F35 vs. A10?

[C-Mag]

You guys need a Kriegsspiel table set up to settle this thing.

[brewster]

Hey, stupid question I've wondered about for a while, why was the F117 an F instead of a A? It was not an air combat plane like all Fs.

[Speaker to Animals]

Hey, stupid question I've wondered about for a while, why was the F117 an F instead of a A? It was not an air combat plane like all Fs.

Actually a good question. It wasn't for air-to-air at all. Didn't even have radar installed. Might have been to create confusion about what it could actually do.

[Smitty-48]

They prolly just did it for PR.

"A" has a negative connotation.

"A" is slow and low tech.

If it was an A-117 congress prolly would have cancelled it.

It's not an attack aircraft anyways, it's really a B-117 not an A-117.

Attack is over the battlefield tactical, F-117 was more a mini strategic bomber.

[Speaker to Animals]

The Air Force has yet to release its full budget documentation, which usually includes detailed funding information and a five-year projection of its spending. However, a few trends were immediately apparent:

Procurement remained stagnant at $25.9 billion, with the largest shift in that account impacting the service’s fighter inventory. Instead of going all in on F-35 procurement, the Air Force’s budget seeks funding for 48 F-35As at $4.9 billion and eight new F-15EX planes for $1.1 billion.

Importantly, that’s still far fewer fighters than Air Force leadership wants to buy per year. Both Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein have said the service should be buying 72 fighter jets in every budget cycle. The FY20 budget only calls for 56 jets, equivalent to the amount of F-35s appropriated by Congress last year.

“We didn’t really need, and couldn’t really afford, all fifth generation aircraft. And there was a really important place for fourth generation aircraft," said one administration official during a phonecall with reporters previewing the budget.

However, a second official said the department remains “fully committed” to fifth generation capabilities, saying the F-15X decision was “based on analysis that was over a period of time. …We know that we need a mix of fourth and fifth gen fighters now as we build out our fifth gen capacity. So, this is about complimenting fifth gen. It’s not about replacing it.”

https://www.defensenews.com/smr/federal ... _0ysfBHG0M

[Smitty-48]

$137 million per F-15, and they're not stealth, so will be retired early, what a boondoggle.

Just funneling money to Boeing to keep St. Louis open, pure pork barrelling.

[Speaker to Animals]

Stealth is a hindrance to their role by sacrificing performance, range, and payload capacity. The only things you actually could use stealth for are air superiority fighters and strategic bombers. For everything else stealth harms the mission. It comes at a great cost in effectiveness.

Nor does it even work against ground-based air defense system, as has been hilariously proven. Stealth is basically good to stay off the radar of other aircraft and some older air defense systems. We do not want or need that gimm8ck on literally everything.

[Smitty-48]

F-15E is overpriced junk, $137 million each for 1970's tech, buying eight of those for no good reason, is fraudulent.

Still buying 48 F-35's, so adding old F-15's on top is just congress larding up the budget with handouts for Boeing.

Boeing the company which built the 737MAX, which are falling out of the sky. Boeing cutting corners again, because the unions run the company.

[Speaker to Animals]

[Smitty-48]

Pierre Sprey, Winslow Wheeler's favorite nonsense peddler.

Laughable desperation when POGO trucks out their Spreytardation.

Even a layman can observe the F-22 like maneuverability of the aircraft, just by looking at it maneuver.