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ming-the-mazdaless posted:They could always hit Dassault up for some carrier variant Rafales. I was about to say. Anyone who thinks that the RN would ever be in a situation where they actually have modern, deployable carriers and no planes to put on them is loving high as poo poo. Worst case the US will just flat out GIVE them a bunch of old carrier planes. And let's face it, if the RN is designing and building a new generation of carriers that can't launch and recover American naval aircraft they're loving morons.
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Feb 27, 2011 19:51
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I also see SAAB was getting speculative with a carrier variant of the Gripen at one stage. I guess if the UK carriers ever get commissioned and it happens before the JSF outcome is known, then theyhave no lack of options for building an effective strike wing. 
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Cyrano4747 posted:And let's face it, if the RN is designing and building a new generation of carriers that can't launch and recover American naval aircraft they're loving morons.
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Feb 27, 2011 21:33
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Mr Crustacean posted:It's ok, I'm glad to let the yanks pay for planes while we have the NHS I'm not iyaayas01, but I'm fairly familiar with the facts of the case since I'm friends with one of Britain's top defense analysts/naval historians (not bragging, it comes from working on a Ph.D in a small field). It's not that the Harrier is a better plane than the Tornado, they're apples and oranges. The problem is that scrapping Harrier means there'll be a long gap between it's retirement and when the JSF enters service. This is going to gently caress up training and logistical arrangements for the new carriers something fierce because the Royal Navy will have to re-learn all the tricks of operating fixed-wing aircraft from carriers. Even when they scrapped their old big carriers in the late 70s they had the Invincibles to fall back on. Cyrano4747 posted:Anyone who thinks that the RN would ever be in a situation where they actually have modern, deployable carriers and no planes to put on them is loving high as poo poo. You're probably right, but as I said my Ph.D supervisor, who is in a position to know the inner workings of this stuff, is pretty pessimistic about it. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 22:08
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:I'm not iyaayas01, but I'm fairly familiar with the facts of the case since I'm friends with one of Britain's top defense analysts/naval historians (not bragging, it comes from working on a Ph.D in a small field). They could send some squadrons and such over to another nation for a prolonged joint exercise. A nation with carriers, and planes that they might then be buying used. They'd be right at home, what with the RN having gotten rid of the rum ration some time ago.
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Feb 28, 2011 01:19
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I know we are friendly with the Brits, but I'm not sure even we'd let them play rent a carrier deck for even a few weeks.
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Feb 28, 2011 09:37
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Alaan posted:I know we are friendly with the Brits, but I'm not sure even we'd let them play rent a carrier deck for even a few weeks. Don't think of it as us renting them a carrier, think of it as them renting us some pilots at negative cost.
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Feb 28, 2011 10:27
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From what I remember hearing back when the Harrier carriers got the axe in the last budget cut, the Brits are talking about "sharing" a boat with the French for the purpose of keeping a core cadre of the whole laundry list of support staff, boat crews, flight deck, etc. at least somewhat together for when the time comes to train new guys up on new boats. That said, who only knows how that will work. The current french and british governments are pretty friendly, but all it takes is one minor diplomatic tiff (say the brits helping the US in some deployment that the french are opposed to, or whatever) and those sorts of deals are the first things on the chopping block. Plus, it puts the RN in the rather embarrassing position of essentially renting ship time from the French Navy.
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Feb 28, 2011 13:44
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Emirati F-16Es (and F) It's kind of funny how cumulative upgrade programs slowly encrust more and more antennae, CFTs, sensors and other various paraphernalia onto the relatively sleek and simple original design like high-tech barnacles. Compare to the YF-16 prototype:  Click here for the full 1280x652 image. Kind of makes me wonder what the F-35 or F-22 will look like in 30 years. Probably have beam director turrets for air-to-air laser weapons and vents for an active-stealth plasma sheath or some other crazy poo poo. Or they won't because manned aircraft will be obsoleted by UCAVs before that point 
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Feb 28, 2011 15:24
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Sunday Punch posted:Emirati F-16Es (and F) They've been building aircraft that can FAR exceed the limits of the human body in terms of G's while turning for some time now. Just need to get some smart AI or a kid who's good with a video game controller and you can whip around in 20 G turns and poo poo.
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Feb 28, 2011 17:15
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Cyrano4747 posted:Plus, it puts the RN in the rather embarrassing position of essentially renting ship time from the French Navy.
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Feb 28, 2011 19:51
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Pablo Bluth posted:I believe our empire had a long and proud history of using other nations' ships. That we're now paying for them should be seen as honourable, not shameful... Yes, if you were to just up and take one of the U.S.'s carriers, it would be a feat of derring-do that would impress many sailors.
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Feb 28, 2011 20:10
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..but we're talking about the French. Candy from a baby. </1815> On a bit of actual 'combat' news, one of the RAF Hercs in Libya got shot at by small-arms fire. However the perps have said they're terribly sorry. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12601587
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Feb 28, 2011 20:21
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Pablo Bluth posted:..but we're talking about the French. Candy from a baby. </1815> Can you even imagine being the poor SOB who did that? Dude thinks he's shooting at some Libyan AF rear end in a top hat getting ready to go bomb protestors or something, and then finds out he took a potshot at the loving RAF. oops.
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Feb 28, 2011 21:13
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Cyrano4747 posted:From what I remember hearing back when the Harrier carriers got the axe in the last budget cut, the Brits are talking about "sharing" a boat with the French for the purpose of keeping a core cadre of the whole laundry list of support staff, boat crews, flight deck, etc. at least somewhat together for when the time comes to train new guys up on new boats. Cyrano, as usual, steals my thunder. The Brits are indeed talking about sharing a carrier with the French as part of the massive defense sharing/exchange/dare I say, "special relationship" dealio they signed a few months ago. This was (arguably) a major driver in the UK decision to forgo procuring the STOVL -B model JSF in favor of the CATOBAR -C model, a decision that was released at the same time as the U.K.France agreement. The idea being that since France currently operates a CATOBAR carrier the U.K. can use it as Cyrano said to maintain a cadre of folks that know how to do naval aviation. Putting that on ice for a decade, not to mention reconstituting it as a CATOBAR when it was STOVL before would be extremely dicey, to say the last. However, as you point out, sharing an instrument of national power like a carrier is a considerable leap beyond doing a joint procurement program or doing extensive professional personnel exchanges...now you're moving beyond the strictly military domain and moving into the political. It will be interesting to see how it works out. Sunday Punch posted:Emirati F-16Es (and F) Do you see that USAF?? Do you see?? THAT is what you should be buying in the interim/instead of JSFs. At the very least pull a Navy (they did this with Super Hornets) and buy some to a) keep the production line open b) provide replacement for the REALLY old aircraft in your fleet (legacy -C/-D Hornets in the case of the Navy, Block 30/32 and 40/42 Vipers in the case of the USAF). Even if you do endup with JSFs you've got some pretty sweet fighters on the cheap, and let's be honest, there's a lot we need tacair to be able to do that doesn't require stealth. If the JSF program goes completely off the rails, you have a viable option B for your tacair replacement needs instead of being forced to choose between an overbudget underperforming domestic program on the one hand (looking at you fatty) and an outstanding underbudget overperforming foreign program on the other (Gripen is the best deal on the international fighter market, bar none).
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Mar 1, 2011 00:09
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Mr Crustacean posted:It's ok, I'm glad to let the yanks pay for planes while we have the NHS Vincent Van Goatse posted:I'm not iyaayas01, but I'm fairly familiar with the facts of the case since I'm friends with one of Britain's top defense analysts/naval historians (not bragging, it comes from working on a Ph.D in a small field). Pretty much this, although if (and that's a big if) the "carrier sharing" agreement with the French pans out they will hopefully avoid some of the growing pains with restarting operating carriers after a decade while shifting from STOVL to CATOBAR to boot...but they'll only avoid some. The growing pains will be there, and that really brings me to my ultimate point: the UK needs to decide what it wants to have a military for and to fund it to that level. If it wants to maintain it's current structure and international presence, fine. If it wants to sacrifice its global mobility and maritime presence somewhat to provide a land army to NATO/EUFOR (like Germany) fine. If it wants to go in the opposite direction and increase its mobility forces (airlift and sealift along with light infantry) at the expense of heavier ground forces and some navy firepower (like Canada, Leopards notwithstanding), fine. If it wants to cut deeper and maintain a force more like the Danes, with a small well trained mostly lightweight army, small but broadly equipped air force, and a coastal navy, fine. Hell, if they want to go full blown Belgium and just have a few F-16s and infantry companies to look pretty and go play with NATO every once in a while, fine. But make up your mind and fund appropriately. What they are doing is worse than making a decision to curtail the military and fund it accordingly, because they are a) maintaining a hollow force, which will result in it being called upon and failing, and b) wasting money that by halfassing it. Attempting to cut a budget while not cutting responsibilities (in other words, cutting across the board) leads to a worse drop in military readiness than if you make changes in the responsibilities and cut accordingly. It sounds intuitive, but you'd be surprised the number of defense ministers who think they can change that hard fact. You guys are actually serving as a really good object lesson for the U.S...if we aren't careful, our military will be the bigger version of what yours is now in about 10-15 years. You can see this in Gates's comments a few days ago at West Point...the Army is going to be hard pressed to keep the bulk of their heavy mechanized units around. In an ideal defense world, you'd want to have them, but we aren't in an ideal world and the fact of the matter is we're a helluva lot more likely to need our maritime forces (navy and air) than we are heavy armor. The biggest reason of course is that unless you're talking about a very few specialized circumstances (the Fulda Gap, maybe the DMZ in Korea) heavy armor is not a deterrent force. It is a nation conquering force. Naval and (to a slightly lesser extent, admittedly) air forces on the other hand are much more of a deterrent force able to provide security/keep the peace. Anyway, I've gone on for long enough...to answer your question, there was no right choice for the U.K. on their current path. Any one would have lead to severe issues. However, in my humble opinion, they should have made the decision to concentrate their power in the RN and a small but well equipped/highly trained light infantry reaction force along with a bit of armor to contribute to any NATO/EUFOR type contingency quick reaction force. This would mean scaling back the RAF drastically to probably only being some strategic mobility folks (C-17s, C-130s, and a couple associated tankers), a squadron or two of Eurofighters for air defense, and maybe a couple of enablers like E-3s or ISR assets if you can justify the cost. Can any land based strike asset completely and concentrate striking air power in the RN's carriers; also, get some frigates and destroyers that aren't horribly overpriced and so gargantuan you can only afford a few of them, although I suspect that Vincent can speak better to the naval piece than I can.
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Mar 1, 2011 01:05
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I really thought GD would make the F16XL (Cranked Arrow) F-16.
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Mar 1, 2011 06:51
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The F-16XL is pretty interesting. Its greater wing area gave it a better lift-to-drag ratio and considerably more internal fuel tankage, both of which improved its range, plus the big wing had space for a bunch more munitions pylons. The design lost the Enhanced Tactical Fighter competition (to the F-15E Strike Eagle), supposedly the XL was very good as a ground attack aircraft but it would have been much costlier and more complex than the F-15E to put into fullscale production. After the XL lost the ETF competition, NASA acquired the two prototypes for research purposes, they used it for testing aerodynamics during supersonic flight. There was a pretty nifty experiment that consisted of drilling lots of tiny holes in the wing, then using suction through the holes to try and remove the turbulent air at the wing's surface to promote more efficient laminar flow over the wing. The wing is steeply swept near the fuselage which gives less drag at supersonic speeds, and is less swept on the outboard area of the wing for increased performance at subsonic speeds.  You can see the special section of wing in this photo, it's the black section on the leading edge of the left wing.  I'm pretty sure everything is made cooler by proximity to the SR-71  
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Mar 1, 2011 09:02
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 Stiff upper lip chap, I'll wait while you check this Bear out and then let's make it back in time for tea.
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Mar 1, 2011 09:02
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iyaayas01 posted:Pretty much this, although if (and that's a big if) the "carrier sharing" agreement with the French pans out they will hopefully avoid some of the growing pains with restarting operating carriers after a decade while shifting from STOVL to CATOBAR to boot...but they'll only avoid some. The growing pains will be there, and that really brings me to my ultimate point: the UK needs to decide what it wants to have a military for and to fund it to that level. If it wants to maintain it's current structure and international presence, fine. If it wants to sacrifice its global mobility and maritime presence somewhat to provide a land army to NATO/EUFOR (like Germany) fine. If it wants to go in the opposite direction and increase its mobility forces (airlift and sealift along with light infantry) at the expense of heavier ground forces and some navy firepower (like Canada, Leopards notwithstanding), fine. If it wants to cut deeper and maintain a force more like the Danes, with a small well trained mostly lightweight army, small but broadly equipped air force, and a coastal navy, fine. Hell, if they want to go full blown Belgium and just have a few F-16s and infantry companies to look pretty and go play with NATO every once in a while, fine. But make up your mind and fund appropriately. There's merit in this argument though. You look at what the US went into WW1 and WW2 with in terms of standing army vs. air force/navy and you have what Gates is talking about. This wasn't a detriment to your country's ability to raise a large and capable fighting force because the industrial base existed (and still exists) to expand rapidly to meet the needs of a large army. Aside from wars the US wages overseas of its choosing it is highly unlikely that you will ever see it engaged in any conflict inside of North America so the army will always be the least well funded arm.
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Mar 1, 2011 09:13
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Agustin Cienfuegos posted:
 Don't worry lads! I've got this one, save me a custard cream.
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Mar 1, 2011 09:17
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mikerock posted:There's merit in this argument though. You look at what the US went into WW1 and WW2 with in terms of standing army vs. air force/navy and you have what Gates is talking about. This wasn't a detriment to your country's ability to raise a large and capable fighting force because the industrial base existed (and still exists) to expand rapidly to meet the needs of a large army. There's two big problems with the "we can expand rapidly like we did after Dec 7" argument, though, and one loving massive one. First the simply "big" problems: 1) Even basic as poo poo infantry training is a lot more complex and involved than it was 60 years ago, especially if you're training to a level of competence that the US likes to have these days. Put simply, WW2 was a battle mostly fought by conscript soldiers where high casualties were not only acceptable but expected. People were more or less thrilled that it didn't degenerate into WW1-style pointless slaughter (at least in most US operational areas), and the few times it did (Tarawa, Pelilu, a few other real cluster gently caress pacific landings) they were notable for their relative uncommonness. Short of the US actually being in a life-or-death struggle on the N. American continent I really don't see conscript armies operating with WW2 levels of training, and the losses that would entail, being politically palatable to the American public. Also, against any modern military force that kind of military is going to take even worse casualties. Almost EVERYONE (well, at least countries of any size - I'm not going to talk about the tiny ones) gave that style of quantity-over-quality training up in the 60s precisely because of just how much more even modestly well trained soldiers are, and those who didn't suffered terribly at the hands of those who did (see: Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, and later Iraq at the hands of the US for two telling examples of how differing levels of training make huge differences in relative combat effectiveness and raw body counts). 2) On the industrial end, poo poo is just a LOT more complex and time consuming to make now. A Sherman tank is basically a bunch of cast-iron components welded together over the guts of a tractor, with a fairly basic gun and aiming systems that are about as complex as a nice rifle scope thrown in. A modern Abrams has more computational power on board than the loving space shuttle and involves all sorts of expensive and time-consuming production techniques. You simply can't churn out modern military assets the way you could WW2-era ones, especially at short notice. THis is further complicated by the fact that industry has become ever more specialized in production techniques over the last 50 years, so even if we had the dormant heavy industry capability to simply start churning out Abrams from 100 places at once (we don't - a lot of the old factories simply aren't there any more), it's not like we can just re-purpose car plants like we did during WW2. The processes used to make a car and those used to make an armored fighting vehicle are so different today that the factories are almost completely unsuited for re-tooling for one from the other. gently caress, given the emphasis on welded, light weight frames and such, modern car plants would probably have a better go of mass-producing cheap aircraft. And now for the huge goddamned elephant in the room: WE NEVER ACTUALLY DID A GIANT COLT START "OH gently caress" ECONOMIC AND MILITARY MOBILIZATION. That is one of the greatest myths in American history. Roosevelt saw what was coming down the pipe after Hitler started his poo poo and got things moving in a HUGE way as early as the beginning of 1940. First he re-instituted the draft and made the funded the volunteer army to be MUCH larger and better paid. THis was a huge and expensive program for which he took a LOT of political poo poo and, more or less, rebuilt the US military from the depths of what it sunk to in the 20s to something half-way respectable long before the Japanese attacked. Of course it expanded a gently caress-load more during the war, but the worst of the heavy lifting in that regard was done during peace time. As for the production and such, even back then it was a lot easier to change over various types of tanks and other heavy vehicles being produced than to make a cold jump from Ford making trucks to Ford making tanks. This is where those tens of thousands of Lees and early Shermans that we sent the Brits and Soviets come in - in early 1941 they were getting the first fruits of an economic mobilization that had begun in late 1939 and early 1940. Sorry, but the idea of the "great American mobilization" for WW2 is just as much a part of our (well, maybe not our, person-who-lives-in-our-hat  )national mythology (and just as full of poo poo) as the idea that minutemen and colonial militias won the Revolution.
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Mar 1, 2011 10:28
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Couple of pieces of promotional F-111 art  I know the Vark was originally intended to be capable of operating from unprepared runways, but I don't think that really panned out in practice. Click for full images.
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Mar 1, 2011 11:07
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Sunday Punch posted:Couple of pieces of promotional F-111 art Oh, the F-111 was supposed to be a "do everything" aircraft. Interceptor, bomber, precision bomber, nuclear strike aircraft, ECM aircraft, defense suppression aircraft, CARRIER borne aircraft for the navy... After much poo poo, it got to be a precision bomber, nuclear strike aircraft, and ECM platform. The other poo poo got taken by more purpose built aircraft. Sorry Robert.
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Mar 1, 2011 14:16
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Cyrano4747 posted:From what I remember hearing back when the Harrier carriers got the axe in the last budget cut, the Brits are talking about "sharing" a boat with the French for the purpose of keeping a core cadre of the whole laundry list of support staff, boat crews, flight deck, etc. at least somewhat together for when the time comes to train new guys up on new boats. Somehow I can't see either France or America choosing to let their own naval air specialists go without jobs just so they can babysit some Brits because the UK is too stupid to pay for both carriers and planes to fly from them. gently caress knows if I was SecDef and the British Government proposed this idea to me I'd laugh in their faces. EDIT:  TFX. gently caress off MacNamara you idiot.
Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 15:52
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NosmoKing posted:Oh, the F-111 was supposed to be a "do everything" aircraft. Interceptor, bomber, precision bomber, nuclear strike aircraft, ECM aircraft, defense suppression aircraft, CARRIER borne aircraft for the navy... Yeah the F-111 was a victim of being designed to fill too many roles, and being designed at a time when multirole aircraft were a new and unknown quantity. So to meet all its design requirements it was packed full of new and untested technologies, which didn't work out too well. Ultimately the whole aircraft was one big compromise, too heavy for carrier operations, poor performance at supersonic speeds, over budget and crash-prone. Of course most of the initial problems were eventually rectified but I think by then the damage had been done, and like you said, more specialised aircraft were filling its operational roles. Honestly the F-111 was probably too far ahead of its time and a victim of unrealistic expectations. It was a pretty important aircraft for pioneering stuff like the swing wing and terrain following radar, so maybe it was all worth it in the end! Could have used a few more years of development and testing time though. And yes you can blame it all on Robert   At least I got to see the RAAF F-111s before they retired them. Seeing the F-111
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Mar 1, 2011 16:07
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iyaayas01 posted:The A-5 was the only aircraft to carry things that way...it had what was called a linear bomb bay: Apparently, in addition to inaccuracy in delivering stores from the linear bomb bay, the RA-5 also suffered from incontinence of the linear bomb bay. The shock of carrier take-offs could cause the latching system to fail and dumping the full fuel tanks onto the deck. In one case, the resulting destabilization also led to the loss of the aircraft in addition to the usual flight-deck fire. I don't think I would want bombs in such a system. source: http://www.vectorsite.net/ava5.html
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Mar 1, 2011 16:17
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An EF-111 Raven scored a maneuver kill in Desert Storm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIf4s2_5fks
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Mar 1, 2011 17:03
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It just dawned on me I had this ashtray. Totally forgot where I picked it up but I got it several years ago. Obviously made during the original B1 program.. so mid 70s I guess?
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Mar 1, 2011 20:41
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slidebite posted:It just dawned on me I had this ashtray. Totally forgot where I picked it up but I got it several years ago. Obviously made during the original B1 program.. so mid 70s I guess? Seeing as Carter killed the high altitude mach 2+ version, yep I'd say mid to early 70's. Plus, that art looks TOTALLY early 70's
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Mar 1, 2011 20:45
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Low altitude B-1B is super cool anyway
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Mar 1, 2011 20:47
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priznat posted:Low altitude B-1B is super cool anyway Behold, THE piece of  artwork:
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Mar 1, 2011 20:56
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slidebite posted:Cool photo, but it lost some of its "coolness" with me when I saw that the artist used the exact same background on pretty much every single jet imaginable. I actually thought I saw it with an Arrow, and in my search to find the print I found something by order of magnitude cooler. I want that as a shirt
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Mar 1, 2011 21:03
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DO NOT MOCK CANADA'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE COLD WAR
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Mar 1, 2011 21:52
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Beavers own. Also Twin Otters.  I had only seen the pic of the B-1B zooming over water like that, and I think I've seen other versions of it similar too. Still looks cool as hell.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:22
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priznat posted:Beavers own. i prefer the contraction "Twotters"
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Mar 1, 2011 22:30
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SyHopeful posted:i prefer the contraction "Twotters" You have insulted a national institution! *glove slap*  I have flown on pontoon twotters before and they land like they're divebombing pearl harbour or something. It owns.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:34
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priznat posted:You have insulted a national institution! *glove slap* Hey I'm pretty sure a Canadian is the one who did the loonie -> twonie thing, i'm just keeping up with your conventions! (also I'm 1/4 Canadian and my last family reunion was in BC) Never flown in a twotter, but been in and around many DHC-2s and -3s during my 20 years in Juneau. I imagine they are similar in handling to the Caravan.
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Mar 1, 2011 22:48
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iyaayas01 posted:Wise words Thanks for the analysis man, I suppose we need to be realistic about these things and concentrate on the capabilities that the UK finds truly important instead of trying to halfass everything 
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Mar 1, 2011 23:08
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iyaayas01 posted:Do you see that USAF?? Do you see?? THAT is what you should be buying in the interim/instead of JSFs. At the very least pull a Navy (they did this with Super Hornets) and buy some to a) keep the production line open b) provide replacement for the REALLY old aircraft in your fleet (legacy -C/-D Hornets in the case of the Navy, Block 30/32 and 40/42 Vipers in the case of the USAF). Even if you do endup with JSFs you've got some pretty sweet fighters on the cheap, and let's be honest, there's a lot we need tacair to be able to do that doesn't require stealth. If the JSF program goes completely off the rails, you have a viable option B for your tacair replacement needs instead of being forced to choose between an overbudget underperforming domestic program on the one hand (looking at you fatty) and an outstanding underbudget overperforming foreign program on the other (Gripen is the best deal on the international fighter market, bar none). Then again perhaps their assuming what industry has been talking about for years, that there will inevitably be a reduction in combat wings in the next 10 years, reducing both the fighter and budget gap. daskrolator fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 23:12
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:EDIT: Beat me to it. Such a terrible, terrible idea. slidebite posted:It just dawned on me I had this ashtray. Totally forgot where I picked it up but I got it several years ago. Obviously made during the original B1 program.. so mid 70s I guess? B-1 electronic countermeasures: the world's first self jamming aircraft! For those that don't get the joke, early versions of the Bone's AN/ALQ-161 defensive electronics suite had some teething...issues, and would jam transmissions from the aircraft that should have been let through, in effect jamming itself. slidebite posted:Cool photo, but it lost some of its "coolness" with me when I saw that the artist used the exact same background on pretty much every single jet imaginable. I actually thought I saw it with an Arrow, and in my search to find the print I found something by order of magnitude cooler. Holy poo poo, that pictures owns. Also, Beavers and Otters and Twin Otters own. Actually, so do Caribous and Buffaloes and pretty much anything de Havilland Canada manufactured. daskrolator posted:Unfortunately the USAF is going the route of phased F-16 SLEP to reduce the fighter gap between F-35A IOC and F-16 retirement. I say it's unfortunate because I think it'll cost them more money than they realize to SLEP these old F-16 a/c than it would be to buy new F-16s. Yeah, that's the really frustrating part. I get SLEPing the limited number of F-15Cs to the "Golden Eagle" standard, because there isn't really a ready supplement out there (F-22s don't play and the Silent Eagle concept, while cool, is really more to fill the Strike Eagle role, not the strictly air to air role the Charlie fills). But spending oodles of money to SLEP the Vipers when you could spend just a bit more (or maybe even the same amount depending on how much the SLEP ends up costing) to purchase vastly upgraded NEW MANUFACTURE aircraft of the EXACT SAME TYPE just blows my mind. Whatever, in a decade or so we'll have one squadron of F-22s from the tail end of the production line, a couple squadrons of JSFs, and a few squadrons of ancient Strike Eagles and Hawgs soldiering on and we'll look back at today as the "good ol' days" just like folks today look back at the '80s. That was about half sarcastic bitterness and half somewhat serious prediction.
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Mar 2, 2011 00:43
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