Wonder how much they cost in comparison.
Finally, someone is noticing the elephant in the room.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 1 hour ago Doral, FL
Leaving for Jacksonville now. See you there! Miami was great.
And no F-16V for the USAF ... just one plane to do everything for everybody for every mission ...
Though more "expensive", we NEED the F-22.
Good. The F-35 is a jack of all trades, and master of none.
Three distinct aircraft each optimized for its role, would ultimately be cheaper, more effective and keep more of our aviators alive.
Aircraft Carriers, Manned Refueling Planes, Manned Bombers, Manned Fighters, and Manned Drones are obsolete, we just haven’t come to the collective realization.
Hopefully Trump will have people that come to this conclusion, we need dedicated AI drone carriers on the ocean, in the air, and maybe even in space.
Is it true that the tooling for the F-22 Raptor was ordered to be destroyed by the Obama Administration?
BTW, have a great time in JAX.
Look across the river and wave to the two towers of the Prudential building—that was my project 30 years ago.
Wonder how much they cost in comparison.
cause it's nothing but a money pit???One needs to recall how we got the F-35. Recall that Boeing said if that Lockheed plane (submitted to the fly off) works, they will win this competition.
The F-35 is costly, and its costs went up during development. But this is not new. The cost of technology that is state of the art is going to be expensive.
The real question is, Does the plane do what it was supposed to do? (Vertical landing? Carrier landing? short runway take off?) The problem is that one plane is not going to do everything we want.
So watch our allies purchases. They are buying a few F - 35s and we have bought a few F-22s.
The services will do the best they can with the money we give them.
My view is that a few of each of the systems is not a bad idea. I too would like to have more money, but we have a lot of debt. The solution is to spend carefully and the better the mix the better we will do.
You wouldn't believe what happened at Studio 54 in the 70s when he and Margaret Trudeau were regulars ...
F-35 is a fancy flying dumptruck. F-22 is an actual apex fighter.
Okay, so he gets elected and stops the F-35 after 150 planes are pumped off the assembly line. At 500 billion dollars for the program, each plane cost 3 billion dollars. We’ll never use them in fear of losing them.
Does the F-22 assembly line start up again? Upgraded F-15 or F-16? Start buying Navy F-18s? What will take the place of the F-35 buy (which is supposed to be 700+ airplanes)?
Not a fan of the F-35, but what is Plan B?
I’m OK with this but what is plan B? What are we going to do about our aging and increasingly obsolete aircraft instead of the F-35?
This won’t happen but I can dream. About 1/2 this dream would provide equipment for a strong force but not solve the leadership and manpower problems we have now. The airmen you will see on 60 minutes tomorrow night are going through the motions of doing a good job because it is their job and they do it with honor. I’m pretty sure they are making the most of a bad situation though.
We are not defenseless but we are in need of refreshing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_military_aircraft
The legs of our air arm need to be efficient, reliable, effective and ready. We have wasted years on the F-35 boondoggle. All because Lockheed made more money on that than the F-22 and an F-22 budget would delay or kill the 35. So what did they do? They killed the F-22 by lobbying.
There is the F-35 to replace the F-16, F/A-18 and A/V-8 but it does not look like a good airplane and it isn’t coming out soon and it is not any replacement for the F-22 and F-15E which are short in number and/or war weary. That is what this argument is about, a bad replacement and no replacement.
We need a new USAF because the one we have is just old and worn out. What we don’t need is a profiteering boondoggle to build a new one. Trump should know how to make good buys of:
at least 200 new F-22 to replace our ancient F-15C/D models and offset russia’s 360 air superiority fighters,
200 to 300 F-15SE to supplement the reconstruction of our 200 D models and counter the nearly 400 similar aircraft russia has that include much newer variants like the Su-34 and Su-35. As a bomb truck that can fight in and out the F-15E is still hard to beat, with upgrades harder to beat and with a few new air frame tweaks, canted tails and some kick ass bigger engines is really hard to beat.
and about 1,300 F-16V and F/A-18F to replace a like number of aging F-16 and F/A-18. If not that then can the affair and go with drones and missiles though drones don’t have the requisite flexibility and situational awareness of manned airplanes I’m told.
I’ve left off the A-10. All of the ones in service have been rebuilt to “as new” condition and there are more for the same inexpensive upgrade / refurbishment at Davis-Monthan. We need to keep the Hog. It is the best plane for the job in the world.
The shopping list is 1,700 to 1,800 new airplanes to replace about 2,100 that are old variants or airplanes that are worn out. 1,700 or 1,800 proven aircraft designs that just need to be built instead of the ongoing operational R&D on another 2,443 copies of a bad airplane like the F-35. That 2,443 is scheduled to replace 2,179 or so aging airplanes but when? If the airplane could live up to its promise it might be worth some wait.
We have many more combat aircraft than russia (about 3100 vs 1700) do but they are upgrading old airplanes and they have large attack aircraft that we don’t that are similar to the F-15E. Our F-16 and F/A-18 are good airplanes but have lower payload and mission capability to newer aircraft like the Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35 and even the upgraded Mig-29 and Su-27.
The problem though is not airplanes if you have them. The problem is enough pilots snd WSO to operate them. The millennials don’t’ seem to have the same inspiration to be pilots young men once did. The people we do have want out as soon as possible. Morale is horrible. If it were not for the young men being told frequently and with regularity that they are all dangerous potential rapists they are being pilloried by the LGBT or some other oppressive social agenda. They have to watch every single word and thought they have because they are being watched. They are also being poorly led by a bunch of dungo toadies at the top.
We are in much better condition than the russians for trainer aircraft but we also need to upgrade our fleet of 490 50+ year old T-38s, great little airplanes for what they do but they are getting old, tired and costly to maintain.
Our adversaries are not asleep. They are not doing nothing and they are becoming more well equipped for war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_currently_active_Russian_military_aircraft
Just my thoughts. I hope some biased mouth does not steer Trump in a wrong direction. And, the YF-23 people got robbed. That airplane was far ahead of its time. I’m afraid they just didn’t grease the right palms.
A loud faction of government and its media have rarely promoted any military program, whatever it may be, whether aircraft, ships, tanks, firearms, you name it.
They have tried to kill off or deny funding for every aircraft, every ship, every weapon system proposed and have killed the F-22 and ended production of all but a handful of currently produced 40 year old designs.
As such, it is not at all surprising that the general population only reads about what an expensive failure the F-35 is, as told by the loud faction of government and its media who are doing their best to kill it.
If Trump can get past that gauntlet and he actually talks with the people with hands on and seat of the pants knowledge and then wants to end the program, I'll be interested in what he has to say.
Until then, I've read the same reports he cites and I don't trust the reporters.
Propaganda works and we should know. We mastered the psychology long ago and have perfected the art form for the digital age.