Posted on 09/08/2025 7:03:00 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
Uh, you have your planes mixed up.
The F-35 was in competition with the “Monica”
Uh, the Boeing X-32 Monica was the competition
And yet the F-84 (think that was it) was used extensively monitoring nuke tests in the pacific because it was so ruggedly built?
DFG, your comments display the wrong assumption by many that the P-39 was loved by the Russians only because they used it for low level ground attack. In the right hands, and in the right circumstances, it was quite capable. Most of the fighter vs. fighter battles on the Eastern Front were below 10,000 feet where the absence of adequate turbo-supercharging was not an important loss.
My dad was the Chief Engineering Officer for a squadron of
P-39’s stationed in Panama to guard the Canal. That was in 1942 and 1943. He liked the plane pretty well. Their squadron had access to a couple of Brewsters and the Colonel had a hopped up lightened and unarmed P-40 to fool around in. The pilots in the P-39’s were better than the Brewsters, but couldn’t ever get a bead on the Colonel’s Warhawk. (BTW, the Colonel was an arrogant S.O.B., disliked by all.) Their lives all changed when they got P-51’s and went to Burma.
The F-104 was literally called The Flying Coffin/Widowmaker.
Air&Space Smithstonian magazine had a short story from a guy had to fly through the post detonation cloud to take samples. Almost got caught too close at zero time once.
You are right... I was confusing the YF-23 with the F-35.
My apologies.
(I had thought that they had renamed it, like they had done with the F-17 (which later was renamed the F-18)).
Or you can ask me, with over 4000 hours
What is your opinion?
I’ll take it.
And get to come home every night.
He told me that he didn't think to much of them. He said the F35s were rushed into service with a "Boat Load" of problems. Rik said they fixed some of them,but not all.
He seems to think some Air Force General might have been bribed to OK the plane.
Unless your friend is Rico Rodriguez, he did not have 3 F-15 kills.
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