Posted on 12/29/2016 10:23:02 AM PST by Mariner
A trio of Connecticut Democratic lawmakers is calling President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for finding an alternative to the F-35 a “total nonstarter.”
“Any suggestion that there is a substitute for the F-35 is a total nonstarter,” Reps. Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro and John Larson said in a statement Friday. “This is a program that has been vetted ad nauseum by the Pentagon, the Congress and independent experts. There is simply no aircraft in production today that can compare with the F-35’s advanced avionics, networked capabilities and integrated stealth.”
On Thursday, Trump took aim at the F-35 fighter jet for the second time in as many weeks, tweeting that he wants to explore a “comparable F-18.”
“Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet,” he tweeted.
The F-18 is a fourth-generation plane and does not have the capabilities that define the fifth generation F-35, including stealth. If Trump is serious about redesigning the F-18, that could mean years of development and billions of dollars.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Thanks. Mariner sent me the report by the Heritage foundation and it was very positive about the aircraft.
I’ve been in a Cessna, that’s about it :) And no unfriendly flyers in Florida or Nevada at the time!
The three of them combined could not tell the difference between an F-35 and a Gonorrhea smear.
“If the Air Force doesn’t want to fly A-10’s then let the Army aviation brigades have them.”
Agreed.
But the Army has some CAS issues of their own, otherwise why would they cancel the Kiowa helo? It’s arguable it was as effective as an A-10.
Problem is that Lockheed is laying off testers and others are leaving the program just when more and more problems are popping up with the 3F software package that would supposedly activate the gun. All sorts of things that are supposed to be simple with the F-35 turn out to be very complex.
Don't be surprised if that's put off too.
Yup, Kiowa program is a mess. Hopefully there will still be some that Trump can pull out of storage.
If it been aggressively produced in '42 and '43 as a pure fighter it certainly would have prolonged the war by changing allied bombing tactics.
Speer acknowledges that US industry doomed any chances of military victory for Germany as soon as they entered the war.
Speer, who was Hitler's chief architect before the war became Minister of Armaments due to his abilities of organization and propensity of letting producers produce as they saw best, rather than excessive oversight.
Even with the catastrophic bombing destroying their cities, aircraft production in '44 was far greater than in previous years.
The biggest delay in the Me-262 program was that Junkers couldn’t produce the Jumo 004 engines in any quantity until Summer 44’.
And then there were no alloys for the turbine blades so they typically would fail after less than a dozen hours running time.
US gave the USSR trucks, rations, uniforms, boots etc. that kept them in the war.
Otherwise Stalin would have simply run out of men by 1944 and have had to settle with Hitler.
The amount of money spread around to politicians by the primes is huge, but I would wager it is dwarfed by 2nd, 3rd & 4th tier suppliers. Lockmart, on purpose, doled out work to nearly every congressional district in the country. This insures that every congresscritter will fight to keep the business in their district.
fascinating stuff. Thank you.
Kiowa: Interesting point. But for getting in, delivering Hell, and getting out in a hurry surrounded by a titanium bathtub mounted over a 30mm Gatling cannon and hard points, in an aircraft that’s been known to keep flying on one wing, one working engine, and duct tape, I think I’d choose a Warthog over just about any helicopter. But that’s just me.
“20 years ago F-35 technology was found in science fiction books, now it’s reality”
I’m an old flight test guy. There is nothing in any new plane, in terms of avionics and technology, that can’t be integrated into an old plane with very few exceptions.
This plane is a piece of pork. You are either a PR guy, or very gullible.
It may well be a capable airframe, eventually. That’s fine. But don’t pretend it’s the sole keystone of freedom and peace.
It’s an overly expensive piece of hardware with technology that could be implemented elsewhere if there weren’t so many political oxen gored in doing so.
Dude...."internet in the sky" involves much more than what you are describing. Check out this link and see if you can see the end game.
Before the A-10 is disparaged so very much, it might be pointed out that ISIS, for one, is unable to contest the air. The ground radar has a tough time tracking a craft coming in at ground clutter level, about 50 feet off the deck, and even if it is subsonic, there is no intention to make it any kind of “stealth”. Hell, the shriek of its approach should strike fear into the enemy ground troops, and the “phart” of that on-board cannon should send them into headlong flight.
Well, good point and true. I hope Trump will do those things.
Pretty simple.
Over promised - yup
under delivered -in some areas for sure, in some areas, not so much. Still work in progress
way over cost - by intent. New jets are spendy. 2019 unit cost is $85 million , projected 2019 cost of unrated Hornet is about $75-80 million (plane does not yet exist so it may be more)
For comparison , the Eurofighter is pricing out at 185 million a plane and the Rafael costs about 138 million euros
Trump needs to come to terms with the sharks at LMCO on price. Asking the simple question, “what is the most efficient production volume and production rate to give the best price.” could help bring the price down significantly
LMCO overhead cost is simply not to be believed - inefficient low rate production drives costs into the far right hand corner very quickly.
OK, I read it. It’s a radio. It has some COMSEC buzzers and bells, but you’d expect that. There’s no magic to comms. It all runs on basically the same technology. That’s why I wonder why this super-amazing network feature is something to be so impressed by.
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