DISQUS

Shane · 3 months ago

I have to say that I have often wondered why the F-22 has taken so long and have watched the Russians pass us. The F-15 never got the big upgrade like the super tomcat, super hornet and etc. Maybe the Airforce didn't want to prevent the F-22 from being unfounded.

Sure would love to see the F-15 get the new P&W's with 38K of thrust.

KSoda · 1 month ago

Isn't it disheartening to know Russia, China, Iran and wack jobs like Hugo Chavez and every other radical government is dropping a massive portion of their gdp into new generations of offensive and defensive weapon systems...including new stealth technologies, and counter-stealth technologies, meanwhile, one statement made about Obama by Chavez really struck me as very profound and alarming when he said "Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right".

My Son-in-Law is an Eagle tech at Tyndall and plans were that he would transfer to the Raptor squadron as the F15's were fased out, that has now been pushed aside. Speculations were that Tyndall would be home to JSF's, F16's...who knows now.

Having spent some quality time visiting my family menbers on Tyndall, I had several opportunities to see just some of what the Raptor is capable of and that is a huge understatement...the aircraft, regardless of rust problems is an absolute amazing aircraft. I have never witnessed any bird slam the brakes on at high speed and completely reverse direction the way the Raptor can. The 2009 airshow had offered just a taste of this technological wonder, but, the Obama administration, Congress and Secretary Gates in all their wisdom, I believe have now left our national security and brave forces and allies in greater jepardy by cancelling the Raptor program.

From what I've seen, heard and read, as well as what I've learned as a consumer, if you want the very best...it costs; how much longer, even with retrofitting and upgrades to the Eagle or F16 will they be able to compete with new generations of Russian and Chinese, or even Europene fighters... or defensive systems no less?

I do not know what the plans are with DoD or the AF or what is done and said behind closed doors, but I'm happy at least for now to hear the Raptor is still performing Op's along side the F15 at Tyndall and other air bases.

I hear many pros and cons for and against the Raptor, but it is my hopes that the F22 program will be reborrn better than ever, like what happened with the rebirth of the B1B Lancer program under the late great Ronald Reagan after that other Socialist President cancelled that awesome bomber. Time to clean house...the White House and Congess that is!

ednonymous · 1 week ago

Buy SU-35s and fit them out with P&W engines and Western avionics.

Olga Centura · 3 days ago

Cost drivers: the demand by the "customer" for endless metrics, processs compliance, meetings and documentation, which drives up cost just to generate these dust collectors that in turn take years to maintain. Also, each one of the aircraft interface documents can run to 2,000 pages each. Most managers spend their days in meetings and compiling metrics and schedules to answer program offices thirst for numbers. There is no real development direction except down in the cubicles where questions are thrown to systems while weeks go by waiting for answers. Next, the systems engineers can't get timely information from customers and sub-contractors and co-primes because of proprietary rules and interpersonal barrier building by one team by another in a competition that was hard fought for and probably challenged. This keeps every cost center on a schedule and cost overrun treadmill bordering on yellow to red status. By the time a product of this complexity became ready for flight test, the technology of the software teams was already migrated a generation in terms of languages: Ada to C++. That's about ten years. For a long time contractors would not use Java as too untried and too many security concerns for this type of platform. These barriers to an effective development cycle may in part be addressed by Agile and Lean processes. I doubt that WWII aircraft was as complex as determining vectoring thrust for a fighter aircraft with variable payload. It also was a MUST have in a time when the enemy was literally on our doorstep. It had to be ready and any contractor who threw a wrench in the mix was not acting in the best interests of his country.