Stupid Decisions & Pointless Aircraft

Alrighty then, people seemed to enjoy the “myths” thread, so here’s another one that’s a little bit different.

So, to start with, what aircraft are just pointless in today’s world? Let’s first define pointless. Pointless aircraft are those that do not seem to offer a very impressive capability, or that are being used to perform missions that they are unsuited for when other platforms in the same air arm do the same mission much more effectively.

My #1 most Pointless Aircraft has to be the F-117A. Shocker, huh? Now, when it came into service, it did serve a very important purpose, as was evidenced by its performance in Desert Storm. However, since the Cold War is no more, the stealthy precision strike role is not all that important. With a strike package escorted by EA-6Bs and F-16CJs, the mediocre at best air defense networks we have or will potentially face in the future don’t necessarily necessitate the use of such a “silver bullet”. Plus, it only carries two PGMs. If you do need a stealthy PGM carrier, the B-2 is far more effective, as it can carry up to 80 JDAMs (of the 500 lb variety), and even designate it’s own targets for said smart bombs. That leads us to a good argument for Stupid Decision #1-developing the “A” model instead of the “B” model HAVE BLUE derivative. The “B” model aircraft would have had more stores carriage capability and more range, making it more valuable in today’s world. Hindsight is always 20/20, and in hindsight, the F-117A is a relatively pointless aircraft.

Pointless Aircraft #2-the PLAAF’s JH-7. Why? The Su-30MKK is a more developed, more capable strike platform, while the JH-7 seems more suited to the PLANAF in the anti-shipping role. This seems to be a possible attempt to keep the lines open in hopes of receiving export orders. See? China really did learn something from the F-16 😀

Now on to some stupid decisions. These are clearly decisions that were made to procure one aircraft over another, or to not proceed with a program at all. These should be relatively easy to identify.

Stupid Decision #2 (we’ll give Lockheed #1 for the F-117’s development path)-retiring the SR-71A. Yeah, they were expensive to operate. But we do have a huge defense budget. Buy one fewer B-2 and how many more years of Blackbird operations could we have funded? The aircraft offers survivable, real-time intelligence gathering capability (reactivated aircraft got datalinking capability, remember), and is less apt to be bothered by an S-200 (SA-5 GAMMON) SAM over, say, Iran or North Korea.

That’s it for now. As always, I’ll add more as I think of ’em, and I look forward to seeing yours!

And I just realized that of all companies, Lockheed dominates my list. Given their high-technology prowess, that HAS to be a shocker.