Air Force officially hates F-15s now

[TaiidanTomcat]

On 8/8/2020 at 8:34 AM, 11bee said:

On 8/2/2020 at 7:45 PM, Ljmorrow92 said:

The new EX's bring a proven airframe to the fight without having to send maintainers back to tech school for 6-9 months and completely revamp the support infrastructure to support the new airframes. We're talking about a minimal impact to AGE support and minimal impact to the logistics supply chain. They also won't have to extensively train new pilots because they're probably already pretty familiar with the F-15 platform.  Not to mention that you're not having to invest tons of man-hours into maintaining a 40 year old airframe. And finally, they can be churned out faster than the F-35, because that production line is already putting out planes as fast as they can. 

 

 

they built 134 F-35s in 2019 and its not even in "full production" 

 

I understand the points you're trying to make but the F-15EX is not as "shake and bake" ready as its being made out to be. They hope to be testing the first two starting next year out of a production lot of 8 for the USAF. production speed has little to do with it. 

 

 

Theres good reasons to have F-15EXs theyre just not typically what people are told. theyre arguing everything from a time and budget standpoint and tactical 2nd or 3rd. 

 

[jpk]

6 hours ago, TaiidanTomcat said:

 

both parties have completely embraced trickle down.

 

In the same manner that the post Vietnam democrat aversion to military spending vs social programs has largely gone away. some of the biggest pro military warhawks don't have R after their names now. Most of the big name generals are not R's either. Theyre not averse to little things like the constitution getting in the way of decades of learned authoritarian rule either so that's nice.   Even Saint Bernie loves him some MIC. in some blue states (including mine), MIC is the only job maker they have. VT is actually offering taxbreaks to people (not just corporations)  who move there (but remember, tax breaks don't have incentive or anything) silly Vermont! 

 

if they shut down even one base in my blue state we are screwed hard. well we are screwed already, but far faster. 

 

 

 

Because like anything there is more to it than high corporate taxes= happy healthy middle class lots of changes happened in the 1960s as I'm sure many here are keenly aware of. Bringing back the days of Ike on paper won't magically transport you to 1958. I'm all for raising corporate taxes up to 90 percent if it does though, knock yourself out. 

 

 

Maybe. then again maybe not. We tried to leave Syria and the SecDef Resigned (strategic kurdish purposes). Big talk of trying to remove troops from A-stan before November... but then "suddenly and out of nowhere" Russia "bounties" pop up in Afghanistan. So a bipartisan agreement to stay was worked out before we could discover the story was bogus. We know now that the intel was given us to by the Afghan intel services so we would react exactly how we did (we will show those dumb Russkies by remaining in Afghanistan being slowly bled out! Theyll see-- They have no idea how diabolical a strategy that is!) Mention Russia now and we suddenly go full retard. 

 

I never thought I'd out cynic 11Bee but boy oh boy is hard not to observe that we are committed to forever war no matter the cost. A decline in the civilian sector (think Airlines) might also add to the desire to prop up the companies that double as weapons manufacturers with more defense money. Its hard to make predictions,  but things may be surprising. I wouldn't count them out. Even something as simple as leaving just one of our 6 or 7 continuous wars is considered a longshot--secdefs will leave over it. Red and Blue s will reach across the isle to ensure cooperation using false reports...

 

 

 

if one thinks that defense is the only acceptable place to rob when things get lean, then the only thing worse is thinking procurement is the only place to rob when things get lean in defense... more than quarter of the military budget is personnel for example. the recent (symbolic) bill to cull the pentagon by 10 percent (a kingly sum of 74 billion, or less than 2 percent of the entire federal budget) made sure to keep all personnel but get rid of other things in keeping with the "forever war, jobs welfare,  with ever changing uniforms who want to get good at others things too program. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not so naive as to think that if we roll back the clock to 1958 that all will be well. All I'm saying is do what worked well before. The people that had and have the wealth in the country lobbied hard for 50+ years to do what has been done to taxes in this country and they have won. With wages stagnant for 40 years and the wealthy getting richer because the tax code has been tilted egregiously in their favor, The government is squeezing blood from a turnip. Like the old saying goes, go where the money is and it certainly isn't what's left of the middle class. 

[Da SWO]

AF just released a graphic showing most (all?) testing essentially complete.  Lot 1B aircraft delivered in a few weeks and a production decision made soon after.

[zerosystem]

Just spoke with some maintainers from Oregon's 142nd at London this past weekend, they are disappointed with the decision to move forward with Fat Amy over the EXs. 

 

 

[achterkirch]

1 hour ago, zerosystem said:

Just spoke with some maintainers from Oregon's 142nd at London this past weekend, they are disappointed with the decision to move forward with Fat Amy over the EXs. 

 

 

I thought 142nd FW (Portland) was getting the F-15EX while the 173rd FW (Klamath falls) was getting the F-35? 

[zerosystem]

20 minutes ago, achterkirch said:

I thought 142nd FW (Portland) was getting the F-15EX while the 173rd FW (Klamath falls) was getting the F-35? 

According to those guys they were slated to get the EXs but recently it was changed to F-35s.  Might have to do a tour of F-15 performances around the country to see them before they all disappear.