Posted on 06/06/2002 3:23:27 AM PDT by spetznaz
The thing is, no matter what you do to/for the F/A-18E, it still won't have the fuel load to go anywhere.
No problem, mon. It took me only about 100 hours to figure that out. ;)
Btw, thank YOU for posting that article. Interesting stuff.
<IMG src=" http://www.flightjournal.com/articles/su27/twin_Su-7.jpg">
Think we should pay to build the F14 molds again?
How much Russian nukes do you want to spend?
Somehow the consumerist tendencies have gotten over our strategic priorities.
Lets look at this. The F-14 has been killed! The current crop of Tomcats will not be replaced once they become too aged to fly, and the tooling to build them was destroyed by Cheney (his reasons remain mysterious)!
As for the F-18 it is no match for a naval Su-33 with a trained pilot at the helm. A sukhoi can outfly an F-18, even when the F-18 has external fuel tanks and the Sukhoi doesn't (actually Sukhois do not carry external tanks since they do not need them). And it can outmanouevre the hornet hands down.
Actually the reason the Australians opted for the Sukhoi and started replacing their F-18s is due to Indonesia purchasing a number of Sukhois (i am not sure whether they were the naval su-33s or the 'normal' Su-27/30), but Australia saw that its F-18s could not cope with the Su, especially Sus armed with R-77s. Thus its decisions regarding tis jets.
I almost worship the Grumman F-14 and i think it is one of the coolest badboys out there. However the tomcat is being put to sleep, and the hornet is not up to the job (unless the job is flying to Iraq and shooting down 'monkey model' Mig-29s with the lowest tech Russia decided to give the Iraqis, and flown by inept Iraqi pilots). What if we have to face a foe with upgraded Sukhois and Rateka-77s, and all we have is F-18s?
And by the way the Sukhoi can be coated with RAM to reduce its radar visibility by 70% (the indians got that from russia).
You want to tell me you are willing to match our pilots against that potentiality (not India, but some nation with Sus)?
We can have, do, or build practically anything. Will that be cash or charge?
The defect in your proposal is that it's too sensible. Neither the Navy brass nor Congress could ever come to grips with doing anything that doesn't cost billions of dollars and take 15 years to complete.
I will add that I don't think we should be looking only for parity. We should be after getting the best.
Still, the SU's could fill a gap while we're spending billions -- plus the over-runs -- and waiting 15 years.
The first one was how they could put the F-14 tomcat to sleep, and replace it with the F-18!!!!
Instead of that they should have 'juiced' up the F-14, given it better avionics and fire-control systems, and then thrown it at the bad guys.
What other plane apart from the F-14 can operate the Phoenix missile? None!
What other plane can fly as far as the F-14? Only the A-6 intruder... but wait. That one was killed too!
What other naval plane is as efficient as the F-14 in terms of being able to fit into various combat situations, and emerge superior? None. The F-18A was actually the aircraft that was competing against the f-16 (it lost to the F-16 and was 'pushed' to the navy), and although it was an ok fighter it was NOT a fighter-bomber. Then they made it into the E, which to most is neither a great fighter, nor a good strike aircraft!
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