It's all good, I willing leap onto tangents and into rabbit holes and YES.... Shark mouths are mandatory, won't even give release authority to a CAS pilot if his bird isn't painted like a giant carnivorous fish.... gotta have standards and all.Originally Posted by Guerrero
About the number of F-22s, the number was cut for various reasons including expense. What galls me is that the Japanese, Israelis and Australians wanted to or suggested buying them. That would have lowered the price. However, we didn't sell them to preserve our secrets. Now we are selling the wonder plane F-35 to Turkey and other Middle East countries. Turkey is our friend? They are buying Russian equipment. How long until all the specs and manuals are in Moscow? Their first targets will probably be Israel, the Kurds or Greece.
I saw an article by a Marine who said that he isn't scared of Chinese area defense plans against carriers as we can put the vertical take off F-35 variant in all kinds of places. We don't need carriers to fight China. So how many of the F-35B's does it take to fight China?
Oh, well.
No need for aircraft. Just set off the fire alarm.
/s
Last edited by blues; 02-12-2018 at 06:21 PM.
There's nothing civil about this war.
I don't see it as the AF buying a combat airplane with a propeller. I think of it as them figuring out a way they can buy a predator/reaper with a seat for a pilot.
A rough guess would be to take the number that they're planning to buy and move the decimal point at least one place to the right.
We've not fought an air-to-air war in 45 years. Probably the same for the PLAAF, if they sent "volunteer" pilots to that fight. I don't know what the classified estimates are on the wastage rate of the F-35, but I'll be that they are wildly optimistic.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.
The incredible part is that they plan to keep the B-52 until 2050. I was born while it was flying missions in SE Asia and I might not live to see the end of its service life. If only we had kept the A-1s flying and bought into the YB-49 when we started buying B-52s.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
I was in B-52's in the 1980's & early 1990's. I thought they were old then as they were basically my age with all the G-models being made from 1957-1959. I flew with guys who's father's flew in B-52's. Before I retired, I taught Navigation and had students that were children of guys I crewed with in B-52's. In a couple of years those guys could have kids old enough to fly B-52's, and possibly their children will still have time to fly the B-52. Pretty amazing.
Last edited by JTQ; 02-13-2018 at 04:27 PM.
There is a very similar situation with the KC135. Part of that fleet is expected to still be flying till about 2040. A relative was involved with their proposed replacement, before and after his retirement from the USAF. He's shared a few interesting stories. His frustration over "unneeded add ons and cost overruns" led to an abrupt 2nd retirement. I know he flew them in the early 80's and off and on later in his career. Was also surprised to hear he could have flown the A-10. That came out after I was discussing my current job. I work at a medium caliber plant (.50 - 40mm) and one of our 30mm lines is for the GAU-8.
I was working in Marietta when the last four rolled off the line.
As I recall the tools and dies went to Fort Worth, as well as the ILS organization. We (C130 Trainers) got a couple transfers because some didn’t want to go to Texas.
I’d guess they could restart alongside the F35,but it’d be a few bucks to get things cranked up again. Not an avionics expert, or pilot by any means, but I’m not sure what an F22 does that an F35 doesn’t. My recollection at the time was that LM had had such cost growth in the F22 it wasn’t seen as a good option to keep producing, when you could take that money and invest in the multi platform F35. I’ve been away from Aerospace stuff for a while after I retired, and haven’t paid attention to how it worked out.
Re re-starting the F-22 line, I've read it might not be possible. Repair crews have tried to tap the supposedly-stored parts and tools and found the Conex containers empty. If possible, then very expensive - $30B for <200 of them. The reason SecDef (Rumsfeld, turn my head and spit) cancelled the program in the first place was to fund the F-35, so where would the $30B come from?
As to the numbers of F-22 aircraft I've read we have 186 operational aircraft, but of those only 123 are combat coded. (https://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...-fighter-15862)
I flew G- and H-models in the 70s and the F-4 in the 80s and I wouldn't want either mission today. As mentioned by rcbusmc24 above, direct overflight of targets is something best left in the 20th century.
Last edited by Jaywalker; 02-14-2018 at 09:44 AM.
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