Posted on 01/14/2016 9:49:39 AM PST by SandRat
Based on what information? I've seen that it has its own growing pains, much like any other aircraft program has had, but "a total failure"?
The F-35 is a total failure.
I think it is also the acknowledgment that the F-35, successful or not, could not replace the role the A-10 plays. Some that can lumber of a small area and pummel it has high value when dealing with ISIS cell engagements. That role is more important than ever in the small battle unit war we face today.
It’s funny how people (like you) post things like this about the F-35 when they don’t have the barest clue as to its effectiveness or what the actual story is behind its “replacing” of the A-10.
Before believing all of the garbage media hype about the F-35, let’s take a trip down memory lane at what other weapon systems were touted as total garbage. The AV-8 Harrier jump jet was nicknamed “The Widowmaker” by the media. Congress Democraps and their lapdog media was so against Nimitz Class aircraft carriers that they were digging up outdated and wrong World War II technical reports stating that large aircraft carriers were sitting ducks and a lot of smaller ones were the way to go. Jimmy Carter was so against building a single new carrier during his term that he attempted to veto the entire Defense Authorization Bill over it. How about AWACS, the most successful defense acquisition program in history? Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.) and Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.) waged personal war against it. They called AWACS a “sham”, “disaster”, and “contributes nothing and has a zero chance of surviving a war”. The fact is, AWACS was so adept at directing airpower that it multiplies the effectiveness of forces it controls. As awesome as our frontline fighter jets were in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, AWACS is the real reason that we completely routed Iraqi forces in that war. And now we’re seeing the same garbage articles about the F-35. It kills me how gullible people are.
When I see some sign of the F-35 being effective I’ll let you know. Right now the only people who think it’s amazing are not the people who have to use it or depend on it.
The plane should be named the Obama due to the magical properties so many of its believers attribute to it.
The Iranians still fly their Tomcats
F-35 is too many things in one package. Self lift, or highly maneuverable, take your pick, but not both.
AWACS is great in uncontested airspace. It and the tankers would be the first targets in any battle against a creditable air force, such as the Sovs.
They also still fly 747 SPs.
Saw one in Tokyo last year. It was leaking oil and hydraulic fluid from dozens of places.
Not really, it’s a myth that the Air Force “wanted” to retire the A-10. The Air Force was forced to choose the A-10 or F-35, they couldn’t have both. So what do you do, chuck a 5th generation weapon system (remember, SecDef Robert “Screw The Airforce” Gates chopped the F-22 program down to 183 aircraft in a personal vendetta against the Air Force and was chief architect of the retire-the-A-10 plan; he’s still bitter that he was involuntarily separated (kicked out for poor performance) when he was an Air Force lieutenant with Strategic Air Command)? It’s a horrible choice, chuck Close Air Support or chuck 5th generation capability in a giant step backward for US airpower. It’s like living in a desert and having to decide between heating your house in the winter or air conditioning it in the summer and being told you HAVE TO choose one because you don’t get both. Do you want a house that 35 F all day everyday in the winter or >100 F all summer? What do you do?
If you want to bitch about somebody, start with SecDef Gates, who made this nightmare a reality.
Oh really? I worked for the US military for the last 25 years as active duty, civilian employee, and contractor. Try again, you’re so far out of your league that it’s not even funny.
I don’t know enough about the F35 program to agree or disagree with your statement.....but I know no aurborne platform that can do what an A-10 does and am glad to hear they are not retiring it.
That’s very true. It’s ridiculous that for an aircraft to survive the acquisition process, it has to promise to be everything and then go out and “prove” through testing that it can do everything. And when it inevitably doesn’t, all your naysayers from competing companies that didn’t get the contract, anti-military politicians, and their lapdog media sit and write dissertations on what a horrible failure it is in every area. If we did everything the media told us to, we wouldn’t have fielded a single new weapons system since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Wow. I’m simply devastated by your comments and will now have to leave the internet forever.
Come on Meg, you’re getting slow. I guess it takes more time for the electrons to make it up to northern Wyoming (which by the way, that’s where I’m originally from). Since you want to act like a college freshman trolling the message boards of the Boston Globe, whaddaya got? And don’t send me your garbage links from AboveTopSecret.com.
We’re on horrifically slow DSL and so is our next door neighbor who is a current USAF brigadier who likes to talk to my husband, a retired USMC ‘light bird’ of 25 years service. I listen and I would think the man knows what he’s talking about.
Say what you want. The 35 is slower, can’t out accelerate, out turn, or out range, or outgun anything it is likely to encounter. Russian designs exceed it in all those. It can’t stay in the sky with a 16 either. Yeah, it’s dogmeat for a 70s design.
The 35 supposedly will prevail because of stealth and software. But those only work in BVR encounters which we nearly always refuse to allow. If it does anything nutty like get within visual range, (fighters never do that, huh?) it simply cannot refuse a fight. It cannot escape.
The 35 is a national embarrassment, a monument to a corrupt procurement system. Grunts know about warthog magic. You need to get your mouth away from the government nipple and get your head straight on the 35.
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