wrote:
"Pressure is building from lawmakers on the Hill for
the Navy and Marines to buy more Hornets as the
current fleet gets older and the arrival date for the
JSF continues to slip."

See:

http://defensetech.org/2010/03/20/js...o-135-million/

How expensive is the JSF going to get?

It doesn't matter - the price tag is already well past anything that's
acceptable.

What's really ludicrous is the thought of using any planes this costly
as bomb trucks for ground support. Can you see putting a gold-plated
aircraft like this at risk of getting shot down by cheapo AAA? Just to
deliver some bombs in support of grunts? If it ever did happen, the
ground units would be using every artillery tube they had shooting SEAD
to protect these precious planes...begging the question of why the
artillery wouldn't just pound the main target in the first place.

AHS