What the Navy really needs is an effective, manned anti drone aircraft to protect the surface fleet.
Like this hasn’t happened before to almost every Navy and Air Force fighter ever built. Load them down with crapola that destroys their design efficiency and combat effectiveness.
The navy strike load and range has continually dropped since Vietnam. Ending the A-6 was a Cheney idea even though large numbers of them were brand new. The F-14d was a great load carrier with legs and speed. It was routinely launching from the Indian Ocean from beyond silkworm range, and doing strike missions with a good load over Afghanistan! We got rid of that beast and the A-6 tankers so those days are over. We went to an all 18 force but then decided to shrink things even more with the F-35 moonpig.
The carrier strike force has never had such a short range, or carried such a small load.
Oh well, I suppose it’s a total force concept where they bland in well with destroyers that cannot outmaneuver a container ship.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Boeing being a Woke company and incapable of engineering this solution.
New Government motto: Nothing good for America gets past us!
Electric fighter jets.
They want the CFT’s to replace part of the fuel lost with the tank mounted IRST, but why didn’t they incorporate the IRST in front of the windscreen like on the Su-27 or an under nose pod like the F-14? They built the E/F with room for growth, so why not a chin mount?
Any sort of ACM with say a Chinese J10 or Su-33, that center tank along with the multi-million dollar IRST is going to get jettisoned.
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