Posted on 02/05/2015 3:59:46 PM PST by Mariner
122nd Fighter Wing is flying them in the ME as we type.
My buddies in the business say they're SURPRISED to see a plan for another manned fighter of any variety.
The plan as they know it is to leverage existing and planned airframes (F-15, 18, 22 and 35) with substantially upgraded RADAR/DATALINK combo.
The datalink portion will be used to control SWARMS of UAVs.
Up to a dozen expendables per manned aircraft.
Multiple purposes in each swarm...from attack to air superiority.
Maybe slow and visible won't matter.
Hey! Where are his red PJs?
I would set about building newer airframes of our 4th Generation aircraft for the time being.
The big aerospace companies are gearing up for the next long-range manned bomber program... apparently all those B1 and B2 bombers are virtually obsolete now, or so they and the Air Force would have us think. If they have their way we’ll spend hundreds of billions of dollars developing a plane that we’ll probably only build a few dozen of, at most.
Not all, but some, future operations will be able to be done by stealth unmanned aircraft. better less radar cross section designs may be able to be done without a pilot area and make their signatures quite small.
cheaper more effective a10s had to go b/c theymscared the enemy too much, did too much damage and protected our guys too much, fo obama’s tastes.
i liked them, but they’ve just taken way to long with the program it’s now outdated.
i’ve watched the series where boeing and lockheed battled for the contract. i believe they gave it to lockheed to keep them employed. if boeing would have had their new front end on their plane and had testing done they would have had no excuse to let lockheed win.
the problem is that the winner of the contract was based on the vtol version. not the regular version. trying to do too much with one plane.
China hacked our 50 TB plans and built a plane with two engines and lots of fuel and armament capacity.
F-22's have also already been to Asia.
Well, you think your wife is bad, wait til I tell ya about my buddy's...
No. For one it is not bigger, but the F-35 is considered 5th generation. The article is predicting 6th gen.
Just don’t take 20 years to bring it to the fleet.
Try not to have it be obsolete before flight testing is over.
Alex Vraciu, Hoosier WWII fighter pilot, dead at age 96
Dawn Mitchell, dawn.mitchell@indystar.com 7:05 p.m. EST February 3, 2015
Beyond-Darkness-June-20-1944
Alex Vraciu, one of the most acclaimed World War II Navy fighter pilots, died January 29, 2015 at the age of 96.
Born Alexander Vraciu in East Chicago, Ind., the youngest of two children to Romanian immigrants. After graduating from DePauw University in 1941, he joined the Navy where he earned his wings. He flew Hellcats in the Pacific and was a terror for the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service.
Vraciu spent five months as a wingman to Medal of Honor recipient Ed “Butch” O’Hare. Vraciu’s greatest mission came June 19, 1944 in what became known as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot”. Vraciu engaged an attacking Japanese air squadron 25 miles west of the USS Lexington and shot down 6 Japanese dive bombers in just eight minutes with only 360 rounds of ammunition.
Alex Vraciu ended World War II as the Navy’s fourth-ranking flying ace with 19 enemy aircraft shot down in flight and 21 destroyed on the ground.
Despite arguments from historians and politicians, Vraciu was twice denied the Medal of Honor. He was nominated by his commanding officer for the Medal of Honor during the war, but an admiral denied it. He was awarded the Navy Cross.
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2015/02/03/alex-vraciu-acclaimed-fighter-pilot-dead/22800749/
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