"Flying Piano" Costs Pentagon $1.5 Trillion

Townhall.com ^ | April 30, 2012 | Mike Shedlock

[Kickass Conservative]

If you build them in China, they will play Chopsticks.

[lentulusgracchus]

Odd thing about the F22, when they are flying slow they play “tones”

F-4's used to do that, too.

And C-5A's sounded like angry wildcats. Really, really, really big, deeply unhappy wildcats.

[lentulusgracchus]

The F-111...a do all for the USAF and Navy. The Navy rightly rejected it and the USAF put up with it as a bomber (sort of) for many years.

Saw F-111's exercising with British Buccaneers along the Tyne valley in 1989. I remember standing on the parapet of one of Hadrian's fortresses on his wall -- Birdoswald, I think it was -- and looking down at two of our bold countrymen roaring by in terrain-following mode. I was very proud of them, as they added a "then and now" military flavor to a military day.

[lentulusgracchus]

If you must have a air superiority fighter for the Navy, you don’t now and won’t with the F-35, fix the F-22 for the role.

FWIW, Dick Cheney had the jigs and dies for the F-14 destroyed, but drawings remain for two followon versions of the basic F-14. Pick one and run with it. The NAV needs a better aircraft than the F/A-18 for fleet defense, and the F-14 variant "Tomcat II"/"Super Tomcat" (actually two designs to pick from) is that aircraft. Slather some radar-absorbent coatings on it and go for it.

[lentulusgracchus]

If Japan launched 6,000 WWII Kamikaze Zeroes against a single current US carrier, what would happen?

The carrier's rail gun, missile batteries, and Phalanx would get pretty warm, but it's doubtful that the opposing authority could organize such an atack sufficiently to keep his a/c from running into one another, and still achieve coordination sufficient to defeat the lightning-fast defensive weapons. (Which isn't even considering what the fighter cap could do.)

[cva66snipe]

Though they were high maintenance the Tomcats ruled the skies. I never understood why they ended the program instead of keeping the plane and throwing the money into upgrading onboard systems. Ending the F-14's was a big mistake.

We also called the Vent Cleaners. During a Dependents cruise {in and out same day} they would do an airshow. A F-14 would come by at Flightdeck level about a quarter mile off port side full throttle. For about a week after we got trouble calls where the dust have come out of the vents LOL.