The presidential aircraft is a special case, and the only reason the US101 won the competition was because of Lockheed’s involvement. Without Lockheed to handle systems integration the EH101 wouldn’t have had a chance. So there had to be a business decision made there- was winning the contest worth the conditions the U.S. placed on the sale. That’s always the case in these things.

With JSF, the U.S. taxpayer is going to fund the vast majority of the program, and to help guarantee sales of the JSF international partners were brought in at various levels of participation. Of course there are go to be arguments over tech transfer, production share, etc. That’s true of ANY joint venture. And every one of these points will be the subject of haggling with howls of protest, hair being pulled out, screams of “UNFAIR!!!” and all the rest. And in the end, it will all come down to, “Is this airplane worth the price and conditions placed on it?”

The funny thing is, the long run political fallout from any pullout by Britain, Australia, etc. would probably be very minor. The defense industry is now so globalized and integrated that no defense contractor wants to queer any future business it might get from the other side no matter what happens in JSF.

One this is sure.. Nuke deal seals a big defence deal for US side. it might be a SH deal or Aegis deal or even a fleet of JSF. Bush only knows … :dev2:

I had that sense, too. The switch in U.S. policy isn’t going to come without a price tag.

Hours hell what if you have to deploy into a theater first? Now you’re talking weeks at least, and maybe even months.

I guess they’ll have the conventional tridents sitting around in subs, ready to fire when Donald Rumsfeld makes a call. In a decade or two, the thinking seems to be delivery through some kind of hypersonic or space-based solution (using technology that I don’t pretend to understand).

Other than for long-duration missions, the “unmanned” advantage over manned flight seems like it would get less important the more expensive the platform becomes. When you’ve got a system costing tens of millions of dollars flying around, having a trained pilot inside provides a backup to the software and remote systems. Although not risking a pilot or soldier is a good thing, it can’t become the sole objective of any system. If the manned platform is superior to the unmanned in a given role, they should be using the manned system.

Considering how US treat ‘partners’ (Britain and other countries in the current JSF development) I am not sure whether it pays off to be one..

Isn’t that what I said? It’s always a calculation. Everybody is going to decide based on their own interests. The JSF issue is a concern for Brits, but BAE is selling more and more stuff into the U.S. defense market. So there’s cash involved that alters the calculation. And I was really talking about wider defense partnerships than just procurement programs.

For some reason, Boeing doesn’t seem inclined to market a 747 tanker.

So far, I think they believe the air force is looking for something smaller and are pushing the 767. If the air force is looking for something bigger, there’s also the 777 they might want to push instead. But if the air force gets serious about a larger tanker and asked them about a 747 conversion, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t hop on board fast and begin the push.

DON CHAN, PETROS and DINGER, I’d hate to see the facts get in the way of anti-American propaganda… 😀
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Why are you bringing me into it? The discussion I had with SOC involved “taking the gloves off” and the use of lasers as a category of weapons. That’s a much broader issue than the one you’re referring to. So no reason to be nasty or be calling stuff propaganda. Frankly, it’s hard to see a statement like yours and not respond with obscenities.

At any rate, I believe the reason behind the laser thing was to further reduce collateral damage.

Fair enough. The problem is that mistakes happen when targeting from a distance. And it’s bad enough PR to kill someone mistakenly by a weapon in the “humane” class, but think of the propaganda victory you give to the other side when you mistakenly incinerate, blind, or permanently mutilate an innocent party with chemicals, gas, lasers, microwave radiation, or whatever the hell else DARPA can come up with. We can say a bullet isn’t any better than a laser or gas, but people seem to have an emotional reaction to the latter kinds of weapons that isn’t easily discounted.

That’s why I still believe that even putting aside morality and in thinking pure military terms, we should be very cautious when it comes to using this stuff on people.