It's called "air superiority" dumbass

Boss 302

Pursuit Driver
House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. thinks we are wasting money on the F-35 stealth fighter/bomber. He asked the following questions: "What does the F-35 give us? And is there a way to cut our losses? Is there a way to not keep spending that much money for such a low capability because, as you know, the sustainment costs are brutal," Smith said at a Brookings event Friday. ]

The F-35 helps give us air superiority, which is something we want whenever we go to war. That air superiority helps to minimize losses of our troops on the ground. It strengthens our national security not just abroad, but right on our own turf. I can't believe he's asking how we cut our "losses" on the F-35 after he voted in favor of the stimulus package that's providing billions to blue states that pretty near bankrupted themselves because they shut their states down. He should be telling the governors of those states, "Ya'll need to find another way to cut your losses because we're not going to let the American taxpayer fund your stupidity."

The F-35 is expensive to buy and to keep operating, but isn't safety our people from out nation's enemies worth it?
 
The F-35 will be a hangar queen while the F-15X and 40 year old A-10 take on nearly all of the rolls the F-35 was originally designed for, and do it at less than half the cost per hour of operation.


 
I don't know enough about these to have an opinion.

My biggest concern would be that we continue our aircraft development so we will never again be outgunned by other nations. This happened at the beginning of the Viet Nam conflict; some of our guys were literally flying prop planes against Russian Migs. We must always have the most advanced aircraft in the world.
 
I found a list of prop planes we used in Vietnam. Excluding those used to transport cargo and troops, there were prop planes that were used for intelligence collection and observation.

O-1 Bird Dog
Cessna 0-2 Skymaster
OV-1 Mohawk Some you may remember while I was in Iraq, I would sometimes post about my commander Brett Hale. He's a great guy and we are very good friends and stay in contact. He used to fly Mohawks in the Army in South America. The plane was equipped for Signal Intelligence collection. While I was at Ft. Huachuca home of the Army Intelligence Schools, they had one on static display. It's a funny looking plane.
OV-10 Bronco

The Mohawk and Bronco could be equipped with munitions, but these planes were not intended for air-to-air combat. Prop planes were used for observation because they could fly much slower than jets, making them better to conduct the types of missions they were given.
 
Back
Top