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Boeing Touts Fighter Jet To Rival F-35 — At Half the Price
An anonymous reader sends this news from the CBC:
"In a dogfight of defense contractors, the hunter can quickly become the hunted. It's happening now to the F-35. The world's largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, is trying to convince wavering U.S. allies — including Canada — to stick with its high-tech, high-priced and unproven F-35 stealth fighter. But the F-35 is way behind schedule, way over budget and, now, it's grounded by a mysterious crack in a turbine fan. After years of technical problems, it's a tempting target for Lockheed Martin's rivals. It's no surprise, then, that the No. 2 defense contractor, Boeing, smells blood... The Super Hornet, it says, is a proven fighter while the F-35 is just a concept — and an expensive one at that. ... The Super Hornet currently sells for about $55 million U.S. apiece; the Pentagon expects the F-35 to cost twice as much — about $110 million."
Reaper drones run about 37 million per unit, it'd be interesting to see simulations of 3 reapers vs an F-35.
From a Canadian perspective the big advantages of going with the Super Hornet is backwards compatibility (even more-so than the lower price).
- The Super Hornet is compatible with the current RCAF in-air refuelling technology
- The Super Hornet technology is an upgrade to what we already have - our techs are compatible / familiar with it
- The Super Hornet does not require longer runways for landing - our remote arctic runways are compatible
- The Super Hornet has landing gear better suited for icy runways - our weather is compatible
It's not as stealthy but we are a defensive military.
- The Super Hornet is also half the price.
The Harper Government has a hard-on for the F35 and the Canadian public really has no idea WHY.
I have often have doubts whether these fighter planes really have any use nowadays. Especially dogfighting seems to be a bit outdated in times of cheap shoulder launched surface to air missiles. Moreover, there are drones, cruise missiles, etc. These planes look a lot like super-expensive adult toys to me. Could someone who knows more about military strategy explain to me for what purposes these kinds of planes are needed? What is the strategy behind them? What about cost/benefits? Is such a plane capable of evading the amount of modern surface to air missiles you could buy for its price?
No attempt to troll, I'm honestly interested.
From the inception, the F-35 seemed to me like it was doomed to failure.
It was a massive development project which was set up in such a way as to try to convince allies to buy this plane before any existed and have them fund the development. It was supposed to have several different variants including a VTOL one.
It's been plagued with cost overruns, delays, and almost everything else. It's always struck me as an obscenely expensive plane with a lot of risks, and as countries are starting to ask "do we really want this", it could leave those still in the program with mounting costs since it's no longer being paid for by as many governments.
From the start, this was a program designed to get everybody to help pay for a pie-in-the-sky plane which was completely unproven. This is just a program to line the contractor's pockets, and for the US to try to get someone else to help pay for it.
Unfortunately, a lot of people warned about how this would happen, but they got ignored. If anybody thinks this it's a surprise that F-35 program has been ridiculously expensive with very little results, they haven't been paying attention. And unless Boeing already has a plane in the works, I'm not sure I'd believe their claims of being able to do it cheaper any more than Lockheed's.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Except now the various F-35's have essentially different airframes.
Ostensibly this means that the F-35 is a failure, in relation to its original intent. Still, though, if R&D is limited to one basic group of planes, then perhaps there could still be overall savings, even with a higher per-unit cost. Programs aren't limited in cost to the per-unit acquisition cost - there is at least R&D to consider in addition to maintenance and supply.
The bigger trouble, though, is that these things don't seem to be very good at anything. For instance, the -B model, which can do VTOL for the USMC can't do that at austere locations. The USMC says it will have to pour special high-strength concrete pads for F-35 VTOL to work. OK, it's smaller than an air strip, but by time you secure an air base, get a concrete pumper in there, and let it cure, the Marines' job should be well over for a given operation.
The Marines should use an Osprey if they need VTOL. The Navy can get them close enough and the Air Force can provide actual air combat.
I say all this in light of the USG needing even more war planes, while it is threatening to cut Meals on Wheels, heating assistance, and air traffic controllers today instead of discarding unneeded weapons platforms.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The main problem I have with the F35, besides the ridiculous cost, is that it's another idiotic single engine fighter like the F16 (lawn dart) which is so wrong for a combat aircraft. Redundancy is everything in a combat aircraft and when you lose an engine in a single seater the only option is to grab the eject handles. The number of F16's that could have survived if they had just had that extra powerplant I don't know but I do know that they crash at an unhealthy rate, over 342 according to an article I read back in 2011. I see no reason to believe the F35 with one engine will do any better. Especially if they can't figure what's up with the tubine blade problem. I think the F35 is just Lawn Dart 2.0
Can someone explain to me why we have 50 million hungry in America, including 17 million children
I can try, but you might not understand.
The number you are citing most likely comes from the USDA ERS report about food security. It does not represent people who ARE hungry, it includes people who had to buy less desirable food at some time during the year, but they still got enough to eat.
The number of those who are actually hungry, who ate less because they didn't have enough money, is much lower. Among those are people who don't know how to manage a budget and ran out of money just before a new paycheck came. The number of people who are actually starving is very low. We have government programs to deal with these problems already.
Now, I think we should reduce our spending on warfare, but you at least should understand the numbers you're throwing around.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This is true, on paper.
Every engine has a crack tolerance on the turbine fan blades (and they all develop cracks), the tolerances allowed greatly differ between single and twin engine jets. Remember, when you lose your single engine, you don't just lose thrust, you lose all power as well, so while they have a backup, it typically only lasts about 10 minutes. They don't take chances. Because of this, F16's made in the 80's and 90's actually need engines replaced FAR more often than the older twin engine aircraft made in the 60's by a significant amount.
I worked on these aircraft, for every engine I changed on a twin, I did at least 20 on singles, and no, that isn't an exaggeration. Send them to the desert and things only got worse.