We need to keep SOME warplanes under production at all times, IMO. Preferably from multiple companies.

Again, I'm happy to see cool stuff like planes bought with my tax dollars. Heck, order more and take every penny out of welfare and entitlements to buy them.

Which is why you arent in congress...

People want better schools not more fancy planes.

I vote planes, Not one penny for able bodied welfare! No work...no pay. Now if the government spent that money creating jobs for these dead beats we wouldn't have an issue and they wouldn't be dead beats.

People who don't pay taxes, presumably (which is almost 50% of the "taxpayers").

BTW, schools are not built with federal tax dollars, so that's a non-argument.

Pick some other, wasteful federal spending you'd prefer.

How about handouts to banks to reward them for being incompetent instead of letting them fail as they should?

That is incorrect. 43% of the citizens have no federal tax liability. That is not the same as not paying federal taxes.

Research the NCEF which is the clearing house for federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to be used to help states build schools

Which banks have received a handout? Under TARP the banks borrowed money which needed to be paid back. I have not heard of any program where banks were given money.

Income tax, sorry.

I just signed my tax forms. I'm a little touchy on the subject ;)

Anyone who pays less that their family's share (per capita share of the budget times family members) isn't even paying their fair share. Right now I think it's 12k per person, including payroll taxes, so any family of 4 with a total federal tax liability under 48k is not pulling their weight.

I forgot about the massive pork bill WRT schools, you are right there. Historically not true though.

TARP? Any support of toxic assets (not what TARP is actually being used for, however) is screwy. Bad investment? Let your CDS department sell you a bill of goods? Guess you should start jumping out windows, IMHO. Not get sweetheart loans. Can the ma and pa businesses in the other thread get such loans when THEY miscalculate in business? Didn't think so.

If they can build a robot to fight they can build a robot to... do something else that begins with "f"... :O:

[QUOTE=Freiwillige;1352877]Funny I had an Uncle that flew F-14's in the 80's. Did you know that for every hour that bird flew it took 80 maintenance hours!!! Great aircraft but a bit labor intensive to say the least which is why they were fazed out early.:stare:

Really? any idea what squadron(s) he was with? Uncle has some cool memorabilla in the guest house/manspace in his backyard, some cool videos and pics form his flying days, he retired about 4 years ago but still regularly flew.The Tomcat's maintenance load was high, he has talked about it but can tell he never minded because it was a great plane.

I wonder what the name they would pick for this jet?

It was the Fighting Falcon for the F-16, the Hornet for the F-18 and the Raptor for the F-22

Umm I KNOW!!!

F-35 Delayed Fighter

Much more suiting than Joint strike fighter.

I still think the F-16 looks better


:rotfl2:

:nope:

The name is already decided. F-35 Lightning II in honor of both the US P-38 Lighting and the UK English Electric Lighting

The F-35 is too big too fail. But at its current cost vector, I don't see more than about 500 being built for US service. Yes, I know that means a massive downsizing of US air power.

PD

Depends. Drone production is going way up and with greater variety regardless of the F-35 I think our power is going up, not down.

Fixed prices will not work, since the argument softening up any political determination to insist on treaties is always thew same: "That will put jobs in danger". It has been a pattern quite often that the defence lobby pushed through a new project, sometimes in quantities that were not needed and that the service, the Air Force, did not even want, and then started to scatter production of components for it over as many federal states as possible - so that any withdrawel from the production contract would effect as many politicians campaigning as possible.

A nation being so unimaginably in debts like the US, and lacking the financial power to maintain it'AS military siperpower status by its own resources, cannot afford such a giant military budget. It then is not only reasonable but a must to start saving costs, and start reducing the military size. If you cannot afford it, then you cannot afford it, and if you need to replace a system in certain quantities, but have to keep an eye on the costs, then the costs-per-piece simply shall not be allowed to get too high.

This F-35 program simply is MADNESS. The costs will reac even igher at the end, and thus the number of units ordered will constantly decrease. Which, like PD already said, will mean a numerical shrink in air power.

Also, the more sophisticated and expensive a single unit and platform is, the more hurting becomes the same numerical loss in war.

Practically all major powers in the Europe of the past 500 years have run into bancrupcty at least once over gallopping defence budgets of theirs. they all thought that military alone could keep up their power, even when they lacked the fiscal or economical power and quality to maintain it. Now the US makes the same mistake.

Drones are the way to go. Last but not least for financial reasons.

[QUOTE=Bubblehead1980;1353118]VF-33 1982-1986 U.S.S. America:salute:

I can see Australia not using all it's options on the F-35. I can see the purchase of more F-18E's and UAV's. They are not going to accept increasing costs and less aircraft.