The WWII-Era Inspired Plane Giving the F-35 a Run For Its Money 320
schwit1 writes: The US military almost adopted the A-29 Super Tucano, a $4 million turboprop airplane reminiscent of WWII-era designs that troops wanted, commanders said was "urgently needed," but Congress refused to buy. "It's a great plane," says recently retired Air Force Lt. Col. Shamsher Mann, an F-16 pilot who has flown A-29s. "Pilots love it. It handles beautifully, sips gas, and can go anywhere. If you want to get into the fight and mix it up with the guys on the ground, the Super T is a great platform." The Super Tucano provided the "low-end" air-to-ground attack capability the United States simply never had in Afghanistan-a capability the Pentagon's F-35 could never hope to replicate.
Of course the Air Force didn't adopt it (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a fly high-go fast toy. They've been trying to kill the A-10 for 30 years because they don't like it.
Kind of like the competition for the F35 design. I took one look at the prototypes and knew Boeing wouldn't win. Their plane was ugly, not sexy.
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A Congress that listens to the lobbyists who are ex-USAF Generals.
those generals also hold substantial stock in the companies that make the planes
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In other words, its self-interest all the way down. Gotta love USA...
Re:Of course the Air Force didn't adopt it (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously ... WTF!?!
An A-10 has a hourly maintenance costs of roughly $12,000 per hour flown. The F-35 is already sitting at a guess-ta-ment of $32,000 per hour flown.
Chart [businessinsider.com]
To quote.
the A-10 Thunderbolt II is the cheapest aircraft to operate in terms of both flight hours and individual procurement costs. The A-10's low costs are due to the plane's rugged but functional structural designs.
Lets not talk about the $148 million a piece price tag for the base F-35 model. A-10's start at around $30 million each. You let me know when one F-35 can out compete four A-10's for air to ground combat.
Re:Of course the Air Force didn't adopt it (Score:4, Insightful)
So can one F-35 outperform a whole squadron of A-29s, well yes, if you goal is to bleed money out of the US treasury or out of the many vassal states forced to buy that rubbish instead of the far higher performing Russian variants. The corruption is just so blatant and in your face now and all of this protected by main stream media incidentally owned by the same corporations. Everyone knows it is all lies but that does no even slow down main stream media in it's propaganda efforts to prop those lies up. The is no pretending the F-35 is not shit but the billions keep flowing, the lobbyists pay the politicians and main stream media keeps it hidden and promotes the lies and it just keeps going on and on and on. It really seems like they don't even care if the public knows because they know the public will not be able to do anything about it, so it seems like they are only giving minimal lip service to covering up the corruption.
Re:Of course the Air Force didn't adopt it (Score:4, Informative)
Predator Unit cost: US$16.9 million
It's not the F-35 that ended the A-10's service career... As of 2012, almost one in three USAF aircraft were UAVs.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, UAVs were reportedly more frequent specifically requested by ground units than any other aircraft.
"Whereas a manned fighter will seldom be able to stay on station for longer than an hour or so, a persistent armed UAV (PA-UAV) could potentially stay on station for up to 20 hours"
- http://www.military.com/NewCon... [military.com]
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I don't understand your logic. A drone is at most a bomb truck and a observation platform. Not really suited for the type of missions of the A10: working closely with people on the ground, often within visual range responding quickly and with very high precision.
Would you like a drone to drop a precision laser guided bomb from 10 000 ft on a target that's less than 1 km from where you're standing?? Or would you rather have an A10 flying over low and slow and take out the target with it's gun?
Logically the F
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"You let me know when one F-35 can out compete four A-10's for air to ground combat."
I'm a massive fan of the A-10, but I can think of one situation - when they're up against a fairly modern radar guided missile battery. In that scenario the F-35's stealth is going to let it survive when the A-10s fall out of the sky like rain.
Now I think the A-10 still has it's place. It's exactly the type of aircraft, alongside the Harrier that we needed over Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 15 years precisely because it
A Jeep will beat a Corvette sometimes, too. (Score:3)
If I was taking on a steep, rugged, slippery trail in the middle of nowhere, I'd want something like a Jeep. Four wheel drive, high ground clearance, rugged tires, etc. If I was on a race track and was looking for high speed performance, handling and braking, I'd take a Corvette.
(feel free to change the marques of the off road vehicle and sports car to suit your tastes and/or nationality.)
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With enough effort you can make a Jeep worthy of racing.
http://northgeorgiaweather.wee... [weebly.com]
to be fair that is the only one i know of which i would say meets the need and as you can see requires heavy modifications.
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Literally, the only thing that car has in common with an actual Jeep is the 80" wheelbase. From elsewhere [weebly.com] on the site you linked:
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it's still a fun car to watch race,
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Yes, yes it is. (I get to see it all the time since I'm in the same region!)
Re:A Jeep will beat a Corvette sometimes, too. (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with that analogy is that, in the case of the F-35; the military does, in fact, want to go off-roading on that steep, rugged, slippery trail in the middle of nowhere. But they think that they can take the Corvette, raise its suspension a bit and give it off-road tires, and it'll be better than the Jeep.
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And at the same time think it will still perform like a Corvette.
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A race track is a terrible place to take a ship.
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Obligatory Simpsons reference (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I'm sure more money would help (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone explain? (Score:3)
Can someone offer an explanation as to why this plane has not been adopted? I don't know anything about it.
It'd be a real shame if it's really as simple as, "This is a great plane that's relatively cheap, and both military pilots and their commanders see these planes as serving a real purpose. Congress won't go for it though, because they want a super-expensive cool-looking boondoggle." But is it? Because this is one of those things where I'm suspicious that there's at least some kind of counter-argument.
Re:Can someone explain? (Score:5, Insightful)
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As per the citation compilation [wikipedia.org], it is in use. It's a nice little craft with pleasant maneuverability, great for training, fine for low-threat recon, and viable as a low-cost general purpose aircraft for countries that cannot afford to specialize.
So, maybe the EMB314 would've been a better option for a joint-military general purpose aircraft than designing an overcomplicated modern option, but odds are the article and summary are nonsense.
Re:Can someone explain? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Can someone offer an explanation as to why this plane has not been adopted?
Pork barrel politics and future private sector work. Why would they adopt something good and give up throwing projects to companies to guarantee them cushy jobs after they retire from the military
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Re:Can someone explain? (Score:5, Insightful)
It probably also helps to understand that, even beyond this air warfare centric mentality, the Air Force is largely dominated at the senior levels by fighter pilots now. Ever since SAC's role and prominence was reduced following the end of the Cold War, fighter pilots have been preeminent, with strategic bombing coming in second, and close air support all but nonexistent. After all, look at the aircraft they're pushing - expensive hi-tech single-seater air combat platforms. They see something like the A-10, or the A-29 Super Tucano, as threats that take away money and resources that could be better used for more F-35s, despite the fact that it's overpriced and underperforming, and that you could probably get 10 A-29s or equivalent for 1 F-35, or better.
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Because the Air Force brass hates the Close Air Support (CAS) mission. It's partly a cultural thing - they want to fight wars where airpower is preeminent, where they take the starring role. They don't want to spend their time playing support to the Army/etc (despite the fact that it's been proven, time and again, that this is largely how you win wars - hitting infrastructure etc helps, but does not by itself win the war). They've been trying to kill off the A-10 for years, too, and only failing because the Army loves it, though they've managed to push it off to the Air National Guard.
No, Air Superiority does not itself win wars. But if there's a large-scale shooting war between real powers, failure to control the air will definitely prevent you from winning. In that light, I wouldn't say they hate the CAS job, only that they rank it as less mission-critical than establishing superiority in the air, or at the very least denying it to the enemy. That makes some sense -- it would be foolish to optimize the Air Force for CAS/low-intensity-warfare only to be vaporized by the Chinese or the R
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Hmmm, Senior Levels? GENERAL MARK A. WELSH III Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force [af.mil] is a former A-10 pilot. He knows CAS very well and will quickly point out that the USAF flys over 20,000 CAS sorties per year.
Yes, our troop need both hi and lo CAS protection. The A-10/Tucano along with the F-35 is a great combination, but Congress won't fully allocate the money for both. So the choice is hard, but has to be made. The A-10 fleet isn't going anywhere at the current moment it will be flying until 2020. And th
Its not the F35 killing this, its the T6 (Score:4, Informative)
Besides all that all the A-29 Super Tucano's that the Air Force was going to buy were to be given to the Afgani air force.
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The problem is that they're trying to make the F-35 replace the A-10 in addition to other aircraft...
Re:Its not the F35 killing this, its the T6 (Score:5, Informative)
A10->?
C5->? (C17 replaced C141)
Minuteman3->?
OH-1 Huey ->?
EF111->?(oh lets outsource that to the navy and borrow their EF-18's)
Then there are the ones they are replaceing and having debacles:
F15->F22(which was canceled because cost to much, and is causing pilots to get sick)
F16,F18,AV8b-> F-35
KC-135-> competition for the KC-46 went into multiple lawsuits and an $800million charge for Boeing, Now theyre working a new KC-X procurement because of problems with the KC-46
The procurement issues with the Tucano and AT-6 are small beans in the grand scheme of things.
Honestly they'd like to give the close support role to the Army, but they don't want to give up the budget that entails, and they don't want to allow the army to fly fixed wing. On the other hand they're about to lose one leg of the nuclear triad because they won't have a replacement for their ICBM's when they end of life in a couple years; and they know its coming and aren't able to deal with it. I guess I should put a link to the self licking ice cream cone here but meh; you can google it.
Re:Its not the F35 killing this, its the T6 (Score:4, Informative)
sunk costs are NO excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Germans had a similar problem in World War II from what I remember. They built some extremely advanced and expensive tanks, but they couldn't build a lot of them. Along come the Russians with thousands of cheap, light tanks, and they basically run circles around the Germans. The US also had the Liberty Ship [wikipedia.org] which they could build very fast. It didn't matter that the Germans were sinking a lot of ships with their u-boats, because the Americans just deployed more boats than the Germans could deal with.
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I thought the problem of having to recharge batteries with a diesel engine was solved 60 years ago by Nautilus (SSN 571) and for the last 45 years or more we have only made nuclear boats
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Albert Speer did a pretty damn good job of ramping up German production after 1943. The Germans were producing more tanks in 1944 than they did in 1941. What killed the Germans was that they were too slow to ramp up, their designs were superior in many ways, but very, very touchy, and they completely lost air superiority. Also, they tried to fight a two front war. Actually, a more than two front war. Oh, and their form of government was based on overlapping responsibilities for high ranking Nazis which
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It doesn't remind me of fiction, but instead, of what really happened during WWII. The allies (USA especially) outproduced Germany with less effective, but more numerous weapons.
For the past 70 years, the USA has been preparing for war against a high-tech opponent, but fighting wars against low-tech opponents.
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So, basically, we've convinced ourselves somehow that we're the Protoss. But we've forgotten that the last time we won a war... as in seriously and definitively winning the war and not leaving a DMZ or cesspool of sectarian conflict behind... we won it by being the Zerg.
Much better than a car analogy. :)
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Re:sunk costs are NO excuse (Score:5, Informative)
The F-35 reminds me of a sci-fi book where alien horde A has primitive ships, but a lot of them. They also are not too bright and throw more ships at every battle. Their enemies, alien horde B, keep coming up with new inventions and more amazing ships. Their ships get so expensive even losing a few bankrupts them and they surrender.
Not a book, a short story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Classic Zerg vs Protoss. Quantity is a quality all its own. For the swarm...
Sort of a perverse race... (Score:2)
There's something a bit...chilling...about a procurement process so out of control that attempting to keep the cost and sophisticatio
Apples and lasers (Score:3)
A turboprop sure could be a fabulous close ground support aircraft. So could the A-10, and we already have those.
Trying to develop the F-35 into a jack-of-all-trades is proving to top expensive, too difficult, too much. We really should reconsider some of the multiple roles projected for the F-35, and keep the A-10.
It is not a WW-II era plane. (Score:2, Interesting)
The super tucano is a thoroughly modern plane that happens to use a propeller.
Who wrote this shit?
WWII? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a "WWII-era" plane just because it has a propeller. Is the Humvee WWII-era because it has wheels??
What's old is new again. (Score:5, Interesting)
A bit more than 40 years ago, the military tried to develop a one-size-fits-all aircraft to be used by all of the services to replace the F-4 Phantom. It was the F-111. It ended up being too big to launch from aircraft carriers and not suitable for dog-fighting, but people thought it was cool because of the swing-wings. An expensive plane that ended up with little real use. There is also a fascination with technology in the military, with the notion that new tech gives you a significant edge. When you have to develop new tech throughout the platform, it gets expensive and inevitably you find flaws and problems you just can't overcome. Not that this doesn't happen in the private sector either. Remember the Apple Newton?
As for the A-29, pilots loved the A-10, which was essentially a flying tank. It had an armoured cockpit and was the first aircraft engineered to be shot at and keep fighting. What's not to love?
Re:What's old is new again. (Score:5, Insightful)
"An expensive plane that ended up with little real use."
No it made an excellent long range strike aircraft and did very well in desert storm. The reason it was retired was that it was old and expensive to maintain and the USAF wanted more F-15Es. Which could dogfight.
Re:What's old is new again. (Score:5, Interesting)
The F-35 might have been at least halfway decent if we didn't have to design the whole plane around the Marines' VSTOL requirement, which is really the primary thing that kills it (aside from the ridiculous attempt to assign the CAS role to it).
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Your last point about the Marine requirements is spot on.
They should have designed an Air Force / Navy only version and gotten that fully operational: software bugs worked out, airframe defects fixed, flight/battle tested etc. The costs of the program would be much lower, so more planes, fewer design compromises, more buyers. By that point (which is several years from now) typically there are airframe optimizations and engine upgrades ready that were not available in the initial design. Take those improv
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As for the A-29, pilots loved the A-10, which was essentially a flying tank. It had an armoured cockpit and was the first aircraft engineered to be shot at and keep fighting. What's not to love?
From Wikipedia (A-10 Thunderbolt) "The aircraft is designed to fly with one engine, one tail, one elevator, and half of one wing missing" What's not to love indeed!
I suppose the real problem is cost or more accurately profit for the defense contractors. Whereas the A-10 seems to be about $12 million each the F-35 is coming in at over $200 million each.
I'm not a warrior or aircraft designer but it seems to be well known that something designed to perform various different functions usually does none of them
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You misrepresent the F-111 (Score:2)
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pilots loved the A-10...was the first aircraft engineered to be shot at and keep fighting
Might want to google "Sturmovik".
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Well, the F-111 wasn't a total failure. It was a damn fine medium bomber, actually. But yeah, when they tried to make it do every function they could think of, it sucked. And it was never a good fit for either the Navy or the Marines, being too damn big.
I would love to see them use the PA-48 (Score:3, Interesting)
IT IS NOT! (Score:3, Informative)
A-29 Super Tucano is not a WWII Era plane! that headline is a flat out lie.
Also the A-29 would beat a F-35 for COIN. It is useless for any other mission.
Good GRIEF! The editors on Slashdot are now at the FOX News/MSNBC/Nation Enquire level!
WWII was in the 1990s??? (Score:3, Informative)
The Super Tucano is no more a "WWII-era" plane than the F-35 is, it first flew in the late 1990s, and is derived from the 1980s Tucano. The F-35 began development at about the same time as the Super Tucano ...
About all that's "reminiscent" of WWII designs is that is has a prop ... but then the first pure jets flew in WWII too.
Bring back (Score:2)
the Arrow!
How cheap can we build new Douglas Skyraiders? (Score:3)
They saw service in Viet Nam including shooting down Mig-17s.
So much noise about F-35 (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm interested in the F-35, and I have been reading about it. There is so much noise that it's hard to sift through all of it. It doesn't help that I'm not any sort of military expert.
I have read that the F-35 is disaster piled upon disaster, and I have read that the F-35 is "retiring risks" and converting naysayers into believers. I have read that the F-35 is incredibly expensive to operate, and I have read that it was designed for easy maintenance and that it will save big money in the long run on operating costs. I have read that the design of the F-35 was compromised by the need for a lift fan on the B variant, and I have read that the plane would have been just as wide without the B variant because of the design of the enclosed weapons bay. In short, I keep reading things and then reading the exact opposite from some other source.
Here's what I think I have figured out.
First, the F-35 had better work because at this point we are stuck with it. The old planes are old and getting more expensive to maintain, and in the long run the F-35 is the only reasonable option (but only if it works... if it doesn't do the mission, it is not a "reasonable option"). The Obama administration shut down the F-22 production lines on the theory that we only need a handful of air superiority fighters, and the money would be better spent on the F-35 (and the Growler, according to Wikipedia). It takes forever to make a new plane, and we really don't have a plan B (or "plane B") ready to go. Also, the USA as a strategy would rather spend more money on planes than lose the lives of pilots; it might be cheaper to buy upgraded older planes, but if the "fifth generation fighter" thing works out, and future battlefields increasingly have anti-air missiles, the F-35 might have lower losses in combat than older plane designs.
Second, the F-35 may not be horribly expensive. Right now I don't care about sunk costs... cancelling the F-35 won't get the sunk costs back. All that really matters is the "fly-away cost", the cost to build and equip a new plane, and the F-35 doesn't seem completely unreasonable there (it's now under $100 million for the A variant and trending down). One of the remaining risks is whether production can scale up enough to make F-35s as fast as everyone wants them made, but if that scale-up happens costs will fall further. Again, the big question mark is operating expenses and reliability. If the F-35 needs so much maintenance that it can't fly very often, then it was a bad idea. (And by the way, next time the Pentagon wants to make a new weapons system, then I will be very interested in the sunk costs of this one.)
Third, I'm a cautious believer in the ability of the F-35 to do the missions as long as it's not in the hangar being repaired. It can't win a dogfight with an F-16, but that was never its mission (send an F-22 for that). It basically needs to be able to carry sensors, computers, radios, and missiles, fly long distances, and be a little bit stealthy. I think it can do those things; and once you have the plane, you can upgrade it by improving subsystems. I know, half a century ago, the end of dogfighting was prematurely announced, but with modern missiles and with the stealth features, I think the F-35 will be able to defend itself.
Fourth, I'm not completely certain that the F-35 will be useless for close-air support. The fans of the F-35 claim that the A-10 can't be used effectively against people with any anti-air missiles including shoulder-fired ones; that much of the time in recent years, the A-10 was required to operate from high altitude to avoid being shot down by missiles. The F-35 is not going to fly low and slow over a battlefield and shoot things with a gun, but it could fly past and fire off precision guided munitions, which should work. One thing is for sure: the alleged upcoming test between A-10 and F-35 for close-air support will include simulated anti-air missiles, because if it didn't the A-10 would totally win.
Fifth, I
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The reason is that most don't understand how the procurement process works nor do they understand that actual capabilities of the F-35. They can't envision what the superior SAR capability of the APG-81 brings (not to mention the LPI AA modes), nor how DAS plus the JHMCS makes the situational awareness capabilities of the aircraft magnitudes beyond anything currently flying. They also don't understand that an F-35 carries more fuel than a F-16 and F-15 combined. It has the legs to go where others can't and
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Good work, Mr $hill. At least you can write some prose.
Wow, for whom am I shilling? Nobody has paid me yet, so I must be doing it wrong. :-(
STILL WRONG! (Score:2)
The A-29 is in now way "inspired: by WWII in anyway, shape, or form.
In WWII you did not have COIN aircraft at all. The ground attack aircraft used by the US where in large part fighters the USAC found that single engine attack aircraft were not as flexible as fighters like the P-47. 51, and 38. The navy did have the SDB, TBM, but for close support the F4F, F6F, and F4U where king.
The only thing WWII about the A-29 is that it has a prop. Guess what lots of airplanes still use props. Most WWII aircraft where
If the Air Force Won't Fly Them (Score:2)
Then the Army should tell the Air Force to take a hike and fly them itself.
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They would love to...but the AF's friends in Congress make damn sure they aren't allowed to.
A10? (Score:2)
sips gas, and can go anywhere
I don't really understand this statement: it has a much smaller range than the F-35 (by every measurement, even combat range), and is less than a third as fast. It has far more loiter time, but the F-35 isn't intended for that role.
I think the F-35 is a joke, mind you, and should never have been built (and I still hope that we don't end up buying any in Canada) but I'm not sure why the A-29 would be considered in any way a replacement. It sounds more like it's a replacement for the A10, and it's not clear t
A run for its money? (Score:2)
Re:I may have missed it but (Score:5, Informative)
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Navy?
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I don't think those things invalidate my question.
Folding wings are for storage.
tailhook is for L, not TO.
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I have a number of devices that contain electric motors. There's a vacuum cleaner, a blender, a mixer... It would probably be possible to create a "multi-purpose household appliance" that would do every possible task with just one electric motor.
But the fact is that a device that does several different tasks does NONE of them well. My carpet shampooer isn't a vacuum cleaner, and there is no "multi-mission floor care device" that is both a carpet shampooer and a vacuum cleaner, even when they are superf
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VSTOL (Score:2, Informative)
but a prop aircraft being smaller and lighter does not require long runways...
Re:I may have missed it but (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure if it supported vertical take off but it does support vertical landing.
Re: vertical landing (Score:3)
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That's a remark you generally hear from people who fly other people's airplanes.
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What a remarkably apropos user name.
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Both the superTucano and the A-10 are irrelevant against a modern IADS, and will be bled by modern handheld SAMs. Yes, you can eat the first one in an A-10, but you're still out of the fight for a week.
Whlie the armchair quarterbacks have been bitching, they've been replaced with reaper (think supertucaon without an ejection seat). When one of those gets shot down or crashes, well, we pull another out of a coffin, put the wings on, and 2 hours later we have another one for a hell of a lot less than the cost
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Both the superTucano and the A-10 are irrelevant against a modern IADS, and will be bled by modern handheld SAMs.
An argument made in the 1970s when the A-10 was being forced upon the Air Force. And yet it turned out to be quite useful over the decades.
For the record, fighters do even worse against IADS. See WW2, Korea, Vietnam and various Arab/Israeli conflicts. The A-10 was designed with the lessons of these wars in mind. Nap of the earth flight, ruggedness, etc.
Drones have their utility but they are not a complete replacement. Well maybe for the F-35, given that it will probably be required to operate at highe
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There are effective countermeasures against MANPADs. Some of the 70s-era stuff still works.
I'm always disappointed when straight-up strobe blinders aren't deployed, but I know the collateral damage is a problem. At least the make the MANPAD incorporate some sort of sensing and targeting assistance, which can then be challenged with always-on IR jamming.
But, admittedly, the standard ECM paradigm against all surface launches was to deny the targeting long enough to exit the area, or illuminate the launch an
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No, update the A-10 (Score:2)
Screw changing anything, just stick with the A-10 Warthog, a proven worthy opponent on the battlefield (and a beautiful, tough aircraft to boot!)
No, update the A-10. Include folding wings, sturdier landing gear and a tail hook so that it can be aircraft carrier capable. Then the Marines will be allowed to fly it. Note that the Marines believe that aircraft exist for one and only one reason, to support the Infantry. Marine pilots had to become qualified infantry officers before they were even allowed to go to flight school. The A-10 is a perfect fit for Marine culture, from privates to generals to the commandant; but the Navy so no because of it not
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Screw changing anything, just stick with the A-10 Warthog, a proven worthy opponent on the battlefield (and a beautiful, tough aircraft to boot!)
If the Resistance considers it good enough to fight Skynet, it's good enough for me too!
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The DOD is buying the F-35 and that's that.
Yesss massa!
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Obviously you've never been taking incoming and wishing you had an A-10 on hand. All an F-16 does, or an F-35 will do, is quite things down for a few minutes before it goes away. With an A-10 you can actually catch some sleep.
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The DOD is buying the F-35 and that's that.
You are missing the F-35's major feature. It's just bad enough to be exportable. We (Lockheed) can sell these to any two bit government. It's good enough to elicit an "Oooooo! Shiny!" response from them. But it's not quite as good as the F-22. So if we should ever have to face them in air-to-air combat, we can still knock them down like flies.
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That doesn't even include the B-52, B-1, B-2 and other bombers that will be procured in the future.
Good luck buying any of those in the future.
B-52 stopped being produced in 62
B-1 in 88
B-2 in 2000
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Only if by cost you mean the US GDP.
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The total cost of the F-35 Program is 1 Trillion
The big dig cost 24.3 billion dollars. We could have used that money to refurbish a heck of a lot of our run down urban infrastructure?
When you spend money on defense you also have to determine the value of the assets you are protecting. If you reduce their value to zero through neglect then you don't have anything to defend.
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I dislike the "we could use this to fix our infrastructure" argument.
I would be closer to being rich if I got your salary in addition to my own. My guess is that our respective employers have a reason for paying you for what you do, and not paying me double for doing more of what I do.
We should spend money on infrastructure, but we need to be careful here and understand that there is a mission that needs to be completed.
My problem with the F-35 isn't that I don't believe in the mission, it's that the F-35
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See you admitted that it costs 1 TRILLION dollars.
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The F35 isn't a money pit. It's a good investment.
"good" is relative, It doesn't mean "best". A more prudent investment would be one in our own infrastructure. With a trillion dollars we could have a "big dig" type infrastructure improvement in every american city.
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The plane is coming in under cost.
1997 projected cost per plane: $113 million (in 2015 dollars)
2015 projected cost per plane: $178 million
sure you can bring it under cost if you keep moving the goalposts
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The plane is coming in under cost.
Oh, Really [ieee.org]?
The plane is also supposed to be having these various problems you mention because it is still in testing.
Oops. You're not supposed to be doing that anymore [federalnewsradio.com].
The plane is also on schedule
Right. Which schedule? The one they made last week?
Good. So we're spending trillions of dollars on technology we don't need. An excellent, fiscally responsible approach to defense spending.
For a troll, you're not so smart. Use arguments that are harder to pick apart.