Ink

“Its a stupid discussion anyway – nobody is going to convince anybody else so I suggest both sides shut up.”

Yeah, can’t argue with that. This is a discussion that’s been had several billion times (literally) on the web since ’03. And out of that billion times, not once has anyone said, “Gee- you make such a convincing case that I’ve totally changed my mind!”

Blackcat:

I’d say the F-22 was safe given the amount of money that’s been sunk into it, but all the spending on Iraq-related expenses and a big tax cut has led to a large and continuously growing deficit. Bush doesn’t want to raise taxes, obviously, and
the services already seem to be juggling around accounts trying to make their budgets work.

There have been some press accounts indicating that they don’t expect a whopping increase in their budgets. So something will probably have to go. It’s just a question of which big programs are going to get the ‘Commanche’ treatment. I’d think the F-22 would be the last on the USAF’s list. Perhaps the JSF would get nailed instead?

Don’t know the significance of these rates, but the articles says the 18E has about the same rate as USAF F-15s, and about 30% or so lower rate than the F-14. So what’s the point of bringing them up to rag on the hornet?

Dhruv is a light helicopter designed to handle hot and high operations. I haven’t read that the Israelis really need aircraft for that reason, but maybe HAL wants to get the aircraft out to foreign users to help build an export market for it. They gave Nepal a few last year, if I remember correctly.

If you’re going to have clean fighters flying behind loaded up UCAVs, what’s the point of having the fighter? Seems like the UCAV could be controlled by someone on the ground without the cost of putting the fighter up there. I’ve seen the plans where the pilot or a WSO controls multiple UCAVs, but I’m not buying that yet. A UCAV still needs to be flown by somebody, at least for now. And I’d think that would be subject to jamming from the ground or air, though I don’t know enough about EW to say how that would be done.

I admit that I may have this drastically wrong, but it seems like the more you want them to do the jobs of fighters or bombers, the more they’re going to end up acting like fighters and being subject to the same limitations (range, RCS, payload, etc.), albeit with a somewhat modified appearance.

What’s the point of having these big UCAVs? One of the pictures shows a UCAV over an airfield with lots of explosions in the background, but I’d think it would be just as vulnerable as a fighter in those circumstances and be quickly shot down.

Is this just a way of getting more money out of government, or will these things have some useful capability that a manned aircraft doesn’t have?

They could if the U.S. agrees. But I’d expect us to be reluctant to let another shovel start messing around in our garden right now. My sense is that we don’t rile up the war lords for a reason.