Posted on 07/08/2024 6:01:36 AM PDT by Fish Speaker
Forget the Chinese. There are days when the Air Force seems like its own worst enemy.
After a decade of priority investment and confident endorsements from leaders, the Air Force is getting antsy about NGAD, the sixth-generation fighter plane planned to replace the F-22 as the centerpiece of air dominance. Just this week, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall expressed more concerns about the cost, the concept and the engine, capped off by hinting the Air Force is knee-deep in “trade-offs.”
That’s a big risk. The service’s entire next-generation plan — Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the B-21 bomber, upgraded tankers and F-35s — has been built on the assumption a sixth-generation fighter would be fielded in the 2030s. Yanking the NGAD plane out of the mix while the program gets some sort of redesign puts air dominance for the joint force in jeopardy.
There seem to be only two explanations behind Kendall’s statements. One, it’s the budget. Or two, the Air Force has been swept up in a wave of enthusiasm for CCA and all its promise, which is starting to dilute the role for the NGAD plane.
Either way, moving away from NGAD could be perilous.
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingdefense.com ...
Step 1: Fire EVERY officer and enlisted that follows “woke” crap. Flush the turds and get real ability and talent back into the military. Oh, flush twice, it’s a long way to D.C.
The whole thing is a joke.
First, China isn’t as big of a threat as they say. Just like Russia wasn’t. They do this to scare up more spending.
Having said that the F35 is a joke. It’s supposed to be a jack of all trades...which means master of none. But it was supposed to save us money...doesn’t appear to be doing that either.
There is only one solution - spend more money!
The F-35 was a stupid idea then as much as now
I had people trying to do that with software - I refused
We had two dissimilar software systems (deployed on different platforms) - each functioning quite well independently - the interfaces were quite similar yet under the hood the wiring was completely-different.
They wanted to combine the software applications - an oversimplified idea regarding the interface - which was simple enough to modify each time.
It was about more than just a database connection - the wiring was completely different and juggling it would have harmed the performance and reliability of each system.
In the case of the F-35 they STILL wound up building 3 different planes.
Indeed - and notice the well-oiled technique of waffling at the middle/near end of development cycle, to jump on to the next shiny thing, starting yet another extended development cycle —> WHICH IS WHERE THE MOST FUNDING IS EXPENDED! And fungible spending at that.
We’re being bled dry by these vampires.
Piloted aircraft are passe. Close down the worthless Air Farce Academy.
China may be over-rated but they are still a major threat. An assault on Taiwan would eliminate the world's major source of high end computer chips resulting in chaos.
Basically, the USAF cannot afford fighters or bombers. Time to cut the defense budget from 4% GDP to 3%.
Very true. But we’d need something other than a better USAF fighter jet to defend Taiwan.
Meant to also add...we’d be better off taking the money we’d waste on yet another fighter jet and invest it in making computer chips in the USA. Invest in something that will actually give a return on that investment.
Forget that! The AF is way too busy implementing DEI and being WOKE to worry about defeating our enemies.
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