Posted on 03/16/2009 10:15:25 PM PDT by utahson
The Russians are building the PAK-FA and SU-X7, and the Chinese are building the J-xx. These planes are stealthy, supercruise, and are ripoffs of the F-22 raptor platform. We need more F-22’s to maintain our air superiority.
Isn’t is staggering? How have we come to this? Ugh. If it were a black hole, I might feel better, but much of it is political payoff and payback, and also will be used to cement liberal policies, government organizations and liberal organizations in place.
2004 might be seen as the last real Democratic election in this country. How sad is that.
Ain’t that the truth. There are definitely times - when I hit that ‘Post’ button - I feel like the drill instructor of the afterlife.
This sounds like more than the military budget cut of 10% that he announced in the fall. Obama is a communist first, last and always. Just wait until H.R. 1388, The Give Act, passes and civilian corps training camps are set up on college campuses where the youth of our nation are recruited into the Obama Red Guard. Think all of America will wake up then? I just hope it won’t be too late.
So you are an ex-fighter jock. What’s your degree in? Animal husbandry? And just like the majority of ex-fighter jocks, you think that being IN one make you an expert on all matters about them. I’ve seen hundreds just like you. None are special and most are jerks.
Stealth has to do with SHAPE and special surfaces more than what is internal to the aircraft. If the Air Force had set out 25 years ago to gradually make the F-15s and F-16s more stealthy, they would rival the F-22 by now, which was in development for the longest period of ANY fighter in history and cost probably 50 times as much. If there aren’t a dozen retired generals that have become very wealthy off “consulting” for the F-22 (which mainly consists of using Pentagon contacts to make sure the spigot from Congress doesn’t get turned off), I’ll kiss your butt and give you a week to draw a crowd.
Now tell me, Mr Ex-Spurt Ex-Fighter Jock, how does an F-22 defeat passive radar? You’ve heard of it, haven’t you? Passive radar doesn’t rely on the radar cross section of an aircraft for detection. Instead it uses powerful computers and arrays of antennas to constantly scan for “holes” in the electromagnetic field of the scanned area and ALL aircraft interrupt the electromagnetic field.
Because they did practically nothing to upgrade the performance of them over the past 30 years. Canards and thrust vectoring upgrades, both of which proved to greatly increase the performance of test bed models, were never implemented, mainly because of the Air Force’s constant pining over the latest sexiest F-Geewhiz. What was the development price tag of the F-22? $5 billion over 15 years? At least! In any industry other than public-coffer-funded-defense-projects, that would buy you five times as much aircraft as we got and the final price would be half as much in a quarter the time.
And the F-35 by all accounts won’t be half the aircraft of the F-22.
Face it, a great many of the defense contracts are works projects for retired generals, admirals and politicians.
Did your wife leave you for a fighter pilot?
In any case, for all your venom, you’ve failed to mention your own vast qualifications.
There are some things that can be done to improve stealth, but it is hard to redesign the basic airframe. It is hard to redesign inlets, etc. In any plane, these all work together to generate performance. That is why it is far more cost effective to start from scratch, rather than try to redesign a plane built with no regard to stealth.
BTW - F-22s are cost effective with F-15s as they come off the assembly line. Cost a bit more, but not much while offering far greater performance. That is why the USAF isn’t buying the latest export version of the F-15, with improved stealth features. The money you save is trivial to the performance you lose.
You don’t know enough to have an intelligent discussion on passive detection, including radar & other forms.
You might want to seek counseling for your bitterness. I’ve worked with too many REAL aviation engineers to believe you are one. Good luck with waste management.
There have been a great many important upgrades to the F-15 during the last 30 years. I had the good fortune to work on some of the upgrades to the F-16. And the A-10 was given a new model (A-10C) after its upgrades, done in the last 3 years.
If you knew the square root of squat, you wouldn’t waste time lusting after thrust vectoring.
BOT doesn’t need qualifications; he “keeps up with the trends”.
If the Air Force had set out 25 years ago to gradually make the F-15s and F-16s more stealthy, they might rival the F-22 by now, at a cost far more than $5 billion.
You really think anyone could do the engineering and structural retrofits on the entire F-15/F-16 fleet, including new avionics, engine replacements and wholesale structural changes in 25 years for a mere $200 million a year?
At $200 million a year, it would take 25 centuries.
Someone who thinks the development cost of the F-22 was $5B is living deep in la-la land.
And anyone who really was an engineer of any kind would instinctively know that it is easier and cheaper to design stealth in from scratch than to try to upgrade a non-stealth aircraft.
Excuse me, we probably pissed away $25 billion on the F-22. Mostly on overpaid “consultants” like you who sat in bars trying to impress drunken women with your has-been ex-fighter jock pot belly. Your engineering skills are limited to hanging around REAL engineers who know what they are doing, desperately trying to understand what they are talking about so you don’t look like the idiot you are. You are the Hank Kimball of the airfield.
I’ll bet you were kicked out of the military for screwing the enlisted men’s wives when they were out on TDY. No wonder some officers are shot by their own men.
Wow! So I was right about your wife...
Keep your day job...your lacking in comedic talent....
Standoff airborne RADAR technology from 30 years ago is capable of tracking and firing on multiple targets at the 80 mile range. Why dogfight? Go figure what the F-22's RADAR can do...
We'll, some of us know how pilots think. They're Gods....in their own minds and inexpendable. Would you laugh or cry hearing a pilot....sitting in a chair.... at a console.....halfway around the world in a safe environment....preparing to control a Global Chicken, calling a Redball, for a loose wheel on his chair?
No...I believe we hit the embassy to send a message and it had nothing to do with losing the F-117. If your theory is correct, why didn't they shoot down more F-16s than just the one?
You guys are missing my point. I'm not for cutting back our programs. I'm just saying your rationality is not, well, rational. We attacked and destroyed the 4th largest military in the world a few years back. How many dogfights were there? Using "dogfights" as criteria for building a better flying machine is not rational or logical in this day and age.
Hmmm...let's take our current 40 year old front line air superiority fighter. With orders to kill, if a bogie gets within 40 miles of him, his airplane is either broke or the pilot is a dumbass.
Interesting thread. But I wouldn't call the APG-68 an excellent RADAR package, even with it's current version.
Never say never and always expect the unexpected.. We should have learn a lesson about Pearl Harbor, be prepared...
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