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Dustin.*Pours tall glass of scotch, punches own dick, and loudly sighs* Here goes a huge waste of time:
Oh you have a degree in airplane design? Fantastic, you're driving my point home that you have no expertise related to tactical/operational levels of 3rd, 4th, and especially not 5th generation warfare. Do you know the capabilities of Russian double digit SAMs? Chinese fighters/SAMs verse their Russian originals? Do you know what a 6G turn feels like or why the fact that you even mention it highlights the unarguable point that you don't know why the fuck it's negative 1,000 on the give a fuck scale? You don't. I know you don't because of the simpleton bullshit you're saying.
Ironically, you are exactly the kind of fucking idiot that would have designed the F-35 in the first place. I know because I talk to them in person. Some know-it-all "I have a degree in X" dude with zero experience in anything that actually matters when designing a combat weapon, and to make it 100x worse you're tactical opinion is a product of nothing more than the last 12 years of low threat CAS in some third world country. How very quickly you've forgotten that every single war since Vietnam had SEAD, Strike, and escort packages working together to infiltrate IADs that look like baby shit compared to what we face today. Not to mention cyber, comm, etc. For fucks sake a Yugoslavian SA-3 (translation: kindergarten in the SAM world) shot down an F-117 in less than 15 years ago. You think the AF is concerned with CAS? You think that's the challenging part? News for you: low threat CAS comprises about 1% of what the Air Force trains to, prepares for, and spends money on developing. And frankly, it's fucking easy compared to leading SEAD or planning a strike package into a Russian MEZ. Mentioning the A-10 and F-35 in the same sentence is a gigantic red flag that says "I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about". It's like talking about why a BMW sedan is way worse at off road than a Jeep Wrangler. No shit, what the fuck are you talking about? Talk to me about the A-10 when we are discussing bombing targets on day 10 of the war, it's not going to even turn a wheel until the SAM/Fighter threat is decimated. It's a flying bullseye made for CAS and CAS only. It has no place in any conversation regarding the F-35 unless you are specifically trying to pin AF budget on it like every other ignorant and emotional douchebag sitting in his mother's basement claiming they're some kind of tactical god. You'd do very well in Congress for two reasons: You're outspoken about shit you don't understand and you're adamant that the A-10 and F-22 have fuck all to do with the F-35.
Itemized list of points I don't have days to discuss, because without years and years of flying, tactical, and air combat experience to hinge your opinions on, all you are doing is repeating bullshit you've read on the internet. Lockheed literally has a dude who's hired to read shit like this on the
-The F-35 is the second most stealthy jet in the world. "Moderately stealthy"? Dude, GFY. You don't know a fucking thing about what those capes even mean or feel like to an adversary.
-"Relatively slow" If you are another asshole comparing mach 1.8 to mach 2.0 and this and that, maybe you should point out that 99.9% of fighters have never and will never get to that speed. The F-35 is plenty fast, moot point.
-Your entire first paragraph is about low-threat CAS....again....point to a jet that can't/isn't doing that right now. That's not what the F-35 or any 5th gen fighter is for. We have more than a robust setup for that in every service.
-UAV's are great for CAS. Any idiot can fly them and with other Air Force capes they can do as well as piloted fighters. Now why the fuck are you even talking about that in relation to a SEAD beast jet that definitely needs a pilot. IMO, the kind of wars that would have 35's and 22's on the point do not consider a single blue (It's blue dude. Not green. Good guys are blue and bad guys are red.) asset in enemy territory.
-You talk about F-18's like their many variants are remotely similar. Don't.
-"Not much more persuasive to China than a CG w/F-18's". I had to stifle vomit after reading this.
-Engineering and design plans and acquisition and blah blah blah. No shit. You would have to literally be retarded to argue that the F-35 was well designed from a financial, contractual, or time based standpoint. I don't think any intelligent person is or will ever argue that. So why the fuck did you waste 2 minutes of our life writing about it? It's done, that money and time is GONE. VTOL IS stupid, but the Marines are ridiculous sometimes so why the fuck wouldn't they request to land in the grass on the battlefield with a fucking F-35?
-The F-35 is, like nearly every jet ever, behind schedule. But it is flying at bases all over the country already, the Navy goes "operational" like tomorrow, and the AF goes operational in something like 6 months. Say what you want, but again that shit is in the past and it's happening now. If you want to cling to shit that doesn't matter now, by all means keep typing. If you want to talk about actually employing in combat, the F-22 did that for the first time (5 bombs?) a few months ago. It doesn't happen overnight.
-"The tech really is there to replace fighter pilots". First, not even fucking close. This again is a statement from your dillusional view that the Army and a few UAVs are going to storm into even a third world country and send it to it's knees. That war would be lost in 20 minutes. For starters, who the fuck do you think plans these wars to the second, in every unimaginably tiny detail, utilizing hundreds of years of combined experience and knowledge? Fighter Pilots. Go to Red Flag at Nellis. That's where war is practiced and war machines for air, space, cyber, comm, etc. are tested for the future. Fighter Pilots are in tune with ALL those facets of war, not just how to do CAS. A-10 dudes are awesome and they crush CAS as they should, but fuck dude when they learn about SEAD or high threat strike on Viper transitions it's like they're starting over with how much they've never seen before. You aren't going to see those guys as Mission Commanders. It's F-16, F-15E, and soon to be F-35 guys that kill it in that arena because they know about EVERYTHING. Master of none? How about Master of Knowing What Everyone Elses Capes are And Exploiting Them in Their Best Arena to Win As a Package? I have tons of UAV friends, some that fly fighters again that would
cobra_commanderTypical fighter pilot mind set.
Maybe if CAS was a higher priority the AF would kill less Americans and more bad guys. That would be a good start. Unfortunately there are too many figher pilot GOs that think fighters are the gold standard. They, like everyone else, likes to train on what they view as sexy. It's the same way on the combat side. Everyone wants to train SRM, explosive breaching, and building clearing. no one looks forward to patrolling.
I'm not blaming you personally, it happens all over the place. On our side you get guys who think Dismounted Inf ops are the end all be all, guys who think small foot print UW missions can save the world and spread democracy, and guys who think any war that doesn't involve tanks going head to head is a waste of time. I'm sure it's the same on the Navy side.
Most fighter pilots I know and have interacted with (F-15, F-22, a small number of 16s) all have chronic back issues from the compressions. I'm glad you don't. Their knees, ankles and shoulders are in better health than mine, but their backs are worse.
I guess you missed the sarcasm in the green comment. There is a reason I used green not blue.
And in your post you agreed with me that the F-35 is a stupid program. From my end, I see billions of dollars going to sustaining a program that is way over budget, way behind schedule and has yet to contribute to National Defense. All that while we are cutting BCTs left and right and don't really have the budget to keep those we do have in a P status on their METL, all while we are facing multiple and simultaneous ground war conflicts, and cutting (or attempting to cut) proven air programs. Why aren't we buying any more F-22s? Why is the C17 (your biggest force multiplier) getting cut with no replacement? Why are we continuing to advocate spending on a program pretty much everyone agrees was flawed from the start when we can't afford to keep other programs running? Aside from the 70 Senators.
(I agree with your VTOL assessment. Only one airplane has done it well and that was the Harrier which was designed around the idea). Most Marine pilots fly F18s not Harriers anyway, no?
cobra_commanderEven a cherry AF Officer should get a kick out of the thinly vailed truths in this article:
"The F-35 program is too big to fail, but there are five or six members of Congress who don't have some portion of the aircraft being manufactured in their districts and who therefore can't see the wisdom of slashing the rest of the entire military to pay for a mediocre platform."
Read more: http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/07/f-35-bailout/#ixzz3fyeAX4v6
TinyTigershttp://www.cnn.com/2016/01/21/politics/air-force-a-10-isis/
Commence A-10 porn
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4LOGfuuugc[VIDEO]
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56LVCOVO2j4[VIDEO]
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz4tJXH1l_0[VIDEO]
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjrfrwj4sGQ[VIDEO]
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0w9pdG64wI[VIDEO]
This ones a little long
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L_TjXXx7eQ[VIDEO]
baitI hate how hard it is to embed videos.
