F-35 is next to get cut back

I almost went to work for that program, now I'm glad I didn't.

 

Great. Welcome to socialism and no defense.

 

**** health care, I want a cool VTOL fight jet... Christ.

 

If the Air Force is smart, they should procure a few hundred F-15SE airplanes - the Silent Eagle. It may also compel Lockheed, to become more competitive with the F-35 program. If nothing else, it will bridge the gap between the early Block 30 F-16's and the last F-35 blocks. The Vermont ANG, has a 7,000 hour F-16 airframe on the books.


Gates has little interest in a manned fighter. The Sec of Def is planning for the next potential MRC, with the tactics from Iraq and Afghanistan - that is always a mistake.

 

Just as "Jimma" Carter and Bill Clinton did in the past, Obama will emaciate our defense capability.

The sad part is, Japan wants to buy F-22's, but we won't sell them to them, even though it would create thousands of jobs here and help our overall balance of payments. The reason being that they don't want to "offend" China by letting Japan have a self defense force that is sufficiently capable to act as a deterrent to their eventual aggression.

A lot of folks saw WW II coming, and, in my mind the increasing military buildup in China serves no purpose other than as a means to support their eventual aggression in the region and the world. If one believes for a minute that the measly number of F-35's is going to provide a deterrent to any aggressor, even one as miserable as Iran, they have another thing coming. Remember how woefully unprepared we were for WW II....

 

The way the Obama administration is going, expect to see the skys filled with F86 & F100's

 

Meanwhile, in the name of cost savings, the internal bays of the F-35 were downsized to MK83 class weapons (1000 lbs) from MK84 class weapons (the original 2000 lb F-35 requirement). 2000 lb weapons (EGBU-24 LLLGB, GBU-31 JDAM, etc) have to be carried externally, which naturally does not do much for the low observables characteristics.

2000 lb weapons have some very desirable characteristics (over 50% of weight is tritonal or equivalant for the MK84 warhead) and the BLU-109 penetrator has about twice the penetration capability of the 1000 lb class BLU-110 penetrator and a much larger explosives charge when it gets there.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Yea, all two of them....

Maybe they can just buy a couple of airplanes and let the pilots share....

Didn't somebody write that in the thirties when we couldn't "afford" a real air force?....

 

I have a lot of friends at GE who work on the development of the JSF engine. Needless to say, I think Obama's clueless ass didnt think about what it does to our economy when he is cutting all these production lines and projects on AMERICAN MADE items. He just cant seem to grasp anything....

 

Never mind these REPUBLICAN senators voted against the F-22:

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Coburn (R-OK)
Corker (R-TN)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
Shelby (R-AL)
Voinovich (R-OH)

Never mind that any military spending if OK, no questions asked.

Never mind Chaney's idea of a leaner military lead to how many deaths in Iraq?

Admit it, you guys want real life GI Joe toys... that's fine, just be honest with yourselves.

 

So there are stupid people claiming to be Republican too. Is that really your point or was there more to it? Talk about GI Joe toys. More were propably built under LBJ than any other president in recent history. I am quite sure it had nothing to do with the fact most of the money spent was in Texas or states that needed some nature of political payoff. I really don't see that as a R vs D thing either but then I am not a Kool Aid drinker for either party. Those that are are just part of the reason we have the problems we do in this country.

 

1.) Just because there were 15 idiots who didn't support the F-22 on the Republican side of the isle, doesn't make up for the fact that the initiative to kill the program was a result of the Democratic administration who actually did the job. The defense of the country isn't supposed to be a party thing. Does that mean that all Democrats are out to ruin our national defense? God I hope not...

2.) All military spending is not OK, no questions asked. I worked on the F-136 engine (alternate engine for the F-35 as noted above), and still think it was a stupid waste of money. There are good programs and there are bad ideas that become programs and live a lot longer than they should. You seem to be of the opinion that ALL military programs are a waste of money, which they most certainly are not. Remember, national defense IS enumerated in the Constitution as a responsibility of the central government. Cash for clunkers, bank bailouts or government redistribution of wealth is not...

3.) It's Cheney, if you are going to malign the man at least learn to spell his name right. And moreover, it was not Cheney it was Rumsfield who was responsible for the low number of troops that were committed to Iraq. Also note that the military defeat of Iraq (the war the lean military was designed to fight) was finished in a matter of days. That part worked exactly as planned. The lack of troops on the ground to pacify and control a guerrilla war was not anticipated, but after we committed troops we won that war too. Learn your history before you go out a parrot something you found on a left wing hate site.

4.) It is not real life GI Joe toys we are talking about here. It is the ability to defend the country, which is something liberals take for granted until we have to do it, then they bemoan the fact that we are ill equipped to fight and lives are lost because they are the ones who cheeped out on defense years earlier. When an adversary has, literally, thousands of aircraft, how are we going to be able to defend ourselves or any of our allies with 187 airplanes? Get serious...