https://www.aero-mag.com/us-navy-f-a-xx-fighter-jet-20042021/ “We need carrier aircrafts to replace the hornet” Gee, I wonder where we heard that before, especially when the f-35 hasn’t even been fully rolled out/utilized. iirc that was the primary endpoint and then they rolled out that 1 trillion dollar turd for every branch to use and looks like nobody is happy. That money could be put to better use, like buying every bitcoin while we print money like no other There needs to be a better allocation of tax payer dollars especially in a post covid country with a lot of folks suffering.
I agree but the F35 was not supposed to a replacement to the Hornet it was an upgrade to Harriet and kind of a bomber fighter duel mission type.
It does make sense to not have a billion different niche airplane designs for logistics reasons - both to keep costs down and to ensure you arent having to run multiple simultanious incompatable supply chains. When you can, streamlining the number of different platforms makes sense as a rule of thumb. When the planes are designed for diffrent roles, however, it becomes an issue. Square peg, round hole. The issue goes back to the early 1960s, when they first started to try and manage the number of different designs.
My cousin the F35 test pilot got completely fed up and quit Lockheed couple of years ago. He's back being mostly bored as hell flying for American. Haven't talked to him about it in a while, but the jist of it was that it *was* a great airplane as initially planned and designed that just got tinkered with to exhaustion. I remember him mentioning "desk monkeys at the Pentagon", and them coming back to Lockheed continually with "well...we think it should be able to do [whatever] too."
All those UFOs they are getting ready to reveal are where our best and brightest minds went. That tech is us. The F35 was outdated from its inception and the last real leaps in publically acknowledged aviation happened generations ago.
Reminds me of that movie they made about the development of the M2 Bradley with Cary Elwes, The Pentagon Wars.
He should go to work for Boeing so he can be randomly ejected from one of their brand new F-15s after landing.
I want to say the Navy permanently grounds pilots after iirc 2 or 3 ejections, because the cumulative force endured (30+ G's) after you've ejected several times permanently f**ks with your back/spine.
To add been reading more and more that Boeing will be making a lot more new block 3 SHs and F-15s (4.5 gen fighters) than originally planned. These have been testing a year now.
