Cancelling the DIVAADS, GCV, and all the others on this list here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_military_projects#United_States
was fantasy land. Until it happened. And a lot of those projects had just as much backing and support from their respective services as the Pigeon has, or is supposed to have, at present.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Yeah but we had other things besides those in the works at the time didn't we?
We've got nothing but the F-35 right now.
Oh really when?
Then we (for the UK is involved in this shit sandwich as well, as well as numerous other nations) are fucked then. Basically. The concept behind the Pigeon was a stupid idea at the start, and throwing trillions of dollars at it, for it must be at that point in terms of money invested so far by now and projected to be spent across the nations committed to buying it, doesn't make it any less stupid. And let's not forget most of the countries involved in the program are still in recession, regardless of what the politicians in their respective governments will admit to.
If the RAND Corporation is telling you that your program to build one airframe to do three jobs is much more expensive than it would be to build three airframes to do one job each then it's a clue that you maybe should have went with the separate airframes solution. Here's a link to RAND's site with the report. It's available as a free download, which is nice:
If the F-35 finally proves to be more trouble than it's worth, they'll probably fire another 25,000 airmen so they can throw the money at the F-35 to make it work.
^ Like they allegedly tried with the YF-23 back in The '90s?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
That Airpower article was just down right depressing.
Who watches the watchmen?
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
As if surface to air missiles were not enough...
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It gets even scarier when you watch the original video(s) on LiveLeak and compare it with what happens in this old Medal of Honor: Airborne trailer - Life Imitates Art I guess.
Fridge Horror kicks in when you wonder what all those World War II paratroopers had to go through on the way down into Normandy, Crete, or what so ever.
Getting out of a plane before it's landed is dangerous, no matter how you do it. Best you can do is find the least painful way to manage it.
@9309: Is that the aircraft accident where a plane with parachuters on board crashed after it lost a wing and only the people who succeded into parachuting put survived?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Nah, everyone lived without injury actually
Oh really when?
rollin' on dubs
Is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter the New F-4?
How the Controversial F-35 Resembles the Classic Cold War Jet
The jet fighter can’t maneuver, the critics say. It’s based on a wrongheaded concept. It relies on unproved technologies. It’s a one-size-fits-all jet for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, and yet it doesn't really meet any of their needs.
Is this Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter I’m describing? No, it’s actually the Mc Donnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, the ubiquitous fighter-bomber, reconnaissance and radar-hunting aircraft that formed the backbone of U.S., NATO and Israeli air power in the 1960s and 1970s. More than 50 years later, the Phantom still flies, as evident when Syrian gunners downed a Turkish RF-4 recon plane last year.
Yeah, there are parallels. Hopefully they won't present themselves straight down the line as far as repeating what happened to the F4 in Vietnam when those pesky Russian pilots didn't have the decency to get blown out of the sky by the Sparrow wunderwaffe and actually shot them down.
The article strikes me of having the flavour of the Pigeon fanboy about it. Particularly the dig at wired's war is boring article which skewered the thing. You call another writer a "propagandist" when you have done lost the argument, y'all.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
This. The F-4 had a bad start but it was at least affordable.
V
But was it seen that way at the time?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Yes. It was affordable. It was built to be able to bought in numbers. It cost a measly 2.4million per new built F-4E plane.
Who watches the watchmen?
V
Okay. Two articles on older and/or simpler aircraft:
- Britain and Germany Are Still Upgrading the Tornado
- BAE Systems Reports Typhoon Saudi, E-scan Radar Status
[Note: An important part is in 'bold - GM]
The long-expected follow-on order from Saudi Arabia for Eurofighter Typhoons has still not materialized, but in its half-yearly report BAE Systems revealed that it expects to receive orders worth about $2.2 billion to upgrade Saudi aircraft. Earlier this year, a protracted renegotiation of the original “Al Salam” deal for 72 aircraft was finally concluded. BAE Systems plans to deliver 12 Typhoons to Saudi Arabia this year, and continues work on the contract with Oman for 12 aircraft, for delivery from 2017. But contrary to last year’s British hopes, no orders from Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar or the UAE have been announced.
Meanwhile, in the Airbus D&S in-house journal, Domingo Urena Raso, the company’s head of military aircraft, wrote, “We need to add capabilities to the Eurofighter—like the E-scan radar for instance—and make it more attractive both for our home countries and for export.” He continued, “There is no need to panic; we have known for 10 years that Eurofighter production will end in 2018.” At the recent Farnborough airshow, the Eurofighter consortium displayed the prototype, industry-funded E-scan radar. In the half-yearly report, BAE Systems confirmed that the British government has signed a three-year contract worth more than $120 million “to de-risk E-scan radar development for the Royal Air Force’s Typhoon fleet ahead of the award of a full-scale development contract."
That's a grievous insult to the F-4. At least that plane could do things with good pilots and once they put in a Vulcan. It was affordable, fast, relatively reliable from a maintenance standpoint, carries more than an F-35 in payload and turns faster than an F-35 in a dogfight at any speed.
If anything we should bring the Phantom back instead of buying the Pigeon. (And the Phantom's been retired from combat roles in the US since The '90s.)
What the USAF should do is bring back the P-51.
HGW XX/7
WWII paratroopers would be jumping with with static line parachutes, so I imagine it would have been even nastier in a similar situation.
Schild und Schwert der Partei
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Since we are talking about the F-35. Taira preparing to defend the F-35
◊ Have some running gag humor taira.
-insert old and tired joke about the F-35 catching fire here-
More seriously that's a neat little read. I'd have to properly sit down and think about it though
edited 1st Sep '14 11:24:36 PM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?