Posted on 01/29/2015 7:15:03 AM PST by Reverend Saltine
I am...a fan of the A-10 Warthog. I believe in the mission, and I believe that there is no other weapons platform out there that can do the job the A-10 does, with the same efficiency, effectiveness, and confidence that it provides to our troops on the ground. It’s big, ugly, and slow. It’s also rugged, durable, and extremely deadly. The Air Force likes new toys. Other than the venerable B-52, the A-10 is the oldest plane in the inventory. The F-35 was not built solely for the specific mission of ground support as was the A-10. The F-35 is the new F-16, or so goes the argument. It can do many things well, not just one. But the price tag is enormous. This is one time, I believe, that the USAF has it wrong. I am usually in favor of new technology. Battlefield innovation is a bad thing to lag behind in, but some innovations like the old F-111 never lived up to the hype. Is the F-35 an effective weapons system? It still might be, but it is not a “low cost” version of the F-22, and the jury is still out. The original idea was to match up the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II and repeat the success of the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Falcon. Then they tried to add the flexibility of the F-4, and it all went to hell. After over a decade of development and prototypes, cost estimates per unit have ranged from over $98 million...to $178 million for a standard A model to $337 million for the Navy version. The bottom line is that the cost per copy has risen exponentially higher than planned, and there simply will not be as many airplanes as originally planned. That changes the argument.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
That is, if Obama doesn’t close DM. Since the day he took office, Obama has terrorized Arizona any way he could.
Because people who made a career of flying the go-fasts and now have stars on their shoulders say so. Therefore, those of us paying the bills should just STFU...
The 22 has been “retired” a couple of times but they didn’t quit manage to get it to the airpark in the desert. It will fly until the 35 proves it is at least half as good, maybe for many years yet.
Hell, they gonna make an F-35 variation to replace the KC-134 and may be the Abrams, too.
Their understanding of "mission" has been overshadowed by their impending post-retirement "careers" with the aerospace manufacturers.
“Tough aircraft too! Those things can take a beating and still fly.”
They were designed to fly with 40% of their air surface gone. They also have redundant controls, hydraulics, cables, push rods.
The F-35 is like the Crusaders replacing their steel plate and chain mail with leather and trading their lances for billy clubs before assaulting the saracens.
Moslem victory over the Infidel is always the goal.
Damn, you’re right!
The things this tool can do !
Rus and Susie Phillips
Extremely useful tool, I’ve used it on almost every trip I have been on.
Indiana Jones
Ended up stabbing the cat when i was just trying to burn him.
Colby P.
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My history instructor at OCS flew A-10’s and F-117’s. He wouldn’t stop talking about the A-10’s.
Yes sparky. The argument does indeed apply to the 22 as well. But it doesn’t get people excited like it does on the 35 because the 22 is a capable fighter plane on its own with basically F-15 performance.
The F-35 is a different concept, “forget performance and hope stealth does it all”. Very different from the F-22. (all 187 of them, production line closed and tooling destroyed)
The EOTS system? You are bragging that the F-35 has the EOTS? LOL!
Older jets currently in service with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps can carry the latest generation of sensor pods, which are far more advanced than the EOTS sensor carried by the F-35. The latest generation pods—the Lockheed Martin Sniper ATP-SE and Northrop Grumman LITENING-SE—display far clearer high-definition video imagery in both in the infrared and optical spectrum—and from greater distances. Further, both pods have the ability to beam those full-motion video feeds to ground troops, which provides those forces with vital intelligence information.
Both pods also incorporate the ability to mark targets with an infrared laser beam—which the EOTS lacks—that helps pilots and ground controllers coordinate their attacks.
But the F-35 moonpig is stuck with mid 90s tech because of this two decade gestation period.
Im happy that you can earn your living doing something, somewhere with the 35, but just be grateful for the work. Don’t try to convince us that the 35 is anything buy a giant step backwards.
The U.S. military, with the exceptions of the Sherman Tank and F-16, has almost always chosen quality over quantity.
The original decision to procure the F-16 was as a "low cost fighter" supplement to the F-15 fleet. However that has been overshadowed by 40 years of reality.
In practice, the F-16 has been an outstanding performer far exceeding the original design expectation. It has performed so well it's systems were used to define the avionics and flight control systems baseline requirements of the next generation of fighters, the F-22 and F-35.
The author was also a little harsh regarding the F-111. The TFX concept was ugly and the F-35 is doing nothing to dispel the perception. Robert Strange McNamara masterminded the bad idea, one among his many. However as the 'Vark matured it was the one manned bomber system the soviets feared. They tried to negotiate it's demise during arms limitation talks.
The KF-35. Able to refuel any other aircraft up to 400 gallons! Ha!
Very true ref the 111. As a tactical bomber and as a strategic bomber it excelled and freaked out the world for a while. And the Soviets built their own copy, but it wasn’t as nearly good.
And back to the F-35. Despite its very weak power to weight ratio, astonishingly it has a higher wingloading than an F-104! This thing is dead if it ever has to fight one inch outside of its narrow tech performance envelope. IE,,the real world.
I grew up next to the Middle River, MD Air National Guard base. Watching them fly was excitng and delivered a sense of pride now lost. On a quiet day where my Grandparents lived you could hear the sounds of the practice raids comming off the Upper Chesapeake all the way in Back River.
It will be done. They are developing an aerodynamic fuel tank that can be towed by 4 KF-35s.
the GF-35 Abrams variant will have rudimentary wings, tracks, and a 55 millimeter cannon in a turret mounted behind the cockpit.
Just give them to the Corps. Otherwise they will be just parked in the desert. I would say they should be sold to Israel cheap but our HMIC hates them and wants them gone - God will win that one.
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