Older airframes

In article , "John Carrier"
wrote:

Like Woody I agree it should be a JDAM dump truck. In addition, it should
be an outstanding tanker. Unlike Woody, I'd dispense with a nice avionics
suite in favor of "just enough" to do the mission and get back to Mother.
With more and more of the smarts now in the weapon, vice the carriage,
this
puppy might even be a (gasp!) UAV.

Current avionics are compact and theoretically cheap. An integrated
GPS/Inertial is the size of a loaf of bread.

Smaller than that actually. I just finished working on one.


Mass produced, (they aren't)
cockpit displays are cheap. I see no reason why if Joe S. Ragman can have a
full-up GPS nav in his Cessna for a couple thousand, the military must pay a
million for less capability. Of course, we do. Excuse me, they do.

There's a big difference in environment and reliability requirements.
I've designed avionics equipment for every Navy fighter used in the last
25 years (not to mention AF). The differences between Mil aviation
and commercial are striking. If it's not designed for the mil environment,
it fails prematurely. Period. And Murphy guarantees it will be at the worst
possible time for you, the pilot.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur