re: Chuck Yeager comments on the F-35 and F-22

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I don't understand the hate for the F35.

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It's an expensive boondoggle on the order of the Bradley and the Crusader, combined. Failures and slow development can sometimes be excused if it isn't so cripplingly expensive.

In the F-35's case, it is not all on the contractor - they wanted to make this "every plane, for every one" - USAF, USN (carrier), STOL, export, the whole smash. They wanted it to be air-to-air, ground support, stealth and all that.

Something has to give and what's happened is - it doesn't do anything particularly well, costs well more than projected and is getting fielded much later in its development cycle than expected.

That's why the hate, although, again, it is largely a hell of the Pentagon's own making (with usual congressional and non-defense interference for purely political and not military goals).

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didn't the marines basically frick everything up with their demands?

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Honestly, the USN/USMC should have bid out an entirely separate plane and the F-35 should have been a straight replacement/upgrade for the F-16.

A lot of what the USMC wanted for STOL has been scrapped or scaled back (unless I missed something). But wanting it to do that, plus the CVN landings, plus all the other, gee whiz, F-22 "light" features (which it will never be a stellar air-to-air platform - there is a lot of parity with the foreign competitors now - because of the relatively slow fielding). Hell, as it is, we should already be looking at the successor for the F-22 - not because it is not capable, but the design is a little older and we've only got about 180 of them.

The "thousands" of F-35s are obviously never going to materialize now. Lesson learned (I suppose).

Good post. The Navy needs an upgrade to the Super Hornet before we do anything else.

frick y'all

I miss this bad boy

I'm mostly impressed he didn't write it in all caps.

A single Air Force F-35A costs a whopping $148 million. One Marine Corps F-35B costs an unbelievable $251 million. A lone Navy F-35C costs a mind-boggling $337 million. Average the three models together, and a “generic” F-35 costs $178 million



It's disgusting. What a massive waste. Think of the military as a heavily armed post office or DMV.

Dumb question

How is the number picked

Why aren't these F-17 and F-18?

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We just don't currently need an entire air force comprised of the 22

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You never do until you do.

And a reason we won't need them is because we have them.
The political negotiating power tools like this bring can be even more valuable too

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Chuck Yeager

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Dropping truth bombs.

Yeager Bombs.

Chuck Yeager is a cocky a-hole. But he has brass balls and he's definitely earned the right to be a cocky a-hole.