An Industrial Designer's Dream Scenario:

You're heading up the design team for a technologically-sophisticated, big-ticket item. You got a team of engineers, industrial designers and UX guys all working in the same building, alongside a top-notch prototyping shop. A crucial parts supplier is right down the street. So is the factory. You've also got a ready supply of end-users available to test the product out and provide user feedback. You and your team have final call on all design decisions.

An Industrial Designer's Realistic Scenario:

Your office is in Flagstaff, the crucial parts supplier is in South Korea, the Chinese factory offers to do the engineering for a price your boss can't refuse. The design research firm you're using seems more interested in convincing you to keep hiring them than in providing relevant data. And your boss' spouse, who has no design background and doesn't work at the company, has both strong opinions and a troubling amount of dinner-table influence.

If that sounds as bad as it can get, the U.S. Government's military procurement process has just proven you wrong.

The HMDS Disaster

The design item in question is a magical helmet that will be used by fighter pilots flying a $337 million F-35. It turns the plane invisible—to the pilot: With an interior display connected to cameras around the aircraft's exterior, when the pilot looks down, s/he doesn't see legs, but whatever is beneath the plane. Ditto when looking backwards or all around. On top of that, the eye-tracking display is festooned with crucial targeting data, an eyeball-steered missile aiming interface, night-vision technology, information about local forces, et cetera.

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The Gen III Helmet Mounted Display System, or HMDS, costs $400,000 and was co-developed by American company Rockwell Collins, Israeli company Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin. All competent firms. But here's where the project went wrong, according to The Economist (emphasis ours):

…The helmet's "political engineering" is as much a marvel as its electronics, says Dan Grazier of the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog in Washington, DC. The aircraft's research was spread around more than 300 congressional districts whose legislators were keen to support contractors' proposals for fancy and expensive new features, he maintains. 

The helmet is now so complex, he reckons, that it has become the F-35's weak link. Intricate kit breaks—and when it does, a pilot cannot simply borrow another's helmet. This is because each HMDS is calibrated to an individual flyer, such as the alignment of their pupils for eye-tracking, which is a two-day laboratory job that only Rockwell Collins is authorised to conduct.

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More Problems:

- The helmet is now so big that it's difficult for pilots to turn their head

- When tilting back to look upwards, electronics cables within the helmet place strain on the pilot's neck

- The bulky helmet can actually become stuck against the low-profile canopy, temporarily pinning the pilot's head

- The helmet weighs 5.3 pounds, meaning if the pilot punches out, it may kill them: "Test ejections with dummies by the Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation unit found [the helmet's weight] could cause possible fatal neck injuries for some pilots."

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It all reeks of decentralized development. On top of that, The Economist points out the connection between the perceived need for the helmet and the design of the F-35 itself: "Had the F-35's cockpit not been positioned lower than those of other fighter jets to reduce its radar signature, pilots would be able to see more with their own eyes. There are old-school ways around that: one F-35 pilot says he sometimes banks the aircraft over when he wants to see what is going on below." Good gosh.

It's long been the case that technologies developed by the military—from GPS to jets, duct tape to microwave ovens—eventually trickle down to enrich civilian life. But with bureaucracy and political finagling becoming more effective at rendering other systems ineffective, perhaps that pipeline won't be as relevant as it once was.