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MarkW

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Posts posted by MarkW

  1. 21 minutes ago, habu2 said:

     
    Well they aren’t “bleeding down” as all the control surface actuators are electric. 

    That will happen when they connect the static discharge lines to it. All the electricity will drain out.

     

  2. Without getting into too many specifics that would get me in trouble, that is a very lame response. equivocating and using the "what about them?" type arguments do not address the fundamental problem.There is one side that is clearly excelling at deconstructing civility, honor, and any semblance of allegiance to the truth, let alone the United States Constitution. I suspect many of us here have a one time or another sworn allegiance to that document. Saying all sides are bad does not absolve the one side that is truly, awfully terrible.

     

    that said, it's about time they got off the pot and kicked Turkey to the curb.  I can't recall one time they made any meaningful contribution to the program.

  3. Look, the Navy only had 15 years to get ready for this jet. I'd be far more interested in seeing what the US Air Force mission-capable rates are as that should give a better indication of who has their act together logistics wise.

  4. On 2/1/2019 at 12:11 AM, -Neu- said:

     

    That would make sense if they eliminated the Super Hornet, which they did not. 

     

     

    The real reason? They need an ECR replacement to keep the rest of their Eurofighter fleet viable and provide a broader EW capability, which the F-35 is not really designed for. 

    Short of a Growler, what provides a better EW capability?

  5. In the US, what Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop do is far more insidious and harder to overcome though. They don't sell to the public at large. You never saw that Boeing commercial with the two little kids talking about the f-35 and the f-18 on American TV.

     

    What they do is hire a bunch of ex-military guys, who come with a degree of built-in gravitas. Then they sell their program with all of its faster-than-light technology to some major who more likely than not may not even have an engineering degree. The next thing you know that major is all lathered up, and has sold the program to his Colonel and his general. all of a sudden, the glossy brochure becomes a valid verified military absolute must have need.  and while the warfighters are getting themselves in a frenzy about how many Americans will die if we don't have this glossy brochure technology, no one with an actual science degree has actually looked at or verified that any of the bull crap is even feasible.  So when the system is delivered with the equivalent of dozens of engines missing in terms of cost of capability, no one notices because the airplane flies around makes lots of noise and drops bombs. But it sure as heck ain't what anyone was expecting at the beginning of the process.

     

    And with all due respect, Nue, Lockheed isn't lying as much now as they did in the early days because there is such a substantive body of work, both good and bad to support or deny any ridiculous claims that they make.  And they were put under tremendous pressure during the Bogdan days to get their house in order.

     

    To me, it's just a matter of Saab being markedly worse at lying than the other companies. So they forgot to include an engine is part of the FlyAway cost? Kids stuff compared to the amount of capability that was whittled out of the f-35 program between 2008 and 2016. The other point is a lot of that capability that disappeared from the program while costs increased--no one will ever know about it because it was all Green door stuff in the first place. So yeah, forgetting to include something as obvious as an engine is pretty boneheaded. But certainly dollar-wise no worse than any of the shenanigans Lockheed, or Boeing, or Northrop have pulled on their various programs through the years. Nobody knew that the f-35 was supposed to have a banana trash powered flux capacitor, so when it dropped out of the program, only a few people even cared, and they were the program office people who are most vested in the success of the program at that point.

     

    Have we also already forgotten that the super hornet was supposed to be a miner upgrade compared to a whole new aircraft development?

     

    So again, one company may be worse at the fine art of lying, but their lies are certainly no better or worse than the others.

  6. Before anyone gets too holier-than-thou, I don't find Saab's claims to be any more or less outrageous than Boeing's, Airbus, Lockheed, Northrop, Hindustan, Dassault Mirage, Sukhoi, etc.

     

    This is a business where the moral imperative is selling units, not being remotely honest. And please, please don't hold up Lockheed as a paragon of honesty.

  7.  

    ”And the US would have a new tanker in service now, If Airbus had gotten the contract for it ”

     

    Oh, puuuuuuuleeeeeeeeeeeeze.  How's that A400M doing?  How hard was it to copy an upscaled C-130?

     

    Airbus is not the standard I'd raise.

  8. You know he's right, though? At least partially.  Lockheed doesn't know how to manage a program.  Could you imagine the train wreck-crashing into the Titanic-with a 747 full of school kids falling on all of it mess things would be with Boing?!

     

    Misspelling intentional.

  9. So Navy gonna Navy...

    https://breakingdefense.com/2018/12/three-attack-subs-not-certified-to-dive-navy-f-35s-at-15-percent-readiness/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb 13.12.18&utm_term=Editorial - Early Bird Brief

     

    Quote

    Last year, the F-35 typically had a 15 percent fully mission capable rate, Pendleton said. “Early indications incorporating them into the fleet is that we are seeing some challenges there as well,” he testified. “It took months, sometimes six months or more to get parts repaired and back out to the fleet.”

     

    15% readiness...at least they are firmly in double digits.   Kidding aside, this is not terribly unpredictable.  Spare management fleetwide will need time to mature for sure.  Nice to see ALIS isn't the obvious bogeyman here.

  10. On 10/3/2018 at 8:27 AM, barkin mad said:

     

     

    AFAIK it's always been considered in the Royal Navy (since the Harrier went to sea anyway) that it was better to stop then land, rather than land then stop.

     

    ---------------------

    Not exactly.  First, you have to stop, relative to the ship, regardless.  Second, the brits were the ones pushing a rolling landing approach at one time.

  11. Regarding the Brit ops--anyone notice they didn't pass over the stern?  The sidle up along mid ship then lateral over.  I know there was significant angst and hand wringing with the USN regarding the possible downwash effects passing over the stern of the LHDs, which like most of the Navy gross paranoia, turned out to be not an issue.  From what I can see of the QE design, it seems to be a much cleaner deck edge than our ships, so It's curious to see the side approach.

  12. Navy 2020 or 2045 or 3030 or whatever the hell their long term plan is called always envisioned Shornets and 35s working in the composite wing of the future. It makes more sense for them to practice now for how they will operate the next 20 years.

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