Woot. Let China sink millions into a fighter. Then maybe other countries will ask them for help instead of us.
Honestly, the F22 is an amazing piece of equipment. If China builds something comparable, it just means that, if we theoretically went to war, we wouldn't necessarily have the airpower advantage. (Not sure on number of planes each country owns.) But if China and the US go to war, it would wreck the whole world. I don't think that would ever happen, and I don't think the rest of the world would want to see that either.
Well, we still have Raptors... just less of them. In all fairness, I can see why they cut the budget for them, as Raptors cost alot of money. That money could go towards warfighting efforts that effect terrorism much more than the Raptors ever could.
(Also, more Raptors means more expensive pilots to train, pay compensation, etc etc)
Glad to oblige.Thanks for looking, you didn't have to. Thanks for the link, too.
Cut $300B/year from Defense budget.
The Defense budget corruption, waste, fraud, corporate socialism transferring taxpayer wealth to the corps and debt to taxpayers is weakening America, not strengthening it.
Well, they are a bit off there. The shape alone would be great against that circa RADAR, but modern stealth go beyond just the shape. It only has one stealth characteristic. Modern craft have several.
I wish I went Aircraft maintenance (parts changer) rather than communications maintenance (parts changer) at times. It does pay better.
<crickets>
There is show on History Channel? about some US mega-MIC corp building a full-sized model of the Nazi stealth plane, 65+ years old, to test it on their radar range for stealthiness. A project that probably cost a couple $M of taxpayer money, "just for fun".
So, when do we start using this advanced technology?
UFO's have been around for decades and we've been in some pretty tough scrapes over those same years. If the U.S. has that , there have been plenty of opportunities to drag it out of The Skunkworks and put our enemies in their place.
The facts are this:
China has abandoned its "hide and bide" strategy for weapons development. Where they used to hide their advancements and bide their time until it was needed, they now "leak" proof of what they have. I don't think that's an accident.
Also, China has let it be know they've developed a carrier killing missile.
I do believe China thinks they've turned a corner in their arms race with the U.S.
What does what we have has to do with China being innovators?
The Raptors are living proof of what we have and what nobody else has.
We also pioneered the unmanned drones, which are actually in operation right now. Things like the ADS millimeter-wave transmitter...
The advanced tech is out there. You're just taking it for granted.
China has shown that it understands their new role as a world economic power. As such, they need to show off they're also investing in the military and weapons. The reality also shows they're still playing catchup, and when you end up following the money, you see that they spend a whole lot less than the US in actually trying to be ahead of the game.
The fact that they're still paying up to acquire tech should be a sign of where they're really standing at, as far as investing in military R&D.
"weapons and technology" = non-rusting assault rifles, and *gasp* working radios.
When you have left-over crap weapons captured from the Soviet Union in the 1980's, tanks literally held together with bailing wire and truck parts, then "weapons and technology" means something vastly different.
Unless of course you mean that they are selling advanced aerospace technology to iron-age tribal groups?
'splain what you meant here.
As for the Chinese "stealth" fighter, it is a "first-step" prototype, from all the analysis I have read.
A bit ahead of what was generally attributed to the Chinese, but hardly a game-changer. No where near where the US is in either stealth or advanced avionics.
Their anti-ship missle on the other hand deserves far more worry. That thing is pretty much designed to evade Aegis systems and take out our aircraft carriers.
The idea that large ships such as our super carriers would eventually become obsolete has been a meme that has been floating around defense circles for some time.
That oft-repeated idea may be finally borne out.
F-117A,
U2 spy plane,
B2,
F-16,
F-15,
F-22,
Yf-23,
etc.
We have seen these planes in wars and they have allowed us to completely dominate the air.
BS marketing from China. If it was anything close to production, no news would be coming out.
This saber-rattling appears as a Chinese guy comes to US to negotiate financial stuff.
Of course, the paranoia-spewing right-wingers grab ontuit to suck more wealth out of taxpayers' pockets.
China developing stealth chemtrails?
I'm convinced.
Ok now I'm confused. If you're such a conservative republican as all of your posts imply, how can you hate on the government's decision to save countless hundreds of millions by going with the F35 instead of the F22? Do you even know the difference? Did you even know the F35 existed?
You can't argue about debt (and blame the current White House for poor spending habits) while arguing that we should be spending hundreds of millions on a jet that is replaceable by an equivalent jet at a fraction of that cost.
Last edited by phxspurfan; 01-18-2011 at 01:52 PM.
This point is also true if you ask the non-USAF military. I just finished reading a book by an Army Captain saying the Army would do better with the equivalent investment in $150 handguns than have the latest jet. But I guess $150 handguns don't make for cool recruiting commercials.
What'd you do in comm maintenance? Just curious. Feel free to disregard/PM if you don't want to share publicly.
Exactly my point. Of course, a handgun wouldn't do much in a "classic warfare" scenario. But we've spent so much on military, that a country would have to be near bat -insane (see N. Korea) to threaten our military using conventional methods.
Oh btw this was discussed on the Kudlow Report last week, for any CNBC viewers. His immediate response was the same as has been mentioned here: Why did we cut the F-22 (without mentioning its replacement).
Meh. I already saw this movie.
We didn't really cut the F-22. We just cut down on the amount that were going to be produced. And the reasons already listed are why... because from a "terrorist-fighting" standpoint, F-22s are not very cost-effective. From an "air superiority" standpoint, they're unmatched.
Gates wants the AF to put more money into UAVs/drones.
Actually, I don't do that any longer. It became so modern that red light on circuit board means replace. What was a $50k job in 1980, became a $40k job in 1992, when I got out. Now the equipment I work on uses basic old communications protocols like RS-485, but my job is primarily mechanical anyway. I simply believe I would have a better job if I worked on aircraft than what I do now. Don't get me wrong, my job is rather satisfying. It's just it doesn't require my level of expertise, and I don't have the background for a technical job that is also low risk of layoff. Aircraft mechanical or avionics might have been the ticket for me. Oh well, have to live with past choices.
Cool, thanks for the info. Tech goes so fast, hard to keep up sometimes.
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