The engine problems with the F-35 bring to a head some of the bad decisions in the last few years by the Pentagon. Their deciding to go with only one engine supplier for the F-35 is one. What if the engine selected is a dud or has problems like the Pratt does now? It looks like they would have learned from the F-14 that came out with just the Pratt engine that partially crippled the plane. The D model Tomcat with GE engines took the F-14 airframe to its full capability. Having two engines mfg for a plane gives some redundancy and back up.

IMO other bad decisions go a long way back. The cancelling of the b-70, and not too long ago the selection of the F-22 over the F-23 that was faster and far more stealthy. Too damned much politics, and not enough science, logic, and common sense.

Too many things in the US politics (welfare, health, environment, foreign policies and defence) are governed by lobbies. NOT politicians!!

Politicians are inherently (due to the funding system) at the hands of people who financed their ascension to power. Hence they will decide whatever the “companies” want.

In this case they wanted the F-22, 35 and those engines. End of Story.

No. Because their viewpoints aren’t random. They have a method for determining their view on any given subject which makes it much more than 50% likely to be wrong.

It starts from their world view, which is that most of what happens is due to interlocking global conspiracies. Since this is nonsense, their interpretation is also nonsense. E.g. in anything related to science or medicine they concentrate on areas where they disagree with a consensus, because in their view, a consensus is a sign of a conspiracy.

When the Russian government disagrees with any western government or NGO, they assume that Russia is telling the truth & everyone else is lying. This also dooms them to being wrong much more than 50% of the time.

And so on. Once you start out with false assumptions & methods, you’re going to get things wrong far more often that you would picking at random.

Is it not true that a certain government employs think tanks and several intelligence agencies to effect, affect, persuade, establish or overthrow governments elsewhere. Is it not also true that other “less powerful” governments also attempt the same under the first government’s umbrella -of interest and power- ?

By this logic conspiracies are not what we see and read in books and cinema.. but they do exist in some slightly different form.

A better question is, how vulnerable is the MiG 31 to modern air defences.

the publisher claim that the classification of the result “directly prove the innocence of Russia and/or the Donesk militia.”

i can think of at least two other plausible reasons
1] The findings are not conclusive for a statement
2] None in his right mind think this was an deliberate act,
and any blame for this goes to whomever is responsible for the flight route, no need to try to put the blame on any belligerent

I was mostly referring to the “vested interest” comment. These can be found on both sides. Actually mostly on the “western” side who is persistent in knocking on Russia’s door.

Steve49 makes too much sense. Is that fresh air in this thread?

Not to take anything away from Steve49, all of what he mentioned has been covered in this thread already.

Nonetheless, if we don’t discuss these either, what is left to discuss, the efficacy of high altitude SAM systems on commercial airliners? I would find this macabre and really inhumane.

But it was the aggressiveness of us Geordies that prevented you Southerners from speaking Scottish. We don’t want that, do we. :p 😉

perhaps, but we manned the fleet ships… 😉 well…mostly ..

Not to mention some pictures of Bahrein (or some such place) saying it was actually Libya.

Nic

The quality of the media globally is another thing that makes me wonder why the hell humanity as a whole is not revolting against the establishment.

Sometimes I wish V was real.