re: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Thread
How are you gonna achieve it without borrowing from others?
How about getting socialites like Romney to pay a little bit more than 15% of income tax? How about banning those 20 000 lobbyists from buying politicians for the sake of 1%?
I indicated it would take a change in admin and congress. And it will.
People like Romney are not the problem. He paid his legal amount on his capital gains which he made with money that had already been taxed at the highest income rate...ie. double taxation.
If the US opens up its vast oil fields, if it makes the environment for business more attractve by lowering coprporate rates, if it removes a lot of the burdensome regulation, then the prosperity will sky rocket and we will afford to do what we have to do...in fact we could move a long way in that direction by simply not throwing some many billions down rat holes like studies of the mating habits of certain species of worms and so many other federal grant, entitlement, and waste programs that politicians ear mark for their own political purposes.
But now we're getting political and it would be best not to go there in any case because that is not what this forum is about. You can rant about that on a political forum. This is a defense forum, particularly sino defense, but with areas for the rest of world too, like this thread.
However it ends up being paid for, and clearly it would have to be paid for before it could happen, the US could and should buy more F-22s. The things cost so much a piece because the government ended up changing the terms under which the aircraft was developed and purchased. A lot of expensive high technology had to be developed and under the original contract and ROI all of that would have been paid back over 1000 aircraft...when you only build 187 the cost per plane goes way up to achieve the return on investment and it is not the fault of the manufacturer.
Anyhow, I stand by it. The F-22 is the premier air superiority fighter and to maintain that over any hostile battlefield it would be good to have more of them so the F-35B can do the job it was designed for principally, that is supporting Marines on the ground
Well said master Jeff, A+, I think most folks flying off the b....I mean Ship, ahem..cough, would much prefer twin engines and a little more top end with supercruise. The real beauty of the raptor is the ability to ingress and egress the ops area with a real world supercruise and outstanding stealth. The other advantage is the A2A once you have launched your weapons and made your presence known. I'm sure a lot of naval aviators miss the Turkey, as it also had a lot of real world speed, albeit took lots of fuel, it does appear that J-20 and T-50 will have a decisive advantage on top end and possible supercruise and the T-50 will have that Sukhoi magic agility, not so sure about the J-20 in that regard, the F-35 might still be in the game. So while we are playing "aircraft designer, how about the A, with the Cs larger wing and control surfaces, although the A has supposedly been to 9.9 gs positive, it may be more manueverable than I had assumed? In conclusion the AFmagazine has noted the F-35 carrying external ordinance, the pic shows the fix for the horizontal stabs, and is available as a screensaver, on the daily report today!
A navalized F-22 with a new 150 nm ALRAAM, able to carry six of them in the main bay and (ultimately) four AIM-9x in the two side bays (2 per pay with the newer AIM-9x IR missiles) for a total of ten missiles.
Stealth is maintained and with a data link back to the new Super Hawkeyes whose radar return could guide the missiles, what a lethal combo that becomes with the F-22 able to potentially launch those fire and forget long range missiles without every going active.
With the legs the F-22 has and that load out, the Navy's fleet defense role would be reinstituted in spades and once again realize the policy and capability of downing incoming AsuM carriers (attack aircraft) before they get in range to launch.
