[USNBandit]

I had an exchange instructor that flew Harriers for the RN and it sounded frightening. To take off you had the nozzles back, ran the engine up to 90% and wiped out the controls. When cleared to take off you released the brakes and went to full throttle. At the end of the ramp you slapped the nozzles to 60 degrees and looked at the Engine Pressure Ratio gauge. If you didn't see at least 1.04, you punched out.

To land you only had 90 seconds of water injection which was required to hover. If you were in warm environments they would cut that to 60 seconds.

[valkyry1]

That sounds pretty scary alright.

The F-35 VTOL or CV would way better than that IMO, and it will go supersonic, carry more ordinance, is stealthy and has fantastic sensor integration with the pilot. The pilot can toss a missile in any direction he wants to, and who knows what we have in the way of missiles today.

I still dont get it why it is so popular to be down on the F-35 here when it has not even went into production yet. We cant just have F-22’s only.

You dont want to use the F-22 for a F-35 mission, it would be like making only Tiger tanks when you have Panzers, the Tiger used up way to much of their manufacturing resources to produce only Tigers. It reminds me of all the controversy on the F-18, F-111 and the B-1.