I doubt I agree with everything he says, but he is a hell of a great public speaker. I wish I had his public speaking skills. :p

I’m not especially worried about the next 30-40 years without JSF. Weaponry, netcentric warfare and advanced sensors is where it is at. F-16s can go all the way to block 110 for all I care. F-22, A navy jet with F-22 like performance, FB-22, B-3 (, the large UCAV long range bomber being thought about…. I really wonder about… don’t think it will be cheap and will look aweful funny when we dump one of those at the cost of gigadollars. ), X-45, X-47 UCAVs, etc.. should be easy decisions. It is my opinion that we can best spend our limited funds a better way. That includes having enough for 2nd generation warfare… and yet having enough to do 4th generation warfare…. which we have not mastered yet, and may never. Much of combating 4th generation warfare does not require second generation solutions. However, Specfor bug hunts, good intel, numerous netcentric warfare players are what needs improving. I could even not be so annoying on JSF if we weren’t wasting money like a drunken sailor doing all of the useless expeditionary warfare that: A- Has nothing to do with the defense of the U.S. , and B- is eating up our blood and budget for no real gain. The USAF, just as one institution, is not having money spent on it for useful things that way it should be. Part of the reason for that is that the military industrial complex goal is to make the next sale, regardless if that has anything to do with logical national defense goals or not. It is cheaper right now to boost F-22 production up to about 500 airframes over the years. For USAF, a F-22 / F-16 Block 6x, 7x mix, is more than enough for the small fighter world. Including making more of the F-16s blended total force units ( Active and Guard mixed ). The USAF is getting smaller, but it is also getting more lethal. This can happen without JSF.

Outside of a fleet of aircraft for logistical support and SAR does Belgium actually need an air force? I mean, it is facing friendly nations on all sides and doesn’t face the threat of invasion so why does ot need a fighter force? :confused:

Luxemburg is a serious, serious threat matrix!!! Don’t trust them. Order 3 Squadrons of JSF! :p 😀

The US will shortly need to replace very large numbers of tactical fighters. (i.e. A-10’s, F-16’s, F/A-18’s, and AV-8’s) Further, to replace them with the same types would be dangerous. That would be like keeping F-4’s and A-7’s instead of upgrading to F-15 and F-16’s during the late 70’s and early 80’s…………….

No danger at all. F-22 with JDAM 32 and 35, SDB and later SDB II, is a serious force that will be breaking down defense nodes, airfields etc, while, B-2 with large… large numbers of PGMs will be able to hit even more critical air defense assets. JASSM in many flavors also… USN Tomahawks ( if fleet assets are in range ), Breaking an integrated air defense on the order of North Korea or some other bad actor, will happen if needed. With the door beaten down as above, then even legacy aircraft start creeping into the picture for phase one ( the beatdown of integrated air defense ) of the air battle. Where B-1s with many, many PGMs can start working strategic targets where air space becomes safe.

Again, once large SAMs and enemy aircraft are killed off enough, I don’t need a stealth fighter. The aircraft you mention as being too high risk offer the following:

-F-16 and F-18 are in production.
-Less of these airframes are needed compared to the days of old. And that includes Allied Force 1999 where the only JDAM carrier was the B-2. Now that all weather PGMs are more common…. and dual use ones ( Laser JDAM, Enhanced Paveway etc ) are becoming even more common, we are no longer in the sorties per target era. We are in the targets per sortie era.
Where: 4 F-16s or F-18s taking off with PGMs can not be touched by medium SAMs, Small SAMs / MANPADs, AAA, Trashfire. I can touch you, but you can’t touch me. This does not require stealth after phase one of the air war is done. The enemy sits there and sees more of their battlefield hardware and logistics support, melt away. What a enemy conventional fighting division of ground troops suffers inside of a 24 hour period of a continous freight train of fixed wing aircraft overhead killing off things, is frightening. Been there done that, this concept is proven already. Including later, CAS in many flavors is performed using high altitude PGM shooters, hitting more times than not, right where the Ground Forward Air Controller ( GFAC ) wants it delivered.
-The new twin racks on F-16s allowing for 2x 1000lb class PGMs on each side, and the quad rack for the SDB, allow this aircraft, and the F-18, to carry a nice number of PGMs. CFTs on the F-16 make it even better, as a CFT F-16 with tanker support, can carry a lot of PGMs. Add the F-15E to this and it gets scary, where the F-15K just did a test carrying 8x 500lb GBU38 JDAMs… on the CFTs alone. As we get away from single use PGMs ( where your choice is only laser or GPS/INS ), dual use PGMS that can do both laser and GPS/INS ( Enhanced Paveway, and Laser JDAM ) make the options available very comforting. F-18E/F with AESA is now writing the book on netcentric strike warfare enhanced dramatically by AESA. The above 3 mentioned aircraft types roaming over a battlefield unmolested because enemy aircraft and large SAMs are killed off, and you can see here, that all of the huge expense on JSF, is just not needed.

We will have enough to subdue a strong integrated air defense. What we have to do though…what we need to do, is finish the transformation.
That transformation should include; not hurting core, proven logistics, support, and people issues. The quality of our people is what allows the USAF to function. Not just the hardware. With the dumb effort in Iraq, we are bleeding off sometimes 10 billion a month just on that. There are whole other GWOT functions going on that don’t have much to do with defending America, that are taking cash away from not just the USAF, but other services. Every time a Army or Marine unit tours in Iraq for example, when it comes home, whole portions of it’s equipment are sometimes left for the next unit. We are not producing enough common everyday ground equipment; vehicles, weapons, personal battlefield gear, just about everything that makes up a ground units TO&E. This stuff has to be repaired or replaced. We want a JSF yet a troop is using a beatup Humvee or truck in a combat theater that hasn’t had the proper amount of repair and sustainment funding applied to it. What’s wrong with this picture? :rolleyes: That is happening… alot. Theater commanders are not asking for a JSF to do GWOT work. Not to mention many other overly expensive pieces of hardware out there that don’t bring much to the fight, yet keep war profiteers and their bought and paid for congressman happy.
-We have many, many dedicated defense engineers working on JSF. We need those skills working on any number of other needed war effort programs.
-Review our defense spending and where the old rule “budget is policy”, is pretty much the golden rule. A dollar doesn’t buy what it used to. Including the fact that our government is putting us further into debt at an alarming rate.

So no. I do not want to see JSF. However I am a realist. I don’t have millions to buy off congressman so they answer my phone calls. Most here don’t. So expecting the government in this case to do the right thing, is feeble minded fantasy. JSF will most likely go through. But it is seriously breaking/retarding other useful defense programs that seriously needed. 260-270 billion dollars is a large amount of money. I can take that money over years and help buy stuff that is really needed, on time and under budget: Tankers, C2-ISR, Replacement Sats for the NRO, a strong UAV/UCAV roadmap that includes X-45/X-47 UCAV, Various/numerous sustainment programs on things that are war winning: People, Airlift upgrades, PROPER FLYING HOURS ( we have been robbing flying hours to pay for Iraq ), replace old F-16s, F-18s as needed. Start R&D on a carrier aircraft of F-22 like performance, R&D FB-22, Fund B-1 with everything it needs. The things I mention here is the short list.

As for the JSF, if we are going to do it at all, it needs to be slowed down. (Not a lot, just a bit ). The first airframe is going to fly toward the end of the year. With less than 1% of flight testing on the books, We do not need to be funding production until we know more about it. All testing can not be done in a computer. Of course the corrupt Mil industrial complex pukes will say this is “expensive”. No kidding. Expensive is going into production and then having to go back and tire patch all of the screw ups because things were learned later in testing ( F-18E/F etc ). Of course fixes are payed for with a new authorization of moneys that don’t always make the A list on the happy-smiley press releases put out by program managers. This is going to get really bad when the B model starts flight testing. Maybe if we are damn lucky we will avoid horrors. But the B model still has to fly and carry a useful weight…. over a useful distance. All the B customers should be shaking in their boots, wondering what they are going to get. This has the serious potential of being seriously expensive airframes that don’t bring a lot to the fight except a new car smell.

Have to be careful with the “Woman in the military” statement. Woman have been doing flying jobs in the USAF for a very long time. However woman in ground combat positions ( not talking about defending your country ) doing expeditionary warfare in a land combat unit, is nothing less than dumb. As there is no front line in Iraq, all woman need to be pulled from U.S. Army and Marine ground units. I have nothing but contempt for a society that things it is OK for a woman to end up as a POW. Same goes for being shot down and being a POW. Again I am not talking about defending your country. As more times than not our expeditionary warfare has absolutely nothing to do with defending the U.S.

There are never going to be enough F-22s built to put the number in theater to deal with China. Every other US aircraft is at a disadvantage against the Flanker. Those same Flankers will also keep US bombers from getting into launch range with cruise missiles (unless all you’re interested in hitting are coastal installations).

Interesting theory. First, not much is going to stop an F-22 from bringing down emmitters in an NCW environ. SDB I and II can be dropped well over 50 miles away. Where there won’t be much getting any kind of lock on that. The mail will get through. Further, that GBU32 and even better GBU35 JDAM ( BLU-110 ) will do most of the work of any cruise missile for less money. Any Flanker user will be out-matched. Assuming they even get off the ground. More times than not, we always strike first…. and at night.

You think what, 6 or 7 B-2s are going to be able to cover a country the size of China? JASSM is too short ranged (as the ER will be when it comes into service) and Tomahawks value goes WAY down when you’ve got double-digit SAMs to deal with.

First… ANY…. weapons that land on mainland China, will prompt an instant nuclear response. They have as much said so. So doing some kind of strike on the mainland is just stupid. JASSM is not short ranged when you figure out that something like a B-2 can drop them. Double digit SAM systems are stupid expensive. They can be overwhelmed and cut down. Responding to some fantasy Taiwan scenario. ( That’s exactly what it is: fantasy…) doesn’t need force on force issues. There is no need to play their game of direct force to direct force ( to push the fantasy Taiwan strike even further….

-Chicom leaders like the nice little rice bowl they get out of the current system. Lots of cash. They aren’t going to mess that up. Taiwan is a large, large trading partner. All of the other inport / export business holds weight. Not some dumb old school red china idea to take Taiwan. That dumb play would also increase the rising civil unrest in the country. Not to mention, people would want… and most likely get… old school chicom leaders killed for messing up a good thing. The sabre rattling is just that. But lets push the fantasy even further…. China hits Tiawan with a bunch of stuff. First what we can do requires…. No direct force. 70-80% of their oil goes through the Indian Ocean and up through the South China Sea. Even if it was only 30%, it would still be a large problem. We have a hardcore deep water navy. They don’t. Their oil reserves might be good for 6 months, if that. As for finding someone to make our McDonalds Happy Meal Toys and other Walmart inspired crap…. Suppliers have long went for back up providers just in case China did become unstable. Would whole economies be cripped for a while? Yup. They would. However, any push to take Taiwan is, in the long run, a losing play for Chicom leaders. It isn’t practical and it doesn’t make sense. Chicoms are not stupid, most days of the week.

The F16 would be woefully inadequate against a Flanker. It’s range is nothing to write home about either. The ONLY “legacy” fighter I’d consider would be a significantly upgraded F-15. F135s, TVC, and APG-77 at LEAST. Of course you can’t do that because then the politicians will be going “what do we need the F-22 for then?”

For us, No Flanker will ever end up engaging an F-16 or any other legacy jet. It will be broken and burning on the ground, long before.

Now if it only had range. If you’ve got Flankers on patrol their radius is much greater than the drag queen consequently the Super Hornets would be unlikely to even SEE land let alone drop anything on it.

Pretty hard to patrol anything when you are long dead and here, as the China fantasy has no legs. Most other Flanker users aren’t even in any numbers. And we aren’t going to fight India, ever.

Absolutley guaranteed to be more expensive than the F-35 without coming close to the versatility. According to Roscoe (who would know) all things considered, nothing is going to be able to touch the F-35 in air-to-air except the F-22. Obviously if it came to a gun fight a Typhoon or Flanker would eat it’s lunch but that would be the exception rather than the rule.

You might want to have some others like myself, who actually see how the USAF operates on a day to day basis, ( SOC and some others on here ) tell you how much money USAF doesn’t get to run needed war winning, logistics and people issues. It is getting critical. We don’t need the F-35. Buying the Buick of stealth is a dumb idea. If an F-22 and F-35 become naked to an adverse stealth event, at least the F-22 has raw performance to get it out of trouble faster than it got into it. F-35 naked, would have its hands full trying to run from a Flanker if it needed too. Not so with something like a Typhoon. If you want to hold hands with us and jump off the cliff with us as we waste billions to buy JSF, be my guest.

A naval F-22 equivalent AND a new ADDITIONAL class of carriers in ADDITION the all the legacy aircraft you’re still going to have to buy to address the airframe life problem? Can you say “CHA-CHING”?

F-16s and F-18s on low rate buys would address most of our manned combat jet needs. When you stack up what the F-18E/F can do in strike warfare when enemy aircraft and large SAMs are down, in phase 2 thinning of the heard operations, the enemy is just going to eat a steady diet of PGMs and have to like it.

Carrier operations are always incredibly expensive. Adding a no peer jet with F-22 like performance is the smart play, it has a nice warm fuzzy feeling all it’s own that you can’t put a price on. It also hands back to the Carrier Air Wing, many long range options including nice fast long range, C2-ISR with AESA.

You’re going to have the same number of carriers that can operate CTOL aircraft whether the USN owns them or the USMC does. USMC Hornets would have to displace USN Hornets which would gain you nothing but WOULD drive the cost up.

The pros have as much said that 5 SH’s, today, can hit more targets than one squadron of Hornets in Desert Storm. Cheap all weather PGMs give you that. There is plenty of room on the carrier deck to put in a Squadron of Marine F-18E/F where needed. Easy.

With the F-35 you still get to keep your Hornets on the CVNs but in ADDITION to that you get to put F-35s on 5 Tarawas and 8 Wasps. The Tarawas eventually being replaced by a new class of LHDs designed to deploy up to 20 F-35s at a time. So instead of having Hornets only on CVNs and NO fixed wing aircraft on the amphibious assault ships you get to keep your Hornets, add a more capable aircraft to the CVNs AND deploy a buttload of F-35s from your amphibious assault ships.

The B model STOVL has yet to be proven that it can carry any useful weapon load and have any useful range. I think anyone buying the B is in for a shock. The weight vs. power concerns have yet to be proven in real flight testing. The smoke and mirrors cute demo in 2001, didn’t involve combat weight. It was just a cute airshow. For us, the idea of having the Amphip carriers do fixed wing jet strike warfare is stupid. We, as taxpayers, pay through the nose to sustain big carriers. Use them! The Aphibs can better use that deck space for more helos and in the case the moronic crash-o-matic V-22… more space for those large footprint monsters.

Europe should stick to the Eurocanards. What do they need stealth aircraft for?

I don’t know. I respect them enough to make their own decision. However I don’t care if they have a JSF available or not. If it was up to me, I would write checks back to all the JSF partners and cancel JSF. However what I say means: Nothing. Bought off congressman and the corrupt military industrial complex will field JSF. Assuming China lets us borrow more money. We are way into the red.

Thing is you have to buy new airframes at some point because they don’t last forever. The F-35 is the best bang for the buck all things considered. Sure, I wish we’d done NATF, ATA, and FB-22 but we didn’t.

F-16s and F-18s are new airframes. We don’t need whole stealth fleets. Especially since we haven’t learned …. not even close…. all the things AESA can do. It is not just a sensor anymore. It is a high bandwith transceiver, and even might someday qualify as an electronic weapon. I don’t want us buying the Buick of Stealth for many many reasons. Mostly, money and lack of need of the platform considering what all the other players can do. JSF isn’t all that stealthy. I don’t need to have a massive fleet of this hogs and then discover that as we learn more about AESA uses and other tech, it’s stealth qualities become less and less and less.

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It all comes down to numerous building processes many of us have no clue on. Maybe it could be done, maybe not. Just depends. Consider so many things mentioned already but also consider one of many examples with the attention to detail on fine RCS makeup:Insane F-22 detail; like how different size drain holes would affect RCS. So I don’t know. What would the quality / performance benchmark results look like at the end of the QC process compared to the original? Better? Same? Worse? I think something without a vertical tail or taco_like: For example a J-UCAS UCAV shape, would be easier and maybe have less negative RCS problem/solution scenarios. Just an opinion.