well, I imagine its in the pilots own interest to say it is the best thing ever... I'm not saying to stop the program, I'm just saying they have been working on it for 20 years now and still don't seem to have a working fleet. Oh, and it was supposed to be affordable. there is always that.
Much of the value of the F 35 lies in the sensor suite. I am not a fan of the one-size-fits-all airplane, and I’m not a fan of how the cost grew on this thing.
Well, if it is in the pilot’s best interest to say their platform is the best, then we can discount your A-10 Pilot comments just as easily, right?well, I imagine its in th epilots own interest to say it is th ebest thing ever... I'm not saying to stop the program, I'm just saying they have been working on it for 20 years now and still don't seem to have a working fleet. Oh, and it was supposed to be affordable. there is always that.
Air Force has a history of this, its like the B1.. I think they pretty much retired them, and the B2 cost's so much they only use it for special duty... meanwhile they still use B52's... I believe the USAF still has 70 of them in service.. which is incredible, because that air frame has been around almost as long as the obsolete Iowa class battleship.
Have you heard of USS Vicennes?it doesn't appear that the Russians can approach a battlefield either.. on foot or in the air.
they shoot their own planes down.. this was last week
Russia Shoots Down Its Own Su-35 Jet for Second Time Within Days: Reports
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-shoots-down-own-jet-second-time-su-35-1832781
www.popularmechanics.com
A10 maintenance was a jobs program for the local economy in which it was based. The USAF tried to kill it many times and made some weird compromise.
Right but it never went up against a Tier 1 adversary (ex, Russians).
yeah. look at it this way, there aren't any Tier 1 adversaries . probably hasn't been since Korea and Mig Alley.
I agree, but one thing I have observed over my lifetime seems to be the idea that in order to fuel the military industrial complex the USA always seems to need an enemy.. imaginary or not How many aircraft carriers do we need when no potential enemy has even one useable model? Lot of stuff like that, where you know it is a jobs program disguised as a military operation.
Sure it may be like that right now but the F15 has been in service since 1975 and I don't think it ever went up against a Sukhoi flown by a Russian pilot. IIRC the Israelis have had the most air-to-air engagements in the aircraft but they were up against Syrians and older Migs.
you are on the right track... who is next? maybe the Chinese and their J 22? they have one oil fired aircraft carrier that seems to spend more time on fire than on the water, and one potential oil fueled aircraft carrier being built and no history of waging either an air war or a naval war.. I can't see us flying into China except in the most extreme circumstance and that is probably going to have a nuke under the wing.. and the Chinese aren't going to expand militarily and invade anybody else... so its sort of a question of who to do what.
Yes, I have seen them running guns in the Balkans.
By the time of that conflict the real F-4G Wild Weasels had been retired. The F-16s (at the time) used in their place were a much less capable platform. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say a HARM launched from an F-16 wasn't likely to hit anything other than the ground. Going against smart operators that preserved their radars didn't help either the SAM or HARM effectiveness. At least HARMs launched from F-16s kept the SAM operators honest by limiting their on times.
