On Mar 5, 6:35*pm, Richard wrote:
On Mar 5, 12:39*pm, "Ray O'Hara" wrote:



"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message

.. .

On Fri, 5 Mar 2010 11:10:15 -0500, "Ray O'Hara"
wrote:

"Mike" wrote in message
...
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...an_air_superio...

Vanishing American Air Superiority

what a load of ****.

That's a difficult argument to refute. Penetrating analysis at its
finest.

What parts? Spit/Hurricane? Sabre/Thunderjet? Century series? Boyd and
hi/lo mix?

You've given us so much to think about Ray.

what better planes being planned never mind actually being built by anybody
else.

the points the author makes are false strawman types.

the Brits on 1940 didn't need two types, they needed more spits, they were
building them.

maybe you can say we have "hurricanes" now but who is building 109s?
if there were no 109s then the Hurricane would have ruled the sky.

technology is moving past the manned fighter. building the most advanced
manned fighter now would be akin to building the most advanced bi-plane in
1935.

what we have is better now than what others have now, building a hugely
expensive "better" plane that will be obsolete in short order is a waste

Worse. *Given the cost of the airframe, maintenance, crew training and
support vs Drones...its more like bldg BB in 1935 instead of carriers.

Aren't y'all making quite a leap saying UAVs have surpassed manned
fighters when to my knowledge, not a single UAV has ever successfully
engaged a manned fighter. Suddenly manned fighters are obsolete.
There's a bit of difference between firing a hellfire or dropping a
GBU on an unsuspecting pickup truck and attacking an IADS. UAVs may
be useful weapons but they hardly are close to having the speed,
range, flexibility or firepower of a manned aircraft.