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Elite 1K Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 1093 Status: Offline

elp wrote:

It's just starting to sink in to me how long USAF will be using F-15s and F-16s. Shocked

Think of using a P-51 up till about the 1980's.....

OK... something a little closer. Think if we still used F-100's .... or used F-4s till 2010... Surprised

My prediction is that even with fancy upgrades.... and how the military industrial complex hates buying spare parts... I don't even want to think of what F-15s and F-16s operating in the year 2015 or 2020 will be like with the procurement holidays that unfortenately happen with spares. Not a pretty picture.

This dramatic slow down in JSF production will kill us. Suddenly building more F15s and F-16s ( An F-15K like jet and a USAF inspired Block 6x jet ) as gap fillers doesn't sound like such a bad idea. But hell, we don't even have money for that. We are screwed.

I've said it before but wait 'til we get a Democrat in the White House. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

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sferrin wrote:

elp wrote:

It's just starting to sink in to me how long USAF will be using F-15s and F-16s. Shocked

Think of using a P-51 up till about the 1980's.....

OK... something a little closer. Think if we still used F-100's .... or used F-4s till 2010... Surprised

My prediction is that even with fancy upgrades.... and how the military industrial complex hates buying spare parts... I don't even want to think of what F-15s and F-16s operating in the year 2015 or 2020 will be like with the procurement holidays that unfortenately happen with spares. Not a pretty picture.

This dramatic slow down in JSF production will kill us. Suddenly building more F15s and F-16s ( An F-15K like jet and a USAF inspired Block 6x jet ) as gap fillers doesn't sound like such a bad idea. But hell, we don't even have money for that. We are screwed.

I've said it before but wait 'til we get a Democrat in the White House. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

What, BJs instead of wars? Oooh, that's immoral....

F-16.net Editor Joined: Sep 23, 2003 Posts: 2862

sferrin wrote:

I've said it before but wait 'til we get a Democrat in the White House. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

So what you are saying is:

A democrat will be:
8 Times more capable in defense cuts
4 times as capable in adding cost to projects
6 times as capable in less spending on spares...

Laughing

elp wrote:

sferrin wrote:

I've said it before but wait 'til we get a Democrat in the White House. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

So what you are saying is:

A democrat will be:
8 Times more capable in defense cuts
4 times as capable in adding cost to projects
6 times as capable in less spending on spares...

Laughing

May I get serious for just a moment (while admitting that your post was humorous enough)? Above and beyond the fiscal crisis the military has to cope with as a result of an ill-advised war waged under false (or at the least tragically mistaken) pretenses, the cost in human terms is heartbreaking. I caught a story on CNN recently about a Humvee that was the target of an RPG attack where four on board were killed. Each of the stories of each of the soldiers was more heatbreaking than the next. Each one had a family, hopes and dreams for the future, a desire to live. And they died, for what? Certain candidates for presiden have, off the cuff, described their demise as a "waste". After the fact, they have been forced to retract those statements, were forced to say, "Oops, didn't quite mean that; what I meant to say is..." But let's not be disingeneous: they DID mean to say that those lives lost were in fact wasted. Is one single American life really "worth" all of this? Call me a bleeding heart, but at the end of that CNN report, I was in tears, and I don't mean just shedding your standard crying Indian tear, I mean weeping. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact I just lost a brother, 12/27/06, a 19 year-old kid, and I know all too well what that does to a family. An inconsolable mother. A dad who has to keep working although a part of him has died inside. Brothers and sisters who have to do whatever they can to hold up their parents to keep them from collapsing. Repeat that 3,000 times over, and that's just on our side. What about the tens of thousands of Iraqi families who have to live with that, every day? Whomever has ever said, give me liberty or give me death, has never known what it is really like to live through the death of a loved one and have had to live with it. So much for empty idealism. If I were a slave today, but my brother was still alive, I would choose slavery, hands down. All these vain ideals have lead us down the path to tragedy piled upon tragedy. I don't care whether you are Republican or Democrat: just, please, for the love of god, make all this senseless killing stop.

Elite 1K Joined: Aug 01, 2006 Posts: 1004 Status: Offline

idesof wrote:

May I get serious for just a moment (while admitting that your post was humorous enough)? Above and beyond the fiscal crisis the military has to cope with as a result of an ill-advised war waged under false (or at the least tragically mistaken) pretenses, the cost in human terms is heartbreaking. I caught a story on CNN recently about a Humvee that was the target of an RPG attack where four on board were killed. Each of the stories of each of the soldiers was more heatbreaking than the next. Each one had a family, hopes and dreams for the future, a desire to live. And they died, for what? Certain candidates for presiden have, off the cuff, described their demise as a "waste". After the fact, they have been forced to retract those statements, were forced to say, "Oops, didn't quite mean that; what I meant to say is..." But let's not be disingeneous: they DID mean to say that those lives lost were in fact wasted. Is one single American life really "worth" all of this? Call me a bleeding heart, but at the end of that CNN report, I was in tears, and I don't mean just shedding your standard crying Indian tear, I mean weeping. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact I just lost a brother, 12/27/06, a 19 year-old kid, and I know all too well what that does to a family. An inconsolable mother. A dad who has to keep working although a part of him has died inside. Brothers and sisters who have to do whatever they can to hold up their parents to keep them from collapsing. Repeat that 3,000 times over, and that's just on our side. What about the tens of thousands of Iraqi families who have to live with that, every day? Whomever has ever said, give me liberty or give me death, has never known what it is really like to live through the death of a loved one and have had to live with it. So much for empty idealism. If I were a slave today, but my brother was still alive, I would choose slavery, hands down. All these vain ideals have lead us down the path to tragedy piled upon tragedy. I don't care whether you are Republican or Democrat: just, please, for the love of god, make all this senseless killing stop.

Which war isn't without heartbreak and sacrifice?

We can argue about whether the Iraq campaign is worth the price in dollars and in lives. But lets not forget that the campaign is a just and worthy cause. Disposing a murderous and oppressive dictator is just and worthy. Bringing the power and liberty of a democratic vote to a repressed and abused nation is a just and worthy cause. Bringing or at least attempting to catalyze positive change to a region which is locked up under despotism and religious absolutism and hence a source of the terrorist threat that we face is a just and worthy cause. Based on the intelligence we had regarding WMDs in 2003, acting militarily was the right course of action. If you don't believe in the cause of freedom, the cause of democratic values, the cause of justice and if you are not willing to stand up for it, then what is the point of us being a Superpower? Surely it is not to defend against an amphibious assault on Washington DC.

Could the Iraqi campaign been conducted more effectively? Is it the best way to go about bring change and democracy to the middle-east? Are resources being allocated as well as it should have been? Those are questions which can be argued and debated. However, I have never -- not for one moment -- doubted the cause of the Iraqi campaign nor have I ever felt that it is an unjustified action or that it is a senseless. What;s perhaps more important is that we must not lose the Iraqi campaign no matter the cost and not matter the price in human lives or the amount of time it takes. Losing in Iraq or cutting and running will embolden the Islamo-fascists and create a world which we will not want to live in. I believe that we must win it no matter the cost. Forget 3,000 lives or 300 billion dollars. I believe that winning in Iraq and winning the campaign against terror is worth 30 million lives and the kind of financial and resource commitment which we forked over in WWII.

Defeat is not an option and despair is not a strategy. The sad thing is that while our soldiers on the front line are not despairing and are not chanting defeatism, too many politicians and short sighted Liberals are. As much as I disagree with G W Bush's overtly liberal policies on immigration, spending, social entitlements, fiscal discipline and just about everything else, G W Bush said one thing which should be canonized...

"Freedom is not America's Gift to the World, Freedom is God's Gift to mankind."

If America stops believing in that, I will find it impossible to call myself an American, and I bode the darkest future for mankind.

F-16.net Editor Joined: Sep 23, 2003 Posts: 2862

dwightlooi wrote:

idesof wrote:

May I get serious for just a moment (while admitting that your post was humorous enough)? Above and beyond the fiscal crisis the military has to cope with as a result of an ill-advised war waged under false (or at the least tragically mistaken) pretenses, the cost in human terms is heartbreaking. I caught a story on CNN recently about a Humvee that was the target of an RPG attack where four on board were killed. Each of the stories of each of the soldiers was more heatbreaking than the next. Each one had a family, hopes and dreams for the future, a desire to live. And they died, for what? Certain candidates for presiden have, off the cuff, described their demise as a "waste". After the fact, they have been forced to retract those statements, were forced to say, "Oops, didn't quite mean that; what I meant to say is..." But let's not be disingeneous: they DID mean to say that those lives lost were in fact wasted. Is one single American life really "worth" all of this? Call me a bleeding heart, but at the end of that CNN report, I was in tears, and I don't mean just shedding your standard crying Indian tear, I mean weeping. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact I just lost a brother, 12/27/06, a 19 year-old kid, and I know all too well what that does to a family. An inconsolable mother. A dad who has to keep working although a part of him has died inside. Brothers and sisters who have to do whatever they can to hold up their parents to keep them from collapsing. Repeat that 3,000 times over, and that's just on our side. What about the tens of thousands of Iraqi families who have to live with that, every day? Whomever has ever said, give me liberty or give me death, has never known what it is really like to live through the death of a loved one and have had to live with it. So much for empty idealism. If I were a slave today, but my brother was still alive, I would choose slavery, hands down. All these vain ideals have lead us down the path to tragedy piled upon tragedy. I don't care whether you are Republican or Democrat: just, please, for the love of god, make all this senseless killing stop.

Which war isn't without heartbreak and sacrifice?

We can argue about whether the Iraq campaign is worth the price in dollars and in lives. But lets not forget that the campaign is a just and worthy cause. Disposing a murderous and oppressive dictator is just and worthy. Bringing the power and liberty of a democratic vote to a repressed and abused nation is a just and worthy cause. Bringing or at least attempting to catalyze positive change to a region which is locked up under despotism and religious absolutism and hence a source of the terrorist threat that we face is a just and worthy cause. Based on the intelligence we had regarding WMDs in 2003, acting militarily was the right course of action. If you don't believe in the cause of freedom, the cause of democratic values, the cause of justice and if you are not willing to stand up for it, then what is the point of us being a Superpower? Surely it is not to defend against an amphibious assault on Washington DC.

Could the Iraqi campaign been conducted more effectively? Is it the best way to go about bring change and democracy to the middle-east? Are resources being allocated as well as it should have been? Those are questions which can be argued and debated. However, I have never -- not for one moment -- doubted the cause of the Iraqi campaign nor have I ever felt that it is an unjustified action or that it is a senseless. What;s perhaps more important is that we must not lose the Iraqi campaign no matter the cost and not matter the price in human lives or the amount of time it takes. Losing in Iraq or cutting and running will embolden the Islamo-fascists and create a world which we will not want to live in. I believe that we must win it no matter the cost. Forget 3,000 lives or 300 billion dollars. I believe that winning in Iraq and winning the campaign against terror is worth 30 million lives and the kind of financial and resource commitment which we forked over in WWII.

Defeat is not an option and despair is not a strategy. The sad thing is that while our soldiers on the front line are not despairing and are not chanting defeatism, too many politicians and short sighted Liberals are. As much as I disagree with G W Bush's overtly liberal policies on immigration, spending, social entitlements, fiscal discipline and just about everything else, G W Bush said one thing which should be canonized...

"Freedom is not America's Gift to the World, Freedom is God's Gift to mankind."

If America stops believing in that, I will find it impossible to call myself an American, and I bode the darkest future for mankind.

Guess we will have to start a topic about this in another area. It isn't the mission of the U.S. to piss away 10 billion or more a month to bring "democracy" to a bunch of stinking savages. Trying to remake the rest of the world in our own image is a fools errand. Two: Operation: Useless Dirt provides no benefit to our own national security. Our foreign policy has driven off the known map of reality. The real bad part is that we are breaking the military to address a useless mission that doesn't provide us any national defense.
"They hate us because of our freedom" or some other moronic saying like that makes about as much sense as: "They hate us because of asparagus"
We have two corrupt enemy-of-the-state political parties that need to be run out of town by bayonet point and put in Gitmo. These two parties are ruining the United States they are in no way helping it. Add to that our mindless free trade lemmings ( as opposed to fair trade ). Our inability to control illegal immigration. ( I would rather see 2 Army Divisions actually do something worth while that has something to do with national defense. That is: put them along the south border with orders to shoot to kill. Add up our dependency on foreign credit to do anything now as we have run out of things to off-shore/outsource and a Middle East policy that has to be approved by AIPAC, and we are in some serious trouble. I hate all professional democrats and republicans. Reason: They have no allegiance to the United States. They are all bought and paid for. Please don't bore me with the virtues of trying to create democracy in useless third world places. We have enough to do at home that needs fixing.
Our DOD's complete failure to grasp the concept of 4th Generation Warfare, a complete lack of 3rd Generation Warfare ( we preach 3rd gen ideals in War Colleges and then micro-manage platoon and company commanders and at that rate will only be a Second Gen Warfare military on our best day.
Trotting out the flag ain't going to help. We need real solutions not moronic rhetoric.

Elite 2K Joined: May 13, 2004 Posts: 2945 Location: Utah

Cost overruns still plague F-35 joint strike fighter, GAO says
BY: Dave Montgomery, McClatchy News Service
03/16/2007

Lockheed Martin's F-35 joint strike fighter, conceived as a versatile and affordable fighter for the United States and its allies, continues to be plagued by rising costs that have boosted the per-unit price tag by 12 percent over the past three years, according to a government report released Thursday.

But the Defense Department challenged the conclusions of the Government Accountability Office, the chief investigative arm of Congress, and rebuffed the GAO's recommendations to limit F-35 production at 24 aircraft year through the end of the decade.

Now entering its sixth year of development, the joint strike fighter, also known as the F-35 Lightning II, is the nation's most expensive weapons program. The total cost of development and production is projected at $276.5 billion, and the Department of Defense estimates eventually spending a total of $623 billion to purchase, operate and support the strike fighter fleet, the GAO said.

Lockheed Martin leads a manufacturing team that also includes Northrop Grumman and British-based BAE Systems. The aircraft is being assembled at Lockheed's plant in Fort Worth and made its first test flight on Dec. 15.

"Accurately predicting JSF costs and schedule and ensuring sufficient funding will likely be key challenges facing the program in the future," the report said. The program will demand "unprecedented funding" over the next two decades - more than $12.6 billion a year on average through 2027, the GAO said.

The GAO called for a 24-a-year production cap until each of the three planned F-35 variants have demonstrated "basic flying qualities" in flight tests through 2010. But the Pentagon, in a strong endorsement of the F-35, defended its acquisition strategy and said the program will continue to ramp up toward full-rate production of at least 240 a year by 2014.

"The department believes that a major manufacturing or design flaw, requiring extensive delay of the program, is unlikely," the Pentagon said in its response, which was included in the GAO report.

Lockheed spokesman John Smith said F-35s will log 1,350 test flights before the military receives the first production aircraft in 2009.

"The F-35 program is demonstrating affordability, design stability, reliable cost forecasts and adherence to schedules," Smith said.

The GAO acknowledged that the F-35 program is making progress but said the government will ultimately "be buying fewer aircraft for a greater financial investment" because of setbacks caused by early delays and design problems.

Total projected acquisition costs have increased by $31.6 billion since 2004. The program has confronted delays in several "key events," including the start of the flight test program, delivery of the first production representative development aircraft and testing of critical mission systems.

The average cost per airplane, the report said, has risen from $82 million to almost $95 million. That figure is sharply at odds with the government projections, which ranges from $47 million to $60 million, depending on the variant.

The aircraft is being built in three versions: a conventional takeoff and landing version for the Air Force, a Navy version that can take off and land on aircraft carriers, and a model for the Marines than can make short takeoffs and vertical landings. Production for the U.S. military is expected to continue through at least 2027.

President Bush's 2008 defense budget calls for $6.1 billion in 2008 to build a total of 12 F-35s - six for the Air Force and six for the Navy. The proposed expenditure marks a substantial increase over the $4.9 billion that Congress allocated for 2007, although original plans envisioned a total of 24 in 2008.

Current plans call for 2,458 planes for services in the United States and Great Britain, although the Lockheed-led manufacturing team hopes to sell perhaps thousands more to other foreign customers.

Planners originally envisioned a total of 2,988 aircraft, but the overall size of the purchase has been scaled back because of past design problems that "affected the aircraft's ability to meet key performance requirements," the GAO said.

"The program's inability to meet its ambitious goals resulted in (the Defense) Department's failing to deliver on the business case that justified initial investment in the JSF," the report said. "As a result, purchase quantities have been reduced, total program costs have increased, and delivery of the initial aircraft has been delayed."

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