Cancelled doesn't always equate to "bad".

While bad does not always lead to cancelled.

Nor does poorly managed
mean the platform in question sucks.

That all depends on how management stacks the cards against the engineers.
I never placed my "feelings" about the F-22, or Lockheed's usenet trolls,
decide my position on the airplane. My judgement is based soley on a risk
assessment of the practices employed by the program and any probabilty of
success.

The pilots who acutally FLY the
F-22 and have flown the F-22 like it better. Are they delusional?

It would be impossible to know if there is any more than politics behind
those claims.

The USAF has fought tooth and nail to get it. Are they not qualified
to determine what they need? Who is more qualified to decide what the
air force needs; a general who has to run the wing and fight the
fight, or a politician who doesn't even know the X-35 was suppose to
be the F-24?

The X-35 seems to be moving along nicely, although it's costs will be higher
due to the lack of technology transfer from the F-22. If the F-22 survives
there is some possible benifit of F-35 to F-22 technology flow in the
future. There is something less than satisfying about an airplane that is
obsolete before it can be delivered, only to find it's flyaway costs at four
times initial expectations.

THAT is a scarey thought. I heard the annoucment.
Sounded like Barney from the Simpsons ". . .so what's it going to be
called? 'Duh. . .the F-35?'"

Why do you dislike the F-35?


I don't. I like it but like the F-16 isn't an F-15, the F-35 is no
substitue for the F-22. All I was pointing out is that you have a
person in the decision making chain that doesn't even know the
designation system. If they aren't familiar with something as basic
as that how can their judgement be trusted? My point was that
politicians have enough power and little enough knowledge to be
dangerous to any program no matter how good if someone says something
bad about it. I hope the F-35 can manage to loose the 2000 pounds it
needs to but I'm not holding my breath on it. The latest AvWeek
mentions them discussing the possibility of changing the outer mold
line which would necessitate recalculating the RCS and coming up with
fixes for the inevitable increases in it. Which adds more $$$ which
means more stretch, the inevitable hysteria and threats of cutbacks
etc. etc. etc. In another post I mentioned that anymore, big ticket
items are starting to sound like one cluster f----after another and
the F-35 is starting to deliver on that. We'll see how the DG-21 or
DDX or DD/X or whatver the hell they're calling it this week will do.




Oh yeah, and I still haven't seen any strakes.

I won't be providing you with any such data.



Is anybody surprised?






I'll conceed one one point with a qualifier. Our ongoing fued hasn't
ever been WOULD the F-22 be cancelled but SHOULD it.

The F-22 should have been cancelled in 1998. The question of will the
F-22
be cancelled is still open.

That being said,
I still maintain (as does the USAF) that the F-22 is the best of the
available choices. The F-22 as an aircraft that is.

In for a penny, in for a pound ...

I don't see the Pentagon buying that and McCain has reason to be proud of
USN's airplane procurement right now.

Proud that the USN has that dog of a "Super" Hornet?

The availability of a reliable airborn weapons platform is what the Navy
needed.


That's all they got. Heaven help to poor sap who ever has to dogfight
in the thing.








More like Cheney
should be kicking himself in the ass for shutting down the Tomcat
production line.

The Tomcat's 0.4 hours between pilot initiated maintenance makes Cheney look
like a genius when compared the the Super Bug.

The idea back in the day was that with the Tomcat 21 they would have
made improvements to the maintanance aspects similar to the Super
Hornet. It would have been essentially a "clean sheet" Tomcat much as
the Super Hornet was a clean sheet Hornet.



The so-called "Super" Hornet now has to fill the
role of whatver it is it does when it was only intended as an interim
fighter. Seeing how in the end it will likely be used more for
tanking and EW than air combat it should be obvious that it's lacking
in that particular area.

The Hornet is the future of USN EW.


Yep. Tanking, EW, and dropping JDAMs at short range is about all it's
good for. Don't ask it to enter air combat against any modern,
decently flown adversary.






As a *program*
meaning mainly the the way it's being managed, funded, scheduled etc.
it looks to have all the finesse of a monkey trying to **** a
football.

Wasn't there a lune CF-18 pilot aound ram by that name?

I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me. First time I heard the saying
I about fell out of my chair but it *does* get the point across :-)

It sounds like something he might be involved in.

I hope for the sake of the pilots who'll have to fight that
we get it but who knows what will happen.

Why? For what?


China. They've already got Flankers with AA-12s. What is an F-15
going to do when it comes up against a Flanker with KS-172s? (Which
China is trying to get from Russia.). It would be like shooting the
proverbial fish in a barrel.

Until Flankers are delivered with electric FCS there is no real need to fear
them past day three. A Hornet avionics equiped F-15 might just be the
ticket, until the X-45 UCAV comes on line.


The thing is the UCAV isn't going to do air to air. And a Flanker
doesn't need an electric FCS when it's already got the HMS and missile
to go with it and longer ranged AAMs than the Eagle. It outguns it at
both close range and long range and outmanuevers it in the dogfight.
The ONLY thing the Eagles would have going for them is the pilots. Is
canceling the F-22 AND hoping China doesn't increase pilot training a
smart gamble? And long range BVR shots even reduce the qualitry of
pilot you need. If the KS-172 and ramjet R-77 perform as designed the
best pilot in the world isn't going to be able to save his F-15. Then
factor in SA-10s and their ilk and it becomes that much more dangerous
for the Eagle. The whole point of the F-22 is to bring stealth into
the equation. Supercruise is gravy.