Really?! What SAM-systems did China buy and produce?
I get the impression, you have not realized, what that struggle was about at first. At least you have realized, that you have to blame US-companies at first.
Share-holder value rules over national intrests.
The multi-role F-35 as a ‘Jack of all trades’ is a compromise from the start.
Look into the different Flanker-variants. It is the customer, which gives the money and has to be fullfilled his demands at first.

Oh don’t worry, there is plenty to blame on U.S. corporate welfare clowns. However I find it sickly amusing that we would: Push yet more weaps into the M.E. and within a number of years any tech advantage rolled into the JSF will be effectively compromised.

Elp, the “Chicoms” as you call the Chinese so derisively, do not need Israel to access America’s latest technology.

I guess that just wasn’t so with Patriot and a number of other things now was it?

The JSF is going to be one big compromise without Israel anyway. Reason number 5 that it is a bad idea. Exporting L.O. tech is dumb.

Cool. That means the Chicoms will have a knockoff of the JSF soon after that.

So you dont blaming your lobbist system but Israel? You do have money for $400bln in Iraq, and do not for help who need this? How american.

Look at the playbook. Part of the reason we are in Iraq is that among other things, it’s good for Israel. If we bomb Iran, part of it will be because it’s good for Israel. etc etc. etc. We make a nice team. We listen very well to your lobbyists and not so well to others.

As for Iraq, a bunch of it isn’t our money. Run the numbers. Most of it is borrowed. A spendthrift congress and administration. Another dumb move we do. As long as China and others prop up our system and let us run up the credit card and we buy enless crap from Walmart, we are good to go. Borrow, spend, borrow, spend. All while being on endless expeditionary warfare since Desert Storm. We don’t need anymore C-17s yet congress is bought and payed for with lobby money therefore they authorize buying more. Etc etc etc. And other junk like JSF, Stryker, V-22 etc. So don’t worry. You are only one small part of the problem.

Need a new generation personnel system first. Good luck.

More worried about this….

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123021742

Hello CRM… where are you????? 😮

For land attack I would like to see one of the ships in a formation without any helos and just have Army MLRS trucks on the aft deck. :dev2: 😀

CAG unveils flaws in MiG-29 maintenance

“Poor product support from the OEM was a recurring problem.”

Not the first time this has happened with RuTech vendors. This could make the MiG-29 die hard in the upcoming fighter buy for 125 airframes. MiG-29 engines have never been the picture of long flying hours between wrench work.

Those are long flow days at the depot for a fighter refirb. Here an F-15 is done in around 80 some days or so.

Part of the total solution also might be lack of sustainment funding. Even pencil neck accountants make mistakes and senior leaders believe them. Part of the low mission uptimes on B-1s were not because it was just a maintenance pig ( it always was ) but most of it was improper funding for maintenance sustainment. I would wager that someone’s calculations of the amount of money needed to maintenance_sustain their MiG-29 program over it’s service life…. is off. Look back in the administrative history and you will probably find a meeting where someone was patting themselves on the back showing how much money they “saved” in MiG-29 maintenance sustainment.

Proper funding for maintenance sustainment is a tricky thing. These jets don’t produce a “profit” like an airline. Yet some people like to show how much money they “save” in a program with the result being, not enough money spent on spare parts, proper equipment, and of course numerous important people/manpower issues, especially: proper training for all concerned. And excell spreadsheet can help or hurt any program. It is also a tool that can be poorly used.

I am sure you can maintenance sustain a MiG-29 properly. If anyone on the planet can do it, it would be India because they have the proper depot facilities in place and: experience in this stuff. Most likely what we have here is someone trying to be too “efficient” to show how much money they “saved” in the budget. And there are the results: Airplanes fall down and go “boom”.

The stories I could tell you of things like this I have seen in the USAF. :p