Comments on: House Jams Alt Engine Down Pentagon’s Throat

By: pfcem

pfcem — Fri, 23 May 2008 02:35:48 +0000

Gregor the Grunt,
All the ground forces in the world will not take and hold ground without air support (unless of course the opposition has none either). Without air superiority you have limited or no air support.
The bizarre part about the anti-fighter mentality is that when you DROP the bombs on the outside of the aircraft the subsonic gas hog with a larger radar signiture suddenly becomes a supersonic smaller radar signiture plane (& with avionics technology of the 1980’s switching between air-to-ground & air-to-air is simply a “flip of a switch”).
Dating as far back as WWII we realized that a good fighter COULD be a reasonably good attack plane but the opposite is not often the case & that attack aircraft are pretty useless without air superiority. Note the proportion of fighters to attack aircraft on WWII carriers at the end of the war compared to the beginning of the war…

By: demophilus

demophilus — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:06:24 +0000

The P-51A/A-36 was a pretty good airplane with its Allison engine. With a Merlin engine, it became a great one.
Apart from that, the lede could have been more fair or balanced. It’s really sort of a glass-half-full thing. The title could just as easily be “Congress Tries to Protect Anglo-American Aerospace Industrial Base”.
But I guess that wouldn’t get people all lathered up.

By: WR

WR — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:02:13 +0000

Gregor,
“QUIT WHINING! This is a place to offer opinions, everbody’s got one and they all stink.“
As does your whining opinion from you just said!

By: STAN

STAN — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:35:45 +0000

In the 60s the F-111 was forced on the Air Force by McNamara when the Navy wouldn’t take it; for a long time the results were disastrous. In the 70s a GE engine was forced on the Navy because Tip O’Neil was speaker of the house and the GE plant was in Massachusetts. Take the politics out of acquisition!

By: Slappy

Slappy — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:23:46 +0000

The “footprint” the F-35B requires onboard the LHD and LHA(Replacement) is so expansive that the USMC is going to have to leave rolling stock and equipment home and entire ship redesign to hold the special payload (armament), mission planning modules and maintenance pack up kits. So forget about forward basing these suckers. We can barely base them afloat. That dog won’t hunt!

By: Gregor the Grunt

Gregor the Grunt — Thu, 22 May 2008 05:21:06 +0000

QUIT WHINING! This is a place to offer opinions, everbody's got one and they all stink. Every idea on here has it's advantages and it's disadvantages. With the VSTOL or STOVL version of this aircraft and forward deployment of aircraft, it has the same problems the Harrier has: It is very easily brought down by a heat seeking missile while attempting a vertical landing. If it is using a vertical takeoff, it's weapons load is greatly reduced. What seems to have happened is both the Air Force and the Navy/Marine aviation community have been dominated by the fighter community for too long. All the fighters in the world do not take and hold ground, that is the job of the Army and Marines. When I entered the Army 20 plus years ago there were 3 great platforms the Air Force had to support us the A-7Ds, A-10 and the AC-130. The A-7s were replaced by the shorter ranged, smaller bomb load F16s. The Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10s since before the Gulf War, just haven't figured out how to do it, it just isn't sexy to be flying and aircraft nicknamed "Warthog". As for the AC-130s they could double the fleet and still wouldn't have enough. I admit it seems to me you could tell the Air Force "I am sorry, you will just have to take the same plane as the Navy flys off the carriers. It will be a little slower. The wings will be a little larger, the landing gear a little heavier, maybe you could take advantage of that and hang a few more bombs on it or carry more fuel than the Navy would take off with." The bizarre part about the fighter first mentality is that when you hang bombs on the outside of the aircraft(I know there is supposed to be some internal weapons capacity) your supersonic stealth plane is now subsonic or a gas hog and has a radar signiture.

By: maguro

maguro — Thu, 22 May 2008 02:52:01 +0000

Roy Smith,
Might want to recheck your history books, the Army was providing its own air support in 1944.

By: Roy Smith

Roy Smith — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:16:20 +0000

I read how during D-Day in WWII,a single German machine gunner kept American Troops at bay for 8 hours.They called him the "Beast of Omaha." I wonder if...if it were the Marines who had stormed Normandy Beach instead of the U.S. Army,would there have been a "Beast of Omaha?" I ask because the Marines provide their own close air support & most likely would have taken him out well before 8 hours. The Air Force doesn't like being the Army's "Bitch." That shows in the aircraft they purchase.A conventional F-35A gives the Air Force the excuse that they don't have aircraft in area when CAS is desperately needed by the Army.The Army needs the Air Force to buy aircraft that will benefit the Army & their mission.The F-35B is that aircraft.The F-35B does not give the Air Force the excuse that aircraft is too far away to help.The F-35B can be right there & stay right there until the battle is over.It doesn't have to fly back to some air base way back yonder to rearm(for those who argue that aerial refueling will keep the F-35A in the fight just as well as the F-35B).

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:13:11 +0000

Thinking over the years, what aircraft that wasn’t cutting edge this or that, technology this or that; wasn’t having issues with it’s design? F14? F117 (not like they will give out the details)?
When you build from scratch, you are going to hit walls. I’d rather there are issues on the ground than pilots dying while spiralling into the ground! If there is a technological reason why this engine needs to be in the plane, fine. Spend the money so pilots don’t die. We’ve lost enough as a country in two wars.
Out.

By: Roy Smith

Roy Smith — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:01:18 +0000

Robert Pettis,
I’m not trying to bash the JSF,I’m just trying to say how much more versatile AND Flexible the F-35B is out of the three models.Its operational options are much more diverse than the F-35A for one thing.It also gives the Navy the option of building smaller aircraft carriers that would not double as Amphibious Assault Ships like the LHA,LHD/LHX/LHA®.It could have been used on once operational Essex Class Carriers like the Lexington,which had no mission because it was way too small for the aircraft the Navy had & has.If the Lexington was still in service,it could have fielded the F-35B & made a contribution in the “Global War on Terror.” But alas,we made our Essex Class Carriers into scrap,artificial reefs,target practice,& museums.Sure as shit though,someone is going to opine that we need smaller carriers like the,surprise,Essex Class Carriers.Leave the F/A-18E/F Super Hornets for the “Super Carriers”,change the Navy’s requirement of F-35Cs to F-35Bs & deploy them from the retired LHAs as Mini-Carriers before they(the LHAs) end up also as scrap metal,artificial reefs,&/or target practice.