? - wolf 08:39, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Here's a pilot who cites his 20% failure rate with the touch screen. https://hushkit.net/2021/01/21/what-is-good-and-bad-about-the-f-35-cockpit-a-panthers-pilots-guide-to-modern-cockpits/ I'm fine with finding multiple sources to confirm it.

The guy is a computer developer whose expertise is in good design vs. failure -- which goes across all disciplines. For example, the designers of medical equipment, including computers, used engineering principles learned in aircraft (particularly cockpit) design. (One medical computer designer visited Boeing to study their user interfaces.)

(If you want, I'll find the location and check the typo when I get back to another computer.) Nbauman (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Czech Republic

The following request was placed on my Talk page today:

Hello, could you add the Czech Republic to the f-35 users in the f-35 article. The Czech government approved the purchase of 24 f-35s a few days ago. 193.165.236.247 (talk) 12:24, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Dolphin (t) 13:10, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

As long as we can find a reliable source, sure. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 15:45, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

The Czech Republic has to sign an order contract or comparable agreement for aircraft to be considered an operator, not merely selecting it. -Fnlayson (talk) 17:23, 3 October 2023 (UTC)