PRESIDENT UNICORN'S MILITARY PROPOSALS...
I'm just a farmer and an old one at that, but the details, such as they are, of the President's announced changes to our military are, at best, ill advised.
I realize we, as a nation, don't have the resources we once had after the two past conflicts and due to the economy (it could be worse, Ditch Manuels could be President and then we really would be suffering economic hardships!) and budget reductions are necessary, but the word I'm getting from the kids in the Air Force that I know who are paid to pilot these fighters is the first place anyone should start is with the new F-35.
It's a dog, an over-weight, underpowered D.A.W.G.!!!
They need to scrap it and start over because this thing as it currently sits ain't going to get it. We will probably never learn the entire truth about what a boondoggle this project has been in terms of engineering failure or financial mismanagement, but the kids tell me it ain't even close to being what was desired, or even ordered. It's an airborne 'Pig' to use a term that was explained to me.
Secondly, a move toward remote piloted drones would appear to be not the wisest course of action, even if we want to reduce the risk of pilots being captured and held prisoner by our enemies.
We recently witnessed what can happen and will with a drone that we, more or less, gave to Iran. A remote control drone's signals can be pirated and the drone sent elsewhere or used against us or an ally. What would have been the reaction if Iran had sent that 'stealth' drone on a raid against the Saudis, instead of just landing the damn thing in their desert?
Force reductions are inevitable, but we still have to manage our resources wisely in order to maintain our national security and so far I see nothing in Unicorn's proposals that inspire confidence in his plan or the judgement of his generals...
All The Best,
Frank W. James
I realize we, as a nation, don't have the resources we once had after the two past conflicts and due to the economy (it could be worse, Ditch Manuels could be President and then we really would be suffering economic hardships!) and budget reductions are necessary, but the word I'm getting from the kids in the Air Force that I know who are paid to pilot these fighters is the first place anyone should start is with the new F-35.
It's a dog, an over-weight, underpowered D.A.W.G.!!!
They need to scrap it and start over because this thing as it currently sits ain't going to get it. We will probably never learn the entire truth about what a boondoggle this project has been in terms of engineering failure or financial mismanagement, but the kids tell me it ain't even close to being what was desired, or even ordered. It's an airborne 'Pig' to use a term that was explained to me.
Secondly, a move toward remote piloted drones would appear to be not the wisest course of action, even if we want to reduce the risk of pilots being captured and held prisoner by our enemies.
We recently witnessed what can happen and will with a drone that we, more or less, gave to Iran. A remote control drone's signals can be pirated and the drone sent elsewhere or used against us or an ally. What would have been the reaction if Iran had sent that 'stealth' drone on a raid against the Saudis, instead of just landing the damn thing in their desert?
Force reductions are inevitable, but we still have to manage our resources wisely in order to maintain our national security and so far I see nothing in Unicorn's proposals that inspire confidence in his plan or the judgement of his generals...
All The Best,
Frank W. James
Labels: Dangerous Stuff, Government, Politics
6 Comments:
An insight into the F-35 boondoggle can be found reading the book, "Augustine's Laws".
WE can build it better with more and more and more - and so it goes. That we can build better weapons systems is true, but people keep adding gee whiz stuff to them and they add to costs.
All weapons must be mud-dust and FOD worthy, should be able to be handled by IQ 100 fine folks, and maintained by same -- and in the end, the folks and the weapons systems are expendable.
Obana or any President isn't going to carry the weapons, use the weapons and the costs are never out of their pocket. Tell the military to buy or build their own - get industry out of the picture.
I listen a lot to you talk about the Industry around farming, you understand.
My Brother in Law, who had a very high clearance to work on some airplanes. He thinks the drone lost did not have any secert stuff on it as the AF will not put secure things in a single engine craft.
I would tend to agree as most of the aircraft of value do not have only one engine.
Not that I am giving twinkle toes a pass as I feet is at best illegitmate.
Seems the selft diestruct would ne a good thing to add.
Frank, I agree with your opinions on many (most?) things. But I strongly disagree that cancelling the JSF is a wise course.
Defense spending totaled $904B in 2011-15% of all federal spending. Education was about the same, and health care ($1,097B) and pensions ($995B) all exceeded defense. Welfare was close at 11% ($753B).
The $11B that JSF spent to comtnue development and production for three services and a handful of allies just isn't that much. What you would be throwing away would be 10+ years of engineering and design; and we'd have to turn around and start over on a 5th-gen strike aircraft. The F-16, AV-8, and F/A-18 aren't going to last forever.
The JSF technology in propulsion/lift and avionics for pilot situational awareness are eye-watering.
Many said the same thing about the V-22 in the wake of two terrible mishaps 11 years ago. The Marines persisted, did it right, and now have well over 100,000 flight hours in am extremely effective and survivable battlefield "truck."
So we can agree to disagree; I think it would be extremely wasteful to give up on the F-35 when we're almost finished solving the technical challenges.
Leatherneck
I was wondering, since we are talking about reducing Defense if those cuts hit TSA and Homeland Security? I know, but I could give up more TSA than Riflemen every day of the week in the budget years to come.
Here's a multiple fold problem.
Lockmart knows that a cancellation would mean starting over from scratch. They're using that to keep up the bloat.
The real problem is it isn't going to be what was ordered way back when. Gee, that's Lockmart again. How many times did they get the spec changed to something they'd rather do than what the services were asking for?
The USMC is a core problem here too. The compromises made to get the prescribed commonality with their version basically ruins the other two versions. Even then, there's not all that much common.
Finishing this will just encourage Lockmart and others that screw-jobs like this are the proper way to do business with DoD and we'll keep getting more of the same from them.
Cutting it will send a clear message: We're the customer dammit and you will sell us what we want to buy and not what you want to build. You will come in somewhere close to your quote or you will not sell to us.
It will take a pretty drastic move like that to change how things are done.
And yes, that will mean we have to keep the old stuff flying. Yet... The F-15 line is still open, the F-18 line is still open, the F-16 line is still open and the versions in production are better than the ones we have in service.
It's not like we're going to have no fighter production while we go back to the drawing board for F/A-24 (let's get back on sequence while were at it too).
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