Funny someone should mention Concorde.

The program has been under full-scale development for ten years. It was supposed to be in service by now, but nobody can guarantee a date. About four years in, weight and performance problems led to a complete redesign so the first prototype was not representative.

But the press releases inform us that flight testing is going well and all the world’s leading operators have signed commitments. How can they be wrong?

The opposition to the project is confined to a few journalists and a handful of independent analysts who claim that its acquisition and operating costs will be unaffordable and that its very expensive technology is advantageous over a small range of likely missions.

They’re clearly misguided fanatics.

Enough of this malarkey. I am now jamming people who contribute nothing but wind here, and advise others to do the same.

PS That comment about Paul Bevilaqua was hilarious, for reasons that I am not at liberty to discuss at this time.

A Viper on steroids?

Yes, it grew breasts, its testicles shrank and it attacked people without warning…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabolic_steroid#Adverse_effects

Freezing assets? All it would take would be for a few secret account details to get accidentally Wikileaked. :diablo:

At least Spear (like SDB II) is mostly a cylinder, so its internal carriage efficiency doesn’t suck as badly as Aero 1A (the Mark 80 shape).

Not always. If I have a radiating pattern from a prox-fuzed frag warhead, a flyby may place more of that pattern over the target’s most vulnerable points.

BVR does not involve IIR? I would not make that statement so categorically. News to the MICA IR, ASRAAM and AIM-9X people, particularly AIM-9X Block II with datalink.

My interpretation of what LockMart is saying is that more than four internal AAMs of any type will require some new and smaller missile (there is one under study for well into the 2020s).

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2011/05/graphic-beyond-amraam-aim-9x.html

And you can look at the historic timelines for missile development – and at the US industrial base and experience in high-speed missile development – and take a guess at when NGM might be ready.

It’s succeeded JDRADM as the F-35 fans’ magic weapon that will go 200 miles, pack six per bay, and take out everything from a spaceship to an aircraft carrier. Which is all wonderful, but there are nearer-term issues to address, such as finding a supplier closer than Norway for reliable AMRAAM motors.

Spud – Boeing would have paid for it. And if they thought that there was more benefit to be had form having the option, they would not have charged Japan the full price. The Japanese argument is bogus.

[QUOTE

25-30 years assumes they have any clue as to the F-22’s or F-35’s true RCS and what it is capable of in terms of electronic attack.

Because the added cost to develop and test would drive the cost up, which is the point to the Japanese comment.[/QUOTE]

Since the four principal contributors to RCS are “shape, shape, shape and materials” (Denys Overholser) and neither the external shape of the aircraft nor Maxwell’s equations are classified, to doubt that an adversary has “any clue” as to the F-35’s RCS level would seem to me to be an exercise in over-confidence.

Maybe there is some built-in technological EA surprise (other than the X-band front-sector EA from the APG-81), but there isn’t any evidence for it.

Yes, a refueling slipway would cost money, built into the price. But a deciding factor across the program? Sorry, but no.

The wording on the Q&A site is more recent than the Skunks’ claim to have hacked the six-missile problem.