From: http://www.afa.org/magazine/june2007/0607watch.asp So, the Raptor uses Windows '98? In other AF news, the F-35 is ready for LRIP (Low Rate Initial Production) of the first 12 production airframes. No problems with its dashboard clock so far....
I'm still willing to bet that after the F-35 comes off the line, theater commanders will still wish they had TARPS and LANTIRN equipped F-14D Super Bombcats. Speed, legs, grace, capability, and the inherent aggressiveness of Naval Aviation. When you're out of Tomcats, you're out of fighters, baby!
How many cupholders does it have? On a side note, I once worked at Grumman Aerospace with the Material Control Group. I dealt with the E-2C and the C-2A. Also saw work on F-14's and A-6 Prowlers.
See yanks are just not good with software, with UK stuff when it goes wrong it just means something fallen off the plane. The Dos 3.11 still works fine.
F-14s and A-6s had some advantages like range and payload. But the low reliability, high maintenance requirements, huge size, and high accident rates worked against the F-14s for years though with the newer engines for the Ds many of the problems had been worked out.
It doesn't matter how great our aircraft are if other countries think that we're trying to impose an Americacentric vision of foreign policy on the entire world. Look at Russia under Putin. It may or may not be posturing, but Putin's recent words threaten to renew the Cold War and reverse decades of progress toward world peace. The reason is that Putin no longer fears being seen as a spoiler -- not even in Europe -- because there are so many countries that secretly desire that there be a counterweight to U.S. power. The more that we flaunt our military power, the more that other countries will hate us. We recently sent several carrier groups to the Persian Gulf in an attempt to intimidate Iran. Look how well that's worked. If this is any indication, the present is prologue to a weakened United States whether or not we have the F-22 or F-35 and whether or not they're as fantastic as the manufacturers advertise. Peace and cooperation are the keys to a strong foreign policy. Militarism and intimidation are keys to its weakness.
First of all, Bock, I'm not Enterpriser. Second of all, this obsession with Clinton does your side no good. Immediately after 9/11 occurred, it was said around the world: "Today, we are all Americans." There was, in fact, a stock of good will behind the United States. During the Clinton era, European intellectuals thought that the influence of America was so great that it could overwhelm the uniqueness of all other cultures and questioned the survival of their own. Today, American brand names suffer by association with their origins. Our foreign policy has turned this country into a source of aversion and our own citizens prefer not to travel under American passports if they can avoid it. It's time to stop buying the radical right's propaganda and look at history the way it actually is. After all these years, there are still those who fail to see the reality behind the image and understand that there is a whole other world that purveyors of American arrogance simply do not understand.
International goodwill toward the United States and domestic unity within the United States immediately after 9-11 were vastly overstated.
F-14D and the Supertomcat variants would have/did blow anything the USN currently flies out of the water. The Tomcat did have higher maintenance issues, however had Bush I (Read Cheney) not idiotically chosen the Superbug over the Supertomcat we would have a modern lethal machine capable of all the USN missions flying today. In all it's variants it could have fulfilled all fighter, interceptor, and bomber roles. Now we have a shitty Bug and no long range interceptor to protect the fleet.
Because Europe's the shining example of that, right? I mean, not that the neo-conservative idea of intimidation through force is better, I just find it fucking staggering that people still think it's a binary choice. Russia is acting out because it's finally strong enough to do so again. Iran is playing with fire because they think we won't slap their hand. Compromise is ultimately the preferred solution, but coming with your hand in hand will just get you empty promises and a sore behind.
And it's helping your side? No. I don't think so. The obsession is more of a delusion on the hard left side. You are the one that tried to make the oft-debunked point that the foreign policy of the US has made our problems in the world worse. I merely pointed out that 8 years of Clinton resulted in 9/11. History didn't being with GWB, you know. Not "around the world". It might have been said by some of our allies but there was rejoicing in the Arab street. Similar to the way the Japanese were proclaimed to be poised to take over the world economically in the 80's? Those "intellectuals" showed they were wrong then just as they do when they proclaim the end of their societies. Our foreign policy has done all this? Are you sure it's not the inevitable consequence of being a nation at war? Isn't it true that if we'd continued to keep out heads buried in the sand a la the Clinton era, that we'd undoubtedly have been targeted many more times by Arab fundies since 9/11? You've completely bought the propaganda that says those who believe in the value of America must be mind-numbed robots, then? When we fail to value our own uniqueness as a nation and our own worth, we wind up with a melange of psychopathic phobias about how we're perceived and don't have the national will to truly be anymore than the doomsayers of the ultraleft would predict for us.
Yup. Word is that Cheney killed the program when he was SECDEF because he got into a pissing match with one of the suits at Grumman. Basically a personal disagreement killed a program that the Navy had poured its heart and soul into for years. Cheney is not a popular guy in naval aviation, believe me. The F-14D was an outstanding program, good to go, and the inevitable E version with some of the electronic junk that the Superbug has would have been even better.
The whole "U.S.-blew-international-goodwill-after-9/11" angle is utter nonsense. Although there is always some sympathy for people killed in these kinds of tragedies, that in no way translates to the political sphere. I read the European press before 9/11; everything the European elite were hating the U.S. for before 9/11 wasn't suddenly going to go away simply because a few thousand people died unexpectedly. Besides, what use is "goodwill" if it doesn't translate into meaningful action to prevent a similar tragedy from reoccuring?
Contrast international support for our war in Afghanistan versus our invasion of Iraq. Unrefueled range, speed, payload, maneuverability at various altitudes -- all inferior to the Tomcat. The only way to match the Tomcat's range is to use another Superhornet to act as a refueler, but that creates its own problems. The original Hornet was even worse than the Superhornet. It was designed to be a junior partner to the Tomcat, and never its replacement. The Tomcat was the F-15 of the Navy (or vice versa), and the Hornet was the F-16, under something of a "hi-lo" mix. Many Tomcat supporters make the argument that the F-14 was better even than the F-15. The Tomcat's Phoenix missile system (designed to track 24 targets and engage 6 simultaneously) was much-vaunted. I'm not sure it was ever used in anger, however. The reason that Tomcat was so overpowered was in large measure because of the size of the radar and associated systems required for the Phoenix system. One problem with maintaining the Tomcats was that parts were getting sparse. However, Cheney's decision to scrap the program only worsened the problem. There's no reason that the program couldn't have been extended.
It was my understanding that the F-18 Hornet program and the Super Hornet were always the apple in the eye of the naval aviation. That the Hornet was loved for its low maintenance, high reliability, low speed handling characteristics (much better than the F-14). Plus, though it isn't well known. An F-18 is faster than most other jet fighters where it really counts. Though an F-18 can't go as fast as an F-15 or F-14 (or even an F-4), it can out accelerate any of them from a standing start. I've heard that F-18s have out raced F-15 Eagles from 0 to Mach 1.2. But I still love the F-14 best. Swing wings rule.
What the hell? It was just the ragheads and neo-commies who didn't like the US before 9/11, there were disagreements between the euro's and US as there has always been. meaningful action what do you think Afghanistan was a day trip down the shops?
Nothing random about it. If you want to end the scourge of worldwide terrorism, then you have to drain the swamps that are the Middle East. And starting with the region's worst dictator and his oppressive regime is the obvious first choice.
Sure. Ignore the Islamofascists and go after the only secular dictatorship. Leave the place open for conquest by the fanatics next door. Smooth move there, chief. So are you changing sides again and saying it was a GOOD idea? You pullin' a Kerry on us?
This is the kind of comparison that doesn't hold water with the pros. Fighters aren't drag racers and there are no 'standing starts' in combat. Here's the truth of the matter, taken from the debrief of a TACTS replay after a training mission: Two ships, one F/A-18 and one F-14B, go in and attack a ground target. The Tomcat does the 'hornet pop' from the deck up to FL270 on military power- the Hornet has to use full afterburner to pull the same maneuver without falling out of the sky. After the attack, the two bug out toward the 'supersonic corridor', the place on the range where they can do that. Again, the Tomcat is barely subsonic using mil power, while the hornet is again forced to use afterburner to keep up. As they hit the entry point, both planes go to full afterburner as the red force launches simulated SA-3's after them. The Tomcat leaves the Hornet in its dust after selecting Zone V, going like a bat out of hell, and the pursuing missiles run out of gas before getting close to the venerable 'cat. The Hornet, now a couple miles in trail, gets popped by the SA-3's, according to the TACTS computers. Oh, and when the Tomcat emerged from the supersonic corridor, it was still carrying more gas than the Hornet had launched with!! THOSE are the kinds of comparisons that count. When the U.S. was hitting ground targets all over Afghanistan after 9-11, the strike planners gave the tough targets to the bombcats every single time. In addition, F-18's couldn't hit targets in theater with smart bombs unless an F-14 with a LANTIRN pod was there to illuminate the target for them. Now the Superbug is still an improvement over the F-18C/D, but it's still a glorified F-18 and still suffers from the same shortcomings. Fuel load, range, and it's not a very versatile dogfighter. Basically, the same mistake was made with the F-18E/F that was made before Colonel Boyd pushed through the projects like the F-15 and 16- they created a gold plated monster that tries to be good at everything, but isn't good at anything. The Tomcat was the ultimate embodiment of what they were trying to achieve with the superbug- nobody believed the plane could be a bomber until some hard-charging ass-kickers took a shoestring budget and proved it was better at ground attack than the Strike Eagle. It was a classic case of not fixing it if it wasn't broken. Unfortunately, that bastard Cheney broke it deliberately just when it was all coming to fruition.
The only thing I would contest somewhat is this: The Eagle was a superb dogfighter in its day. Not only did it have the highest thrust ratio of any air supremacy fighter, but for an aircraft its size, it was plenty maneuverable. It was peerless arguably until the Soviets came out with the Sukhoi-27 in the mid-1980's, although, as I say, some argue that the Tomcat is as good. The multirole version, the F-15E Strike Eagle packs plenty of punch, although it's true that when fully loaded it's not so much a dogfighter as a dog. The vehicle struggles to carry its payload, although one must admit that it's a substantial one. The F-15 has never been defeated in battle and is considered highly robust. During one mission of an Israeli F-15, the aircraft lost an entire wing in battle damage during a collision with an enemy MiG and safely flew back to base. The F-16 Falcon was also considered a highly maneuverable aircraft and the first fighter utilizing a full fly-by-wire capability. The aircraft was designed to be aerodynamically unstable to maximize its maneuverability. Both the the F-15 and the F-16 remain in service today. The F-22 is intended to replace the F-15 and the F-35 (Air Force version) the F-35, but query whether there will be enough numbers to replace all of them. There'll probably be a mix of all four aircraft for quite some time.
