was this a launch test??? the third pic shows air to air on the bay doors“Open the pod bay door, Hal.”
Something’s missing...the other engine. It needs another engine.
Ping.
If it`s got mini-bomb bays, it`s mini-bomber.
was this a launch test??? the third pic shows air to air on the bay doors Dummy smart bombs? I'll put that in my oxymoron file with Congresstional ethics.
...but I will tell you what is impressive to me:
...The Collings Foundation has brought a B-17 a B-24 and a P-51 to Dallas to show and to sell rides for fund raising. I live in the traffic pattern of Love Field and the B-17 and B-24 have been flying low over my house. It almost brings tears to my eyes to see and hear these old planes still flying.
They radiate competence...you see them and just know that they are the finest craftsmanship in the world. The sound that their engines make is a low grumble....and you just know that the German people who were not involved with the NAZI's hated to hear these sounds rumbling in the distance, but were absolutely moving their way....
...they will be flying all day tomorrow, and I will be watching every one...
Twice as many latches, twice as many hinges, twice as many doors etc. as would be practical... more to go wrong and more to maintain.
And half as many engines as it should have.
Its pretty, but somehow not as fearsome looking as an F4F Phantom with fully exposed armament on its belly and wings. But then again, the old school way of dropping bombs is long gone. You don’t need to carry 18,000 pounds of weapons when you can now decimate the target with just a couple of precise hits.
At two hundred million per copy it should crap little gold bricks when the doors are opened. What a waste.
The Chinese PLA and the Russian engineeers just love this sort of photographic info -
While these are beautiful and “impressive” pictures, the sad truth is that the F-35 is going to go down in history as one of the worst, over-hyped military aircraft boondoggles ever.
It will be another F-111 type failure, in that the politically-motivated insistence on demanding that one aircraft perform too many different roles, for too many different service constituencies will result in it not performing any of them to the highest levels necessary to maintain our superiority.
In combat, one size does not fit all, and it never will.
The military is under the control of Obama. Think about that when you look at these pictures.