Bookmark .. looking forward to our resident flyboys’ input on this . . .
I hear he’s looking at buying super hornets instead. With the saved money, they should look at restarting the F22 program. The stealth capabilities seem like they would be useful for gaining control of the skies.
The bigger the corporation the bigger the corruption.
Or is it?
The bigger the corruption the bigger the corporation.
Lawyers know how to argue in court.
Obama is most comfortable when he’s arguing some trivial point.
Business people know how to conduct business.
Trump knows business.
I think all this is not only anti Trump but wrong
I saw at least five three and four star air forve officers and perhaps ten other officers leaving the venu while Trump was standing right by the door. nary a word nor a nod.
What happened was Trump had a sit down between Boing and the generals and Lockheed martin and the generals.
The plane manufacturers were told we need to review the costs. The generals were told in the presence of the manufacturers, we don’t want gold plated marginally required widgets. The purchasing process is going to be worked over from top to bottom
The Air force got ripped a NewOne
We have billions of other dollars to go after and the first thing on the plate is negotiate our offensive and defensive costs with an American corporation? Que?
This is the absolute lowest priority on the hit list.
Hardly.
The F 22 is waiting in the wings and ready to go, cheaper and just as efficient.
Want to bring in military weapon systems at low cost? Here’s how. Write one mission statement that you want the weapon to accomplish. Don’t change it until the weapon is delivered.
Don’t try to make a single weapon all things to all branches of the service.
Contractor derives requirements based on mission statement. No requirement creep, no cost overruns.
Senator Orrin Hatch R-Utah is all 100% for the F-35...this is going to be a good match, President Trump and if Hatch decides to stay in...I’ll put my money on President Trump!!!
Anyway, in the same way cancelling the Raptor's continued production was not prudent, simply cancelling the F-35 without a proper think wouldn't be either.
And I am saying this as someone who thinks the F-35 is a pig, but it may be a pig that is still better than any current legacy aircraft.
I feel like a combination of F22s and A10s would give us more for less than a pile of F35s. F35 seems like it does a lot of things OK, but nothing particularly well.
This coming from a guy with a C172. Take it for what it’s worth.
Can you say “margin compression”? I sold my LMT last week. Made a nice return, time to move on.
The Marines are supposed to get a VTOL variant of the F-35. They have assault carriers designed for jump-jets and have already retired their Harriers. If you cancel the F-35, the Marines are out of the fixed-wing aircraft business.
I was recently at the Nellis Air Force Airshow in Las Vegas and got to see the F35 fly. The F22 flew unlike anything I ever saw before in spectacular fashion, the F16 could fly almost likewise, the A10 was down right scary and if I was the enemy I’d crap my drawers if I knew it was hunting me.
The F35 merely took off banked in a turn and landed. I thought it was a very disappointing performance.
I talked to the pilots of the all the planes I saw fly there. They were all super enthusiastic about their planes except the F35 pilot who was no way near as enthusiastic. None of the pilots of the F22,F16,A10 would say a bad word about the F35 but no one would say anything good about it. I was left with the impression that the F35 was kinda of a pig.
By the way there was a Heritage flight near the end of the show where the F22, F35 and an old F86 Sabre flew all together in formation. The F86 was chosen to fly in lieu of WW11 aircraft because the F35 could not fly slow enough without stalling according to an Air Force pilot I had talked to.
somewhere, PukinDog is laughing his azz off...A couple trillion here a couple trillion there and you’re talking about real money.
The F35. “A camel is a horse designed by committee.”
Much of the total program cost of the F-35 is money already gone out the door for research and development and for production tooling and stockpiles. Cancelling the F-35 now would abandon most of the value of those prior expenditures -- and do so just as the going forward per aircraft cost is going down through better management and production efficiencies. More can be saved by multiyear contracting and some tough, Trump led bargaining with the prime contractor and subs.
Is continuing the F-35 worth the cost? It should be kept in mind that it comprises not one but three cutting edge fifth generation fighter/strike models with different costs and capabilities designed for three different sets of missions.
The conventional take off and landing F-35A model is now reaching the Israelis, who have eagerly awaited its extraordinary stealth, integrated sensor suite, and battle management capabilities. Analysts regard Israel's F-35A's as providing a new and nearly unstoppable strike capability against regional adversaries, including Iran. Given Trump's strong pro-Israel views, Israeli enthusiasm for the F-35 will make for a potent argument against cancellation.
The most troubled and expensive model, the F-35B, is a short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant intended to replace the Harrier formerly relied on by the Marines. The F-35C is thus meant to operate from austere forward bases and air-capable ships near combat zones. The Marines regard the F-35B as essential to their mission. With a retired Marine general as Secretary of Defense, the F-35B program seems likely to continue.
That leaves the F-35C, the Navy's carrier version. Even if that model of the F-35 goes forward -- which is what I expect -- the Navy will still be short of fighter and strike aircraft because its current aircraft fleet is aging out of service. My guess is that by threat, bluster, and bargaining Trump will end up getting the Navy some needed enhanced capability FA-18s on the cheap to fill in that gap, along with some cost paring from the F-35 bill.
While supporters and critics will debate the cost accounting, Trump will have assured that the Navy gets both its model of the F-35 and some new, improved version FA-18s. And Boeing will rack up new export sales from such an aircraft, which it will promote as a non-stealthy F-35 that will dominate most adversaries.