MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Scary as it is, I'm actually a moderator on other forums as well!
But you chuckleheads eat most of my time (the others are not so busy)
But you chuckleheads eat most of my time (the others are not so busy)
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Another "praise the Raptor" article
- Thread starter Lonestar155
- Start date
Weds morning a few dudes here at Maxwell meet with SECDEF for q/A... I'm sure this issue will come up... I'll forward the lowdown.
Since when do air-to-air fighters go "against" irregular armed forces? It's an OCA/DCA aircraft that has an embedded ability to perform light precision strike.
Your comment is like saying "A-10s against the wall of Flankers never made sense to me."
Yeah....that's because that is not the Hog's mission....just like fighting "irregular armed forces with no radars" isn't the Raptor's mission.
Future hunter/killer drones could soon provide the air dominance/superiority the 22 was designed for very soon, jets in service, already paid for can fill the gap... without the ability to carry a robust killing loadout the "game changing" the F22 brings has now morphed to its ISR capabilities... The rest of the cadre here at ACSC giggles at the Raptor panacea, the "best and brightest" and hot running leadership of your zoomie brethren.. Neat jet, good recruiting tool, fits right into Builders "masks of war" frame of USAF.
Silver Spoon crusader Billy Mitchell would turn over in his grave, I giggle.
Silver Spoon crusader Billy Mitchell would turn over in his grave, I giggle.
Interesting. One year after the infamous SECDEF speech at Maxwell in which he challenged the Air Force to meet the ISR demand signal and invoked the name of "John Boyd". This time, the new SECAF and CSAF got their response out in time.
Well, SEC DEF seems to have a very sound sense of practicallity. 3 DDG-X, more Arliegh Burke. F-35's are more important than the myopic F-22's, focus was on taking care of troops and troops families...
On a humorous note, one of the questions concerned TRICARE.
Sec Gates said that his staff always tells him how great it is doing, and that everytime he comes to speak with "us" we tell him how efed up it is.
CSAR-X is on back burner (for lack of capability by the platform), KC-X highlighted the contractual gridlock that plagues the DOD, he knows we need new tankers, but is pretty much across the board telling all to hang tight, prioritize, and do more with less.
I love to hate senior leadership, but this dude seemed like he was telling it like it was, and doing the best job he knew how. He initially passed my followership test: I would drink a beer with him. good stuff.
On a humorous note, one of the questions concerned TRICARE.
Sec Gates said that his staff always tells him how great it is doing, and that everytime he comes to speak with "us" we tell him how efed up it is.
CSAR-X is on back burner (for lack of capability by the platform), KC-X highlighted the contractual gridlock that plagues the DOD, he knows we need new tankers, but is pretty much across the board telling all to hang tight, prioritize, and do more with less.
I love to hate senior leadership, but this dude seemed like he was telling it like it was, and doing the best job he knew how. He initially passed my followership test: I would drink a beer with him. good stuff.
My point is that there is no one for the F-22 fight.
He was down here at Ft Rucker yesterday. At one point he had an hour long behind closed doors meeting with 11 of our Senior Warrants/RLO's from the Schoolhouse Cadre that didnt include the General Officers and Staff that had been escorting him all day. There he apparently got an ear full about our situation down here as to why the schoolhouse is so backed up, why we are short on pilots in the units, why the bubbles have turned a 52 week school into a 2+ year program, etc. Apparently nobody every said anything too him about being as low as 30% strength on instructors and not having enough aircraft to get the job done. One guy said at the end of the meeting the SECDEF actually said, "that is just sad...."
It was funny to see the complete change in day to day activity on post. I saw more aircraft in the air doing "stuff" yesterday than Ive seen in the last 6 months. If you werent in some form of training they told you to stay home and if you run into anybody keep your mouth shut.
By the last statement, seems a distinct possibility that the situation may not have needed SECDEF intervention, but that might be the case now. In other words, this might have been within Army channels/hierarchy to fix.
We've been told that the bubble situation has made it to the Pentagon and is considered a critical issue. When you think about the money the Army is just bleeding out on people like my neighbor its insane. He selected 58D's in December... They are telling him he might be in an August class. Meanwhile he is sitting around drawing 0-2 pay and benefits to basically go do an hours worth of D&C for the funeral detail and spend the rest of the day practicing call of duty. Now multiply that by the several hundred people in the same boat that he is, and add to it that the situation is only getting worse at the moment.
Semisonic9
New Member
Yeah, I'm not really aimed at flying in the Navy, but I suspect we're living in the last big 50 years or so of manned fighter aircraft.
If I had to guess, I'd expect us to move to more unmanned setups. Or perhaps a swarm-type squadron, with one operator/commander in a manned vehicle flying in formation with a few unmanned attack vehicles. They could be flown by operators back at a base, or even operated by AI programs.
I, of course, don't have much direct experience here. But from what I've read, unmanned airframes are considerably less expensive to fly/operate, are more expenable, and are capable of many things manned aircraft aren't. They're smaller and lighter, can pull higher Gs, etc, etc.
That said, I'm a big fan of the F35. Sure, it's not quite as bad-ass as the F22. But since it does it at roughly 1/3 the price, and it's only real competition will be the F-22, why do we care? In terms of military might, the F35 brings probably 8-9/10ths the strength of the F22 to the masses! We're not talking about a few birds here and there. We'll field far more of them than we will F22s, and we're sharing this one with our global allies.
I think, 100 years from now, when they're writing the history books, people will look back and call the next 20-40 years of aviation the "Golden Age" of manned military flight. From Hornets to JSF to F-22s, it's bad-ass time to fly fighter jets!
*Note: All information/assumptions are gathered as best I can from reasonable civilian sources. Don't flame me if I got something wrong. I'm not an expert and don't pretend to be. Take anything said with a grain of salt.
I don't really understand the possiblity of controlling UCAV's from a sort of 'mothership' A/C (say an F-22 for argument's sake), when a pilot is often task-saturated at the controls of ONE aircraft, much less directing a 'swarm-type squadron' all over the hostile skies.
'Spose some HAL 9000-type AI junk would help things out though.
thats when you hear over the radiot "Daaaiisssyyyy Daaaaaaaaiiiiisssssssssyyyyy..........."
"Sweep 11, 12, north group BRA 020 at thirty, high, hot, heavy, hostile, commit!"
"I'm sorry Dave...I can't do that. You're jeopardizing the mission."