On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 23:33:49 +0100, "Emmanuel Gustin"
wrote:

"Henry J. Cobb" wrote in message
. com...

http://globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040104-f-22.htm
"They're just trying to find a role for this plane because they've
sunk so much money into it," Riccioni said.

These are people with an axe to grind -- the 'light weight
fighter maffia'. Their arguments don't impress me much;
lightweight fighters have never been very successful.
I've read part of Stevenson's "The Pentagon Paradox"
book once, but found it hard to take seriously -- too
many errors and fallacies.


I'd have to agree with you there. Some of his arguements were weak at
best. First he complains that in mock combat that the F-22 started in
the rear and then he complains that it's "not realistic" when it
started up front. Another clue he needs to get is when determining
maximum speed *no figther* is carrying a warload. They're always
clean. His whining that the F-15 only hit Mach 2.5 because it was
clean screams of either him having an axe to grind or just plain lack
of common sense. Let's see the F-16 or anyother fighter for that
matter, hit it's maximum speed when loaded down with ordinance.





Nevertheless, I think a good case can be made that it was
wrong to go for a high/low mix F-22/F-35 in imitation of
the F-15/F-16 mix. It is very costly, even though Lockheed
Martin is obviously using F-22 know-how in the F-35, to
develop two types; and you end up with one type which
isn't as capable as you really want and one type which is
too expensive to be built in really large numbers. Instead,
the USAF should have invested in a single, medium fighter
type, single-engined and a real multi-role aircraft, and
simple-and-cheap STOVL attack type for the USMC and
as a *real* replacement for the A-10.

By the time it was a for-sure thing that Russia was no longer was a
threat a lot of money had already been sunk into the program. Combine
this with the fact that the USAF won't get as many aircraft as it
needs no matter *how* cheap they are, they wanted to get as much
capability as possible. If it only cost five million dollars the
politicians and tree huggers would still find a reason to whine about
it and rave on about how it's a "Cold War" weapon like that's a BAD
thing.

I agree that the F-35 in any incarnation is a poor replacement for the
A-10. Basically what you need to replace the A-10 with is new A-10s.
Add on a few electronic gizmos to improve it's ability to do what it
does best and no more.