On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 00:14:35 GMT, "Frijoles"
wrote:

Whoa, easy there Ed. First gig him on the fact that it was Guadalcanal not
Leyte Gulf. Then you are cleared hot on bringing him into the 21st century
.


Gimme a bit of slack please. It's before my time (even mine!) and I've
always been a bit weak in Marine Corps history.

The point, of course, is that there's nothing wrong with the
technology development of the STOVL version. I'm skeptical but have
been proven wrong before. I'm not a great believer in vertical
aircraft--AV-8 has been troublesome and we probably don't want to get
into Osprey discussions.

I've got the feeling that a useful CAS platform might be easier to
develop, less costly and more maintainable with soft field capability.
The effort to get extreme short T/O and vertical recovery seems to be
so much whiz-bang. I'd like more payload and less pilot workload.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8