Aluminum is easier? I guess we will have to take your word on that, because it’s pretty easy to repair epoxies and plastics.

If you kill F-15C then you neuter the plan where F-15C and F-22 work together, which is the reason to cancel 400 F-22 orders a decade ago. The F-35A was never meant to be F-15C’s mission replacement.

F-15SE poor performing? How is a paper tiger metered again?

What are you arguing about? Tanks are ferried by ship, the US has a few thousand on ships in every theater of the world. Hauling tanks by aircraft is a token capability never meant for anything except emergencies. The range of a fully loaded transport is severely lowered with such a load and it’s a perilous cargo.

KC-10 makes the least sense considering the age of the 707-derived airframes. There may be more to the story. Killing future C-17A purchases should keep the KC-10’s alive. Retiring some 707 bodies and moving the mission to KC-10 shouldn’t be ruled out.

I think they should surplus out the F-15’s and move them to the ANG in exchange for procurement money that was already budgeted and now won’t be spent. I’d like to see the F-15’s houred out before they get drawn down so why not in the ANG?

The A-10 should be surplus, too, and the Army and Marines should be allowed to pick up whichever ones they want without cost. It’s a shame politics prevents the Army from using what units it needs. The C-27J program was already a good example of the procurement fallacies.

Saab has experience with manned sub 20k pound platforms. They specialize in rugged and inexpensive engineering solutions. Boeing knows gold plated solutions. They need Saab to compete.

I wouldn’t cry if the redesign resembled a shrunken Typhoon. If they can scaled down the X-32 redesign in a conventional layout and give it either a single underbody scoop or intakes blended into the body like Rafale or TF-102A. It’s tough to simulate an internal load unless it has an internal bay no matter how rudimentary it may be to keep it K-I-S-S. it needs to look stealthy even if it has an RCS of a 747. The question becomes how big of engine. F404 non-after burning or F125 after burning. I’d want the latter. Keep it under 15k pounds fully loaded for its flight profile, maybe 25k pounds mtow.

Like I’ve said in the past, remove the backseater and use computer aided training based on UCAV technology. Why cannot the trainer be on the ground and have the ability to usurp command when necessary? The cockpit helmet should be able to project the mission like a virtual reality simulation, only the exercise is with real flight. The same helmet would be used for ground-based simulators. The syllabus for the program depends on the ground simulator to fit the LIFT flight regime like a glove. Together they’ll make transition to F-35 a snap.

I wouldn’t dismiss the F-2 production resumes with an IHI engine in order to replace F-4EJ’s. That wouldn’t be bad for F-2 and F-3 to use the same 15-ton class engine. The big wing of the F-2 mated to an super cruise-optimized engine and an appropriate intake would be a nice starting point. If they abandoned the bubble canopy for a modernized-for-stealth wedge canopy augmented by EODAS-equivalent vision it would streamline it even more. I don’t see a need for the ATD-X tvc paddles, especially if the plane is meant for ground attack. But streamlined AAM-3 underbody stations for self defense wouldn’t be a bad thing.