And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
The F-18E already cruises at >Mach 1 without afterburner, for $13M less per copy, for a plane that's already in the inventory for 30 years, well known to multiple users, and with an availability rate of 80% in fleet service at sea.
The F-35, by contrast, has barely broken 50% availability rate under ideal peacetime conditions (meaning the other half are hangar queens on any given day, so they're probably cannibalizing one half to keep the other half in the air), and still doesn't meet program specs after 15 years of trying, and bazillions of dollars squandered.
America hasn't bought something this boondoggle-bad since the Navy FB-111, or the Brewster Buffalo. If sales brochures and glamour pics were performance, this thing would be great. But in the real world, it's the 21st century Edsel of the skies. We should export them to our enemies, and go back to the drawing board.
Over'priced, under-performing POS.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that it's parts are internationally sourced, including components from china.
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Mach 1 cruise without afterburner. Good as any, maybe better than most....
ReplyDeleteThe F-18E already cruises at >Mach 1 without afterburner, for $13M less per copy, for a plane that's already in the inventory for 30 years, well known to multiple users, and with an availability rate of 80% in fleet service at sea.
ReplyDeleteThe F-35, by contrast, has barely broken 50% availability rate under ideal peacetime conditions (meaning the other half are hangar queens on any given day, so they're probably cannibalizing one half to keep the other half in the air), and still doesn't meet program specs after 15 years of trying, and bazillions of dollars squandered.
America hasn't bought something this boondoggle-bad since the Navy FB-111, or the Brewster Buffalo.
If sales brochures and glamour pics were performance, this thing would be great.
But in the real world, it's the 21st century Edsel of the skies.
We should export them to our enemies, and go back to the drawing board.
But it looks cool
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