Posted on 02/18/2016 11:43:30 AM PST by sparklite2
A sleepy airport in rural China is not where you'd expect to find America's latest and greatest fighter plane. And yet at some point in the last six weeks a F-22 Raptor--or full-sized copy of one--was sighted by commercial imaging satellites parked at Pucheng Neifu Airport in China.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
OMG, do you realize this could LITERALLY be true?
And then Obama CANCELS OUR F-22 program!
Treason.
Yes, the conventional round engine exhausts are just visible in the photo. The F-22 exhaust ducts are shaped to enhance stealth and can be vectored for maneuverability. Aircraft shape, no 90 degree surface angles for example, is relatively easy to imitate but is only one factor in making an aircraft less radar reflective. That the Chinese have been working on an F-22 lookalike is old news.
“I love all the laughter directed at the Chi-Coms. Sounds frighteningly similar to the derision directed at the “buck-toothed, glasses-wearing Japs” and their cheap antiquated aircraft prior to Dec. 7, 1941.
Lots of young Americans died because we failed to recognize a real threat when it existed.”
Indeed, the Jap Zero was arguably the finest fighter plane on the planet for a long time. Its drawback was what made it able to climb so fast and maneuver so well -— lack of armor. They also had superb, but too few, pilots.
Additionally, when the war broke out, American torpedoes were virtually worthless, going too deeply under the target to hit anything. Sub commanders would return from patrol having hit nothing. Washington blamed the skippers before doing anything about it after the war had been going on for a year or two.
If you read the history of the Battle of Midway, it’s largely an embarrassing litany of wasting men and material against an enemy who suffered not a scratch until late in the game.
I gave one to my last girl friend and now she believes me.........
Its mostly stolen....BAE UK in 2010 while paying up FCPA and related fines admitted some of the F22 design was stolen by India and paid additional fines to the US and Uk Gov.. about 480M pounds ... Look at the joint Indian/Russian F22 clone... I am sure the Chinese stole it from India...
Hence, the reason congress wanted to cut the F22 budget...
Maybe Hilary gave away more than secrets??
DANG! Beat to it. Was klintoon payback for all that campaign money.
Happy Birthday Hu,
Your friends,
Barry, Mooch, Shrill and Bubba
Oh great, now we lost more jobs, but we can have the Chinese build them for us at 1/3 rd the cost.
clever
Would you agree that our arrogance and short-sightedness contributed to our unpreparedness?
Once hit over the head with a 2x4, the Grumman boys went back to the slide rulers and quickly came back with the Hellcat, designed specifically to be a Zero killer. They succeeded way beyond what could be expected under the circumstances. Not a very handsome airplane, but effective at its task.
(I had a good friend that flew them in WWII. He liked the Hellcat much better than the Corsair, which he also flew in combat. Interestingly, he said the Corsair wasn’t significantly faster in actual service.”)
Oldplayer
No, Clintons seconded by JV Obama. NOTHING he does is original!
Sounds like a typical Harbor Freight product.
!NO! What am I going to use? My model making career is over ... washed up, finito, done, cooked ...
My thoughts too.
I suspect the main reason we were unprepared was our isolationist tendencies and the belief that we were safe behind our two oceans.
The Japanese, following Pearl Harbor and their complete victories in the Pacific, had accomplished everything they had sat out to do, and like a car-chasing dog who doesn’t know what to do with the car when he catches it, began suffering from what they later described as “victory disease,” the feeling of being invulnerable. Yamamoto knew better.
Hellcat was the first plane the put the guns concentric to the rolling axis, thus you could turn and still keep the rounds on target... the Corsair not so much, still have to know your lead and lag plus range...plus the Hellcat was much easier to land on a carrier... I knew several pilots that flew both and hands down all chose the Hellcat
The F-22 doesn’t have a budget. The (Sen-D) Obey Amendment killed the program years ago by forbiding export. The Chinese knock off came out several years after the amendment was enacted.
Killing the part of the Pentagon budget used towards the dog-pile F-35 ... that would be worthwhile. But that money will go towards vital things like: the navy’s self-sinking LCS and installing female friendly restrooms, lactation and pregnancy awareness programs - and coming up with physical standards that females can meet for all services and the systems needed to eliminate all training scores generated by said females.
As did the Indian version... the theft occurred in the late 1990’s but only was acknowledged in 2010...
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