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#62
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The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel" is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so they keep those jobs and get those votes. All aviation is politics. Because you say so? Aviation is too much money to be anything but politics. If that were the case the military would never issue requirements (because it wouldn't matter) and there would be no competitions (because they wouldn't matter). You'd have the McNamara/TFX scenario for every program out there. From the choosing of a vender all the way to operational missions, the aircraft is politics driven. In the civilian world, every 747 crossing the Pacific is politics, every Country allowing small GA is doing so for ploitical reasons. Hardly. If anything could be said to be politically driven it would be the Concorde with all of the perceived presteige it brought with it and even then they had to take it out of service because it wasn't cost effective (the safety thing was merely the last nail in the coffin). It's not politics that makes the world go 'round but $$$ although politics are a close second, but when it comes to military procurement politics play a too important part but even then it can't be said that ALL politics are "pork barrel" politics. Even a simpleton could see that. If program X has a better chance of succeeding than program Y and the politicians say "nope you're going to have Y anyway" then it could be argued that it's a "pork barrel" decision. If X is just flat out better and they choose X then simply because it falls in some politician's district (and he fought for the program) doesn't make it a "pork barrel" decision. It's not THAT difficult of a concept to understand. The ATF program wasn't so clear cut because while many felt the YF-23 *aircraft* to be a better choice (myself included), the YF-23 program as a whole was thought to have less of a chance of delivering what was promised because the confidence in Northrop and McDonnell Douglas wasn't all that hot at the time. Thus the decision to procure the F-22. It wasn't so simple as "some politician wanted votes so he made the airforce buy the crappy airplane". There are quite a few that fit that description (V-22) but when it's the people who will be using it who are clamoring for it it isn't "pork barrel". There is more to the definition of "pork barrel" than simply "not loved by all". The simplest test is who wants to buy it and who wants to cancel it. I have to go with wether the aircraft woks, or not; but I can understand you being confused. I have to go by whether the end user thinks it works or not. Not by the opinion of a wannabe. I hadn't really elevated you to the level of wannabe, Scott; And I'm sure you can imagine how crushed I am. If the politicians had forced the Sgt. York on the Army that could be called pork pure and simple. The USAF doing everything in their power to buy as many F-15s as they could was not pork even though the politicians would have preferred more cheap F-16s and fewer F-15s. Dude, the F-15 was built in Gephardt's District; pure pork. It is the same as when Newt did it. You could claim that no matter *where* it was built because it was bound to be built in *somebody's* disctrict. The fact is you don't know what the term "pork barrel politics" means plain and simple. Pork barrel politics means reelection and perhaps a speakership. "Pork Barrel" means feeding the masses under your own jurisdiction to the detriment of the greater good. That's why the term "pork barrel" has all of those negative connotations. The C-130J is another example of pork. Is it good? Yep. Define good? Good as is better than what it replaced. Good as in cost effective. How do you define good? Whether you like the paint job or not? I'd say the new engines are a disapointment without the new wing and the derating provides little bang for the buck. The warbird eliminates a crew member, which is at best a questionable tactic. The incompatability with the fleet adds to the question of why anyone would replace their already good C-130H. That's pork barrel in action. It's better than what they currently have but not so much better to warrant it's purchase. Now if I were an air force who had NO C-130s and I wanted some, then J's would be me best choice. Where all it adds in the case of the USAF is another maintanance chain and marginal benefit in the big picture. . . Did the Air Force want it? Nope. The C-130J was a risk management driven design based on the possibility of a failed C-17 program. The USAF didn't want it. Period. What you want and what you get are sometimes different things. Exactly. Pork Barrel. Which part of that don't you understand? The C-17 is an obvious success yet the USAF was still forced by politics to buy the J. There was no obvious success when the C-17's wing broke well below specification, exactly as predicted by the Nyquist shake. When did that happen and when did they start delivering Js? The C-17 is so successful that the USAF has a good chance of getting up to 222 yet they're still getting those J's stuffed down their throats. |
#63
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On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:39:55 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote: On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:16:41 -0700, "Tarver Engineering" wrote: "Scott Ferrin" wrote in message . .. There are going to be politicians out there who are going to fight the cancelation of ANY weapon system because it's being built in their domain. Non-sequitur. No, brush up on your Latin. That's a truism, but it definitely is not a non-sequitur. The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel" is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so they keep those jobs and get those votes. All aviation is politics. That would be called a baseless assertion. One could as easily say that "all aviation is business". Or, maybe "all aviation is Freudian penis-envy...." Puts a whole new light on submariners. |
#64
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On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:47:08 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote: "Ed Rasimus" wrote in message .. . On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:16:41 -0700, "Tarver Engineering" wrote: "Scott Ferrin" wrote in message .. . There are going to be politicians out there who are going to fight the cancelation of ANY weapon system because it's being built in their domain. Non-sequitur. No, brush up on your Latin. That's a truism, but it definitely is not a non-sequitur. It was non responsive to what I wrote. The topic in general was pork barrel politics. |
#65
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"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message ... The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel" is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so they keep those jobs and get those votes. All aviation is politics. Because you say so? Aviation is too much money to be anything but politics. If that were the case the military would never issue requirements (because it wouldn't matter) and there would be no competitions (because they wouldn't matter). That would seem to be the nature of Lockheed unflyable entry in the competition to build a prototype ATF, none of it mattered. From there we have seen a demonstration of the Peter Principal for profit. USAF did an excellent job of driving off any Kelly types and tieing the hands of the rest of the engineers. |
#66
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On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:45:16 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote: "Scott Ferrin" wrote in message .. . The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel" is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so they keep those jobs and get those votes. All aviation is politics. Because you say so? Aviation is too much money to be anything but politics. If that were the case the military would never issue requirements (because it wouldn't matter) and there would be no competitions (because they wouldn't matter). That would seem to be the nature of Lockheed unflyable entry in the competition to build a prototype ATF, none of it mattered. The best explanation I've heard is that the USAF chose the F-22 because it was the more manueverable of the two (no idea how they decided that since Northrop apparently never flew their's to the edge) and that they had more faith that Lockheed could deliver what they promised albeit in PC jargon. If that were the case why have them build prototypes at all? They could have saved everybody a lot of time and money and just looked the proposals over and picked the one they wanted to give the contract to. For all I know it could have been something as simple as "whoa, that F-23 looks a little too radical for us. Let's stick with a tried and proven configuration" but they could hardly say *that*. |
#67
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Ed Rasimus wrote:
And, when the F-16 was bought, lo and behold--same builder, same plant, same district---but no longer pork because now the production out of Ft. Worth was something we wanted and needed. What'dya mean "we", Kimosabe? US pickle-suit pukes despised that little piece of pilot wet-dream residue from day one!! ;-) |
#68
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"Chad Irby" wrote in message m... In article , "Tarver Engineering" wrote: "Chad Irby" wrote in message m... In article , "Tarver Engineering" wrote: That is the theory behind UCAVs. One pilot can fly until he/she is tired and then someone else can fly. Reliability-Availability-Revenue ...except that UAVs, for at least the next couple of decades, are going to be missing the first and second parts of that chain. That will be true for perhaps another ten years, but not beyond that. Nope. Some of the more-optimistic folks have claimed that, but all of the current UAVs out there are showing just how weak that prediction is. Heck, we had two of the current models crash in the same area, in the same afternoon. Add in enemy jamming and other countermeasures (or even a couple of guys in a light plane with shotguns), and UAVs stop looking quite so nice. They're great for loafing around in unchallenged airspace, but none of the ones even in *development* are going to be anything near what we need. "Reliability," in modern terms, means "all weather, day and night," as a bare minimum. We have enough trouble keeping most of them in the air in *good* weather. Until they get a decent self-piloting/return/defense mode for when they lose their uplink, they're just big model airplanes. The satellite sensors are in the que. They're already using satellite-based uplinks. As anyone with any satellite receiving experience can tell you, that's not exactly a guarantee of 100% uptime. If someone figures out where your ground station is and knocks it offline for more than a few minutes, it can kill the whole mission. *Then*, you have to come up with software and hardware that will let that same UAV fly in heavy weather, when the rain is so heavy the uplinks fail right after launch, with 30 knot crosswinds. We are nowhere *near* that sort of capability right now, and nobody is even attempting to predict when that's going to happen in the near future. On top of all that, you have to start considering in-flight failures of UAVs in heavy use. If you lose a few of the important instruments on a manned fighter, the pilot has a chance of bringing it in by hand. If you lose that with a Predator, it crashes. "Availability" implies "can do all of the jobs we need them to do." Availability means they will fly at all. Nope. If it flies, but can't do the job, it's not available for actual use. Instead of "availability," use the term "mission capable." Heck, long ago and far away... We used to use UAVs of sorts just to tow targets around for target practice and when they ran out of fuel they would just pop the parachute and head out to retrieve it with a motor whaleboat. We had a new XO on board and he decided we would just boogey right up with our cruiser and grapple the thing right up over the side. Guess he didn't realize that the parachute might get sucked right up our water intake forcing them to shut down the engines! We were DIW for a couple hours while some SCUBA divers labored to get the thing out. I heard we were only 45 min. from drifting aground on Sardinia before they finally got the rag out. Didn't even need no enemy. JK |
#69
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On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 23:14:03 -0600, Scott Ferrin
wrote: The best explanation I've heard is that the USAF chose the F-22 because it was the more manueverable of the two (no idea how they decided that since Northrop apparently never flew their's to the edge) and that they had more faith that Lockheed could deliver what they promised albeit in PC jargon. If that were the case why have them build prototypes at all? They could have saved everybody a lot of time and money and just looked the proposals over and picked the one they wanted to give the contract to. For all I know it could have been something as simple as "whoa, that F-23 looks a little too radical for us. Let's stick with a tried and proven configuration" but they could hardly say *that*. The maneuverability aspect is probably quite valid. The -23 was definitely slanted toward more stealth with F-15 equivalent agility. The -22 seemed to recognize that the airplane wouldn't live in the F-117 hidden world and therefore would be agile first and stealthy second--the 2-D thrust vectoring for example. The -23 employed a lot of high-tech multiple compound curved surfaces which Northrop argued they had the machine tool expertise to build (witness B-2). The Lockheed airplane was arguably more faceted technology and the recent experience (in 1989) with that company's production of F-117 made them a less risky choice. Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled" Smithsonian Institution Press ISBN #1-58834-103-8 |
#70
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On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 08:35:39 -0700, Harry Andreas wrote:
Could be wrong, but I think his point is that threatening USAF with the F/A-18 would insult them sufficiently that they would force the F-22 to conclusion. What's wrong with the F/A-18? -- "It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia (Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk) |
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