Oh yeah sir i see you came with pretty decent argument.You should have really big brain It's kinda generic and little bit retarded argument to prove your poit but who am i to judge you
Russia has more serious problems to worry about including a declining population, rampant alcoholism and tobacco use that kills most males before age 65--they will have a military protecting a country full of elderly women. They have been a pseudo ally for quite some time, but I'm sure they would love to see the USA and Europe crash just as they did after the USSR dissolved. The country is run by an ex-KGB operative, do you think he just decided he didn't care after the west won the cold war?
Well, SOMEBODY knows how to argue civilly! Yea! You totally got him! You're so amazing with your rhetorical abilities. TEACH ME.
Nuclear weapons made conventional war irrelevant. Does nt matter how sophisticated or numerous the army's are. Overkill.
When was the last time nuclear weapons were used in anger? How many wars have been fought since then? You have your answer.
Lol I'm not sure how the F/A 22 Raptor is "Old and weak" compared to the Pak FA which isn't even finished with its development process yet (which has been going on since the 80's). The single unit costs for the FA will also end up being ~50 million each versus 200 million each for the Raptor. Gee, I wonder which will end up being more reliable.
To be fair have you seen how much work and cost the raptor needs to go in the air, can't even afford to maintain and fly the 180 or so there is (or will be).
The F-35 program is the culprit when it comes to the Air Force funding problems. And while 180 doesn't sound like many, it's a force multiplier of ridiculous proportions. I mean two by themselves could probably best an entire small air force.
In July 2009, the Air Force reported that the F-22 requires more than 30 hours of maintenance for every flight hour, with the total cost per flight hour of $44,000.[198] The Office of the Secretary of Defense puts that figure at 34 hours of maintenance per flight hour at a cost of $49,808. The F-22 also reportedly encountered a critical failure every 1.7 hours. Each Raptor requires a month-long packaged maintenance plan (PMP) after every 300 flight hours.[203] The aircraft's radar-absorbing metallic skin is a principal cause of maintenance – skin repairs account for more than half of all maintenance.[198] Another source of maintenance problems is that many components require custom hand-fitting and are not interchangeable.[198] The canopy visibility degrades more rapidly than expected, and, instead of the required 800 hours, refurbishments are at 331 flight hours on average "the stealth coatings are not as fragile as they were in earlier stealth aircraft. It isn't damaged by a rain storm and it can stand the wear and tear of combat without degradation."[156] However, rain has caused "shorts and failures in sophisticated electrical components" when the Raptors were briefly posted to Guam Seems great... As long as it doesn't rain or need to fly for more than 1.7 hours then it's a good use of $200+ million. Don't get me wrong, I love the raptor, it's one of my favourite jets but it's turning into a giant shambles.
Guam's climate plays hell with all advanced computer controlled aircraft, just look at the recent B2 crash for example. And I doubt a "critical failure" is something that's actually going to bring the craft down. Most of the problems stem in my opinion from the fact that the computer systems that control the thing are rather primitive as they were developed in the 1990's. As for the skin problems and canopy degradation, that's just the materials reacting poorly to the higher levels of UV in the upper atmosphere. So it's going to happen with any stealth aircraft (although I'm sure the canopy can be changed).
That article is very old. They switched the skin coatings to the updated version designed for the F-35, so that problem of not flying in the rain was fixed. Canopy was changed after the incident where the pilot was (*giggle*) locked in his cockpit. They pretty much fixed all the problems with the F-22 except the oxygen system, and that one is a real doozy as they still can't find any malfunctions. Now the F-35 is a whole different ball game, that program is so incredibly mismanaged that they will one day teach of it in economics class.
I don't want to argue so I'll stay away from some of the topics but the F-35 needs to be scrapped completely IMO.
I agree. Unfortunately too many allies are completely dependent on the program succeeding, but the U.S. can easily do without the F-35. It will still need to buy new fighters thought to replace the older aging airframes.
We don't even need to replace our F15's and F18's, they have an excellent record and are still more than capable with modern upgrades. It's not like we're ever going to go to war with any technologically competent nation anyway.
There's no real point in fifth generation fighter aircraft at this point in time anyway. There's no reason to develop it other than to say "Hey, look, our planes were better than yours but now they're SUPER better than yours!!!" I mean really--this **** needs to stop:
