I'll be sure to pass that along to the folks I know who are being laid off and / or dispersed around Boeing.
(Besides, McCain has staked his career on battering both the the plane and the manufacturer.)
PS: To all those preaching for unmanned combat platforms...remember back to the guns versus missiles debate of the fifties and early sixties.
Missile armed F4s sucked when the time came and there are guns on everything flying or designed today because technology looked better than it performed.
When those pilotless 'platforms' go up against an enemy I'd really like to think we had adequate back up in the event of a wipe out.
A guns fight is a significant reason of UCAVs.
A plane that can pull 10-15 Gs, or more, will have the advantage in a guns-only fight.
With missiles, it doesn’t matter so much.
The problem is situational awareness for the “pilot” sitting in a trailer. He currently can’t swivel his head to track the target, so they’ll probably have to put a gimble inside the cockpit with binocular vision.
I have to wonder how well these UAVs will fare when they
come up against a 21st century jammer (my term for
something the enemy must be looking at) which prevents the
remote pilot from communicating with it?