Posted on 08/25/2022 3:45:57 PM PDT by whyilovetexas111
The late, great Sean Connery offered several classic “one-liners” in his lengthy career, and among the best was in 1996’s The Rock, when as a former MI-6 operative, he states bluntly, “Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and f*ck the prom queen.”
The YF-23 Story
Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor can be seen as the winner in this case, and while it never had such relations with a prom queen, it has earned a reputation as the most capable air superiority fighter ever to fly. The “loser” was the Northrop-McDonnell Douglas YF-23, an experimental aircraft that competed in the late 1980s and early 1990s against the YF-22 in the United States Air Force’s Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program.
(Excerpt) Read more at 19fortyfive.com ...
The biggest problem with the YF-23 was the choice of engines for the evaluation flights. Northrup seemed to be wedded to GE at the hip for the test flights, and the engines caused several problems with flame outs, unexpected engine problems mid flight, and just plain old not enough juice compared to the PW. Lockheed flew F22’s with both engines, but the power available and thrust vectoring in the F22 with PW5000’s was not matched by GE. The YF23 was stealthier, but no thrust vectoring and the poor performance by the engine/airframe combination selected for the flight, performance and weapons testing cost Northrup the contract.
Yeah, in ten years the prom queen divorces the "winner," takes his house and his kids and three-quarters of his after-tax income.
My understanding is that military contracts get awarded as to whether Who is the President. If the President is a Democrat the aircraft manufacture or most of the components most come from a Blue State and be giving tons of money to the Democrat party, if the President is a Republican the aircraft manufacture most come from a Red state and be giving tons of money to the Republican party. I’ve also heard that full bird colonels that become Generals become Generals because they more or less become politicians. This might be all an exaggeration but I think it is closer to the truth then many people want to admit.
My experience was from Lockheed point of view. Democrat admins seemed to favor Boeing while GOP favored Lockheed. Hard to pin down the state because these companies have multiple plants all over. But the state that was going to get the most jobs did affect the mil buyers who reported to congress.
Most Clickbait is as informative as 19FortyFive.
Agreed, except for one thing: They’re losing grip, and what’s the one thing every government does when it’s desperate for distraction?
War. And I’m not talking about Taiwan. The problem is that the only rational choice is another nuclear power (India).
The CCP’s options are narrow indeed, but war with the US - meaning any Pacific power with whom we have a pact - is suicidal economically.
So, the question is academic: What will the CCP do as its grip continues to slip?
Suddenly the continuous nature of their so-called ‘zero covid’ makes perfect sense.
It’s a 50/50 outcome. The CCP might go full scorched earth. That is a definite possibility. It may be that the CCP may have an internal war or they may go external. Either way they will end up with an internal war. Ugly, world impacting….. it will be epic.
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