Tarver,
Nice of you to speak for the entire Navy, but you must be only
speaking of the Contractors, PMA guys and bean counters that can't
see the forest through the trees. COTS is good if you have the sparing
and support, (rare). But bad for long term sparing and support. TAT on
COTS sucks, we rob mission birds at home to support deployed assets.
In addition, proper training is rarely given to maintain a COTS
system, so you need underfunded CETS support to follow you everywhere.
COTS problems are programatic. So, you might be right about the
Contractors, PMA guys and bean-counters loving COTS, but certainly not
from a front line maintenance manager standpoint.

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 08:50:27 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Chad Irby" wrote in message
.com...
In article ,
(robert arndt) wrote:


http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/bus...10879C56DA8BF2

686256E0C00194866?OpenDocument&Headline=Boeing+la nds+two+fighter+contracts

More Super Hornets and the EA-18G Growler go-ahead...

It's only the second batch of Super Hornets, it's looking like that
third batch isn't going to be bought. And it looks like the 90 Growlers
are going to be part of that 210.

Nice speculation Chad, but as usual, you are mistaken. The Navy loves the
F-18 and it is advantaged over even the F-35, due to it's COTS design.