Trump calls for F-18 run off against F-35

a reply to: Pyle

Exactly. The cost estimate was up to $3.8B for the two aircraft. After their meeting, Boeing said they'd ensure costs stay below $4B. Which puts them right where the estimates have always been.

As for the F-35, every LRIP has been lower than the last. Costs were already coming down. LRIP 9 is 60% lower than LRIP 1 for the A model.

originally posted by: xstealth

originally posted by: reldra
a reply to: Fools

Trump thinks it is a beauty pageant. he is way out of his depth, as usual.

If it's usual for him to be out of his depth, why does he keep winning?

For someone is is supposedly so clueless and stupid, he has saved money on Air Force One, brought over 50000 jobs and now no doubt will save money on the F-35

He has done nothing of the kind. He will have you believe that though, though net jobs will be in the negative.

He won one thing because misled people believed him.


He keeps changing what he said he would do...check this in 3 months...he gets worse exponentially. It will be fast.

a reply to: Fools

He's just stirring the pot.. Letting everyone know that there could be people snooping around looking for the dollar signs soon. Common ploy. Gets people motivated to either make mistakes or get their acts together. Anyway it provides heads for the chopping block. The F-35 is too big to fail at this point. It's gone initial in quite a few countries and we have to many commitments. That doesn't mean there isn't fat to be trimmed. There is always a pocket being lined somewhere. I'd like to know who's.

The United States of America is a Delaware Corporation and a corporation needs a good CEO. It's going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out.

Surely Trump doesn't just tweet brainfarts from the shower but has a vested interest in an MIC player.
Maybe there's a couple of stealthy VTOL Aircraft out there that no one has seen yet?

Stealthy Super Hornet/Quiet Bird hybrid in black with X32 VTOL and ACTE wings.. Mmmm...might work.

a reply to: Caughtlurking


Exactly, letting the players know sitting around with all reasons why not and experts saying "no, no, you can't do that" is no longer acceptable.

Not every idea is going to work, but, by George, you'd better come up with better or we'll find someone that can.

a reply to: reldra


Sorry, but "he's been out of his depth" since the beginning of this evolution. He wins. THAT'S what this nation wants running the shop. A winner.

His selections for his cabinet reflect his understanding that he needs alphas who KNOW the various games that he doesn't. He will get results and, in this, you are correct. It will be fast.

a reply to: Fools

The cost overruns on the F-35 project are breathtakingly bad. And that's saying something when it comes to cost overruns at the Pentagon, as cost overruns are the norm and business as usual.

I hope it makes Lockheed Martin quickly get their act together on this as well as future projects. It's already cost them over $1B in market share just in after hours trading.

I agree that the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is not really a viable replacement for the F-35, but I applaud Trump for letting everyone know that he's paying attention and is not afraid to step in if he believes the American people are being raped financially on a military project.

originally posted by: Riffrafter
a reply to: Fools

The cost overruns on the F-35 project are breathtakingly bad. And that's saying something when it comes to cost overruns at the Pentagon, as cost overruns are the norm and business as usual.

I hope it makes Lockheed Martin quickly get their act together on this as well as future projects. It's already cost them over $1B in market share just in after hours trading.

I agree that the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is not really a viable replacement for the F-35, but I applaud Trump for letting everyone know that he's paying attention and is not afraid to step in if he believes the American people are being raped financially on a military project.

Interestingly enough, the Canadian Government...because of the huge cost overruns on the F-35...made an announcement recently that they are going to look at inserting some numbers of new F-18 Super Hornets, while they reevaluate how many F-35s they want to add.

If people haven't figured it out yet, this is just Trump letting people know that they can't just keeping padding the bill with overruns...he will look for alternatives. It puts people on notice, forces them to sharpen pencils and to make concessions.

Also, I have to wonder if in there somewhere (now that Trump is privy to all Classified information) he is thinking that maybe the US can get by with more F-18's and fewer F-35s, until such time as the "Super Drones" come online...which I would expect will, in the not too distant future, extinguish the need to have pilots actually sitting in stealthy high-performance, super (or hyper) sonic fighter aircraft.

Yes, the F-35 has overrun, a lot. You're going to run into that at this level. We're at the point, when it comes to aircraft, that you're asking them to do so much more than just fly and fight that it's not funny.

Yes, we need to get costs under control, but we also have to expect to see costs that are much higher than with aircraft we have flying now.

When it comes to fighter aircraft, and to a certain extent even attack aircraft, it seems to me we're spending billions to keep the pilot "in" the aircraft. Not so much for reconnaissance, strategic bombing, cargo and refueling, but certainly for fighter / multi-role aircraft. The capabilities of the next generation aircraft already exceed the technical and physical capabilities of the pilot, and we're spending gobs of money to keep the flying and processing of information by the pilot down to manageable levels (for a human). I realize this is a paradigm is extremely unpalatable for many, but it's true.

Dogfights are a thing of the past, and those which do take place happen well outside visual range. And for those which do take place within visual range they are against a far inferior force which certainly doesn't require a platform like an F-35. And advanced drone technology has already proven itself for precision attack roles, and these missions are being flown by "pilots" who are 10,000 miles away in a trailer somewhere, well out of harms way.

About the only thing keeping a human pilot "in" the aircraft for these types of aircraft are two things; the psychological element and maybe the refueling element. The psychological element being, the relationship of a loss also involving the loss of a life, rather than just a piece of equipment.

The age old argument for resisting automating the pilot role has always been the ability to make "decisions". And while I completely agree when it comes to things like civilian aviation, and other command and control functions in the military, I don't agree it applies to the fighter role any longer. This is especially true when one considers the sensor capability of many airborne platforms now.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

The argument against UAVs for anything but strike right now is control lag. Yes, they're flying them from thousands of miles away, but there is a lag of as long as a second. There's a reason the takeoff and landing is done locally.

Even in BVR a second is a long time. If they get into WVR, your platform is dead. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
I'm going to have to disagree. Dogfights are still going to be there. No one, at least on the US side, is going to risk another Vincennes incident.

a reply to: Zaphod58

No argument, propagation delay is an issue, but those times are going to improve over time. There will likely always be propagation delay when satellites are in the equation because it's just pure physics, but as technology improves satellites don't have to be the only solution for long range control. Airborne control from a distance is already in use. Yes, it's not OTH, but there are airborne technologies being tested right now which extend the horizon much further than an aircraft can, and control is near real-time. These technologies actually started in the cell-phone tracking arena for tracking in the ME, and have promise in numerous other areas.

Regarding BVR vs. WVR, in today's technology no foe should get WVR (at least in theory). I don't disagree though that once WVR a UAV is going to be toast every time...but then again, you don't lose a life and $100b dollars when you lose a UAV either.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

They're looking at 10 years before they see a true air to air capable UAV flying. That's an eternity with the aircraft flying now, especially since that's just to get them flying, not into service.

That's what people said back in Vietnam. "Fighters don't need guns, missiles are the future. There will be no more dogfights." We all see how well that turned out. Future UAVs are going to be incredibly capable when it comes to air to air capabilities. But we're still a good ways from that point now.

a reply to: Fools

I will go with the pilots, who RAVE about the F-35.

NOTHING can do what the F-35 can do, there is no replacement, not with 10x as many F-18.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

AND your Contributions here have been exactly What?

SJW making a safe place for Trump followers to berate everyone?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

They're looking at 10 years before they see a true air to air capable UAV flying. That's an eternity with the aircraft flying now, especially since that's just to get them flying, not into service.

That's what people said back in Vietnam. "Fighters don't need guns, missiles are the future. There will be no more dogfights." We all see how well that turned out. Future UAVs are going to be incredibly capable when it comes to air to air capabilities. But we're still a good ways from that point now.

And the UAV swarm will need a human to tell it what its orders are. And the best person to give those orders is somebody near the scene with lots of sensors and great computers & communication, like someone in the F-35. And something with powerful electromagnetic transmitters nearby that can overcome jammed satellites.

Maybe the computer should be flying the F-35, and the human running the 'backseat'.

F-35 is a control panel & communication suite which happens to be mobile.

originally posted by: SmilingROB
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

AND your Contributions here have been exactly What?

SJW making a safe place for Trump followers to berate everyone?

You know what...go fly a kite, little boy!

You have no idea where I come from, or what I do. In fact, I just raise cows, just a dumb cowboy.

(shrug) I have no need to respond further to this.

P.S.: for the record, I work in "communications". You're "smart"; I'll let you go figure out what that is.

(I won't embarrass you any further just now...it's Christmas after all).