MarkW

Bur wait, there's more! This article is hilariously schizophrenic. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/f-35-ejection-seat-woes-2016-6 What all the articles are getting wrong is this is a known problem from 2010, not last year. That's my beef.

Seriously? One F-15 snaps in half doing a mild maneuver, and suddenly...oh wait, what was my angry point? Don't forget how they obfuscated the flight hours on the airframes as well to make much older jets look younger. It took the AIB a while to figure out just how OLD the jet that snapped was. Hint: Moses was the first crew chief on it.

My point is it is either a requirement the contractor should be held to, or it isn't. Fish our cut bait, ACC. And what are they doing to address transgender pilots? And funny thing about chivalry: women don't practice it themselves. As in these sweet, demure ladies will claw each other to death in a Filenes Basement sale.

News that isn't: http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/air-force/2016/06/24/sources-usaf-weighing-replacing-f35-ejection-seat/86257576/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Breaking%20News%206/24/16&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Breaking%20News The seat, aka "neck breaker" has been a known issue in the JPO for at least 6 years. It's criminal Martin Baker hasn't been held to fixing this.

Stark, you are injecting facts, sir, into a highly emotional debate. How dare you. And when did the F-15E become a total pig in the air? It's no C, but it's no F-18 either. And a clean F-16 under the right circumstances could wax them all. So again, making assumption Bee about what the parameters were, and assuming they were favorable to the F-35, is doubly assumptious. The real issue that puts a burr under your saddle is that the F-35 won ANY A2A engagements, because we all know that is impossible.

You are making some huge, unsupported assumptions about what defensive air was doing. You know none of the parameters, yet automatically assume the worst. Bravo. If these were set up as BVR engagements, the Strike Eagle is perfectly lethal, amongst the best. If it was set up as standard Soviet style centrally controlled air, then F-22s wouldn't have mattered. It must be hard on your rapidly shrinking island, watching the waters of RESULTS rise around you. Being the curmudgeon was so much easier when all you could do was speculate.

You didn't see the USAF buying F/A-18E/Fs, and they turned out just fine... http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/809970/acc-f-35-on-track-for-ioc.aspx

Can't paint the gray. In other news, the Marines are either geniuses or idiots in the same article. Hint: The Fox News guy is an idiot. http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/06/22/marine-corps-forced-to-pull-warbirds-out-of-boneyard.html

Israel Rollout Ceremony View Live Wednesday, June 22, 10 a.m. CDT http://mtsports.com/lmf35israel.html

My baby finally getting off the production line. http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/The-F-35-is-about-to-transform-Israels-air-capabilities-457186 http://www.dodbuzz.com/2016/06/20/new-israeli-defense-minister-meets-with-carter-on-f-35-buy/

My point about Boeing is also that a bad contractor was selected through gross buffoonery and incompetence by the AF acquisition folks. Boeing was allowed to protest not on a mere technicality, but because of terrible work done by the boys and girls in blue. In the rush to spend all that "hur dur kill Osama grunt grunt" money, we dumped billions into programs that went nowhere. There was plenty of shoddy work to go around.

For all of the arm chair geniuses who insist how easy this is, how long has Boeing been doing tankers? How long has Boeing been doing 767 tankers? This was supposed to be the "easy" acquisition program and it's been an absolute nightmare. http://www.defensenews.com/story/breaking-news/2016/05/27/boeings-kc-46-tanker-miss-major-deadline/85039916/ Try to keep that reality in mind the next time you get your bag of rocks ready for the F-35…

How dare you sir. How could you possibly impugn the character of these two fine war heroes? Have you not read Starship Troopers? Are you not aware that in the future those who have served their country and know what personal sacrifice is will only have the most altruistic and common good motives? Yet you make it sound like some slimy, political skin saving, "jobs in my district" sham. You should be mcshamed.

Oh McSnap!! What's with the Mcs loving A-10s? http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/air-force/2016/05/02/a-10-air-force-f-35-replacement-mcsally-congress/83824780/

Back to news. It's no secret the F-35A falls woefully sheet in CAS. http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/politics/a-10-warthog-replacement/index.html What is shocking is CNN was a reasonable source.

The IAF ruled out the STOVL a long time ago, not sure why that article brought it up that way. They can barely afford the As they want; a mixed fleet is financially a pipe dream

Keep in mind we are very interested people here, and look at this through a soda straw. Unlike APA in everyone's favorite former penal colony, guys like Axe aren't being brought into Congress to kill programs in a meaningful way. If one of these clowns is mentioned, it's by a lawmaker who already has their agenda, not some babe in the woods. I'd say the real impact of guys like Axe in the U.S. Are about nil. That said, legitimate journalism is required to keep military programs under check, as DoD has proven it can't police itself.

Canada already had a pretty significant input into the PVI and handling characteristics, at least pre flying it. If/when they get it, it shouldn't be too much a shocker. The silver lining in all this is block 4 is so heavily tied to weapons cert, there isn't as much development to miss out on. And they are still players in the office, even if they are getting cut out of industry deals.

Was that a shot at the APA, Axe and Sweetman? Oh no he didint.

I find any comparison of the F-35 to the Osprey program particularly odious given the number of Marines the Osprey program managed to kill before getting it close enough.

The point I take away from all this "superb handling" crap is the F-35 will make the next generation of pilots wah wah babies. So easy to land on a carrier, a caveman could do it. What happened to REAL flying??!

Also keep in ind the amount of money we dump, billions of $$, into programs that never go anywhere. That is absolutely wasted cash. Future combat systems, anyone? Or the USMC EFV? But this also points to a simple fact: all our high tech military bang bang has NOT dissuaded China from arming south China seas island, or the Georgian and Ukrainian invasions. So perhaps the better measure is bang for the buck. And yes, the Russians and Chinese apparently read Sun Tzu, and are aware of the fate of the state of Wu, which was the super power in its day and spent itself into oblivion. That's i

That argument doesn't even remotely make sense. "NATO gets by easy because we carry the load" How does that explain China and Russia (heck, Iran too for giggles) spending so LITTLE on defense relative to the U.S.? Let me guess, we are carrying their load too? We outspend the world by a large margin. Fact.

You sir, and your common sense factual information, are not welcome here.

We are years away from having an operational external fuel tank on this aircraft. The block 4 emphasis was on getting external weapons certified.