A-10C Thunderbolt II makes a comeback

[Smitty-48]

Weak.

My compromise on the silly jet would be to not decrease military expenditure at all.

Reallocate to something more useful.

Non sequitur fallacy, totally irrelevant to the point, ain't nothing more weak shit than that.

“I don’t set priorities....”

Weak is as weak does.

You're arguing a separate issue, if you want to get rid of fighter jets altogether, call your congressmen, that's a political decision which has nothing to do with F-35 vs realistically available alternatives to the stated requirement actually on the table.

[StCapps]

Weak.

My compromise on the silly jet would be to not decrease military expenditure at all.

Reallocate to something more useful.

Non sequitur fallacy, totally irrelevant to the point, ain't nothing more weak shit than that.

“I don’t set priorities....”

Weak is as weak does.

You need a fighter jet, F-35 is the best option, your "wait until commander data is ready" plan is dumb, the F-35 offers plenty of bang for the buck, bet you can't name a better jet to spend those dollars on. Go ahead reallocate to something more useful that can cover the F-35's role, I'll wait.

[ssu]

The F-16 has jack shit. It's just a fly-by-wire system. Electronic failure of it's primitive flight control system results in lawn dart. Engine failure results in lawn dart. Failure of many kinds, that to an F-15 pilot would be a nuisance, result in lawn dart.

The F-16 is a fucking lawn dart, and the F-35 is it's lawn dart descendant.

And guess which twin engined aircraft has the best stats with Class A mishaps per 100k flight hours?

(From USAF statistics)
Multiengine Class A mishaps

B-52 1,68 historical, last 10 years 0,4

Twin engined Class A mishaps:

F-15 0,66
F-22 0,57
F-111 0,49
F-117 0,48
F-4 0,16
A-10 0,09

Compare those above to single engined:

F-104 9,48 (Yep, Starfighter was deadly)
F-100 5,61
F-105 4,56
A-7 1,73
F-16 (F-100/200) 1,84
F-16 (F-110/129) 0,84

Now just to put these statistics into perspective, here's the historical NAVAL AVIATION class A mishaps per 100k Flight Hours table. That start with over 50 mishaps / 100k hrs, so compared to that the Starfighter was safe.



And btw there's another interesting statistic about the flight hours:

Cumulative Flight Hours On Active MDS
A-10 (TF34)10,707,795 EFH
F-15 (F220)4,241,715 EFH
F-15 (F229)1,205,765 EFH
F-22 (F119) 523,201 EFH

So the A-10 fleet has flown TWICE as much as F-15 Eagles and 20 times more than the few Raptors. And there have been a lot more Eagles in the USAF inventory than A-10s.

Bitch however much you want about it and praise the F-35 as long as you want, but A-10 is a good aircraft!

[Smitty-48]

It's not a question of bitching, A-10 vs multirole is simply apples to oranges, and thus a glaring fallacy on the face of it. The A-10 doesn't fly in the same flight envelope, if you pull nine g's in an A-10, the wings will come off, so it's not a good aircraft for the stated requirements.

The stated requirement of the Air Force, is to replace both A-10 and F-16, with one platform, A-10 can't do it.

F-16 can do A-10's job, A-10 cannot do F-16's job, so A-10 is a waste of money in the end, by definition.

In order to meet the requirement, only the F-16 need be replaced, A-10 is an orphaned fleet which is just more bloat on the finite budget.

You want to audit the Pentagon? You want more bang for your buck? OK, but A-10 has to go to meet that requirement, the A-10 is not cheap in constant dollars, it's bloat, not more bang for the buck.

[Smitty-48]

The bottom line is this, the American public screeches one thing on the internet, then they turn around and screech a completely contradictory thing a second later, they want what they want when they want it, and what they say they want is diametrically opposed, and this is how the public renders itself to the sidelines, and simply leaves it up to somebody else to make the call, because somebody has to make that call, and they can't make two opposing calls at the same time.

They can't both get rid of bloat in the defense budget, and keep all the toys that the American public circle jerks on, it's one or the other, pick one, and stick with it, or....

[DBTrek]

... and this is how the public renders itself to the sidelines, and simply leaves it up to somebody else to make the call, because somebody has to make that call, and they can't make two opposing calls at the same time.

Canadians can’t make two opposing calls at the same time. Americans can.

I can buy a schedule 1 felony narcotic off the shelf a mere three blocks away, bucko.

AMERICA!

[Smitty-48]

... and this is how the public renders itself to the sidelines, and simply leaves it up to somebody else to make the call, because somebody has to make that call, and they can't make two opposing calls at the same time.

Canadians can’t make two opposing calls at the same time. Americans can.

I can buy a schedule 1 felony narcotic off the shelf a mere three blocks away, bucko.

AMERICA!

We're simply cutting straight to no felony whatsoever, no need to even walk those three blocks, Her Majesty the Queen will courier it right to your door, enjoy.

[DBTrek]

Give the Queen my address please, and ask her how much for a quarter Oz. Or 16 grams. Or .2173 stone, or whatever weird measurement the Brits use these days.

[Smitty-48]

Give the Queen my address please, and ask her how much for a quarter Oz. Or 16 grams. Or .2173 stone, or whatever weird measurement the Brits use these days.

The Queen's price is $10 CAD a gram, or $8 USD per.

[ssu]

The idea of a multi-role aircraft is good and reasonable ...up to a point.

The F-16 is a great aircraft. Yet even it wasn't intended for absolutely everything.

McNamara's TFX Project winner wasn't a great aircraft for all the intended missions. The F-111 was a good attack aircraft, but it wouldn't have been a great plane for the intended naval interceptor role (which the Navy then got the F-14).

The worst plane in history that the local Air Force here bought was exactly intended to be the jack of all trades: a fighter, a recon plane, liason, light bomber and capable of naval surveillance. And it was cheap! Basically the Dutch plane bought in the late 1920's wasn't airworthy and was such an embarrasment that I think it's nowhere to be found in a museum. Finland was the main customer (17 planes) and used the planes for a whopping three years (1930-1932). The 17 aircraft gained between 1,5h to 5,5h of flight time before being scrapped. 3 planes crashed, so I guess the "Class A Mishaps per 100k flight hours" would be off the charts with these planes.

Figther, bomber, recon, naval surveillance.... and cheap!


Hence a mix specialized aircraft is totally reasonable too. Especially when all aircraft can be used in various missions.