If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#211
|
|||
|
|||
GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As
On Jun 19, 2:24 am, "Michael Shirley" wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:19:11 -0700, eatfastnoodle wrote: Actually, China has huge internal problem to overcome before it can go out and compete with the US on a global scale. If the US and China could work something out on Taiwan, I don't think conflict between China and the US is inevitable. (assuming Korean peninsula doesn't blow). The thorny issue is always Taiwan, for China, giving up Taiwan is simply a political impossibility, for the US, allow China to take over Taiwan would mean the beginning of the end of American dominance in East Asia. (anybody controls Taiwan would also control Japan's oil lifeline, if China took over Taiwan, the foundation of American Asian strategy: US-Japanese alliance would be shaken to its very core). Very true. I also think that the Chinese are running against a clock that makes them think that exporting problems on bayonets is easier than solving them at home. Their water's polluted, their arable land is shrinking, desertification is growing, they've got a failure of the One Child Policy and they're overproducing males out of balance with females as a result. The economic growth curve is outstripping the population curve and they're starting to see what a paradigm/reality mismatch is all about as they discover the limitations of a highly centralised government in a dynamic society where change happens faster than they can get the reports on what happened yesterday. If I were on the Standing Committee of the Politburo, that would scare the living crap out of me. And the number of really big projects like the Three Gorges Dam that isn't even finished yet but which is starting to suffer from silting, has got to be causing some panic. Hu Jintao started out as a civil engineer specializing in water projects and dams and even with that kind of expert knowledge at the top, the problems are increasingly insoluable for the guys in Beijing. So increasingly, external military policies, (something that has always wound up being ruinous to the Chinese in the end) are looking better and better, while the local problems become something that they'd just as soon avoid. So, I think that we're going to see a period of optional adventurism in Beijing's future and that's bad for us, especially since we really can't afford a war with those people. Even if our overdependant on Chinese trade economy would survive it, the fact of the matter is that neither our industrial base nor our education system will support it. We need to go tactical defensive/strategic offensive in our actions, and a lot of that needs to revolve around soft power while being militarily unprovocative. We don't, in the crude vernacular of our times, need our politicians to be writing a check with their elephant mouths that our humming bird asses can't cash. In short, we need to change the game, because the one we're playing is gonna get our nose bloodied. All the Chinese need to do in order to win is simply not lose, and our own best option is not to play. Lets let Beijing expend their capital, both economic and political for awhile while we rebuild our industrial base, clean out our universities and other schools and generally start behaving like we still want to be around in 2050, by which time the Adventurists in Beijing will have spent their capital. If they want to have fun trying to police an empire in Africa, lets let them bleed to death doing it. Things might even improve a little bit over there. -- "Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, USN. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/20...ef_cites_d.php CoS USAF, Gates differ |
#212
|
|||
|
|||
GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As
On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:14:40 -0700, Jack Linthicum
wrote: CoS USAF, Gates differ I saw that. Still, I hope that the contract isn't rebid. Boeing has been behaving rather badly lately, doing everything from bribes to transferring sensitive technologies to the Chinese. They really don't deserve that Tanker contract. We wouldn't be having these problems if the merger between Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas had been denied as it should have been. Boeing's the only domestic maker of large airframes. Absent inviting EADS in, there's no quick way to get some competetion in that area of manufacture. And that's serving us badly. If McDonnell-Douglas were still a separate company, we could do a conversion of the C-17 airframe to a tanker as plan B. Replace the rear door with an afterbody carrying a boom and a station for the boomer and a hose reel for supporting planes that use the Flight Refueling Probe & Drogue method. Leave the front cargo door in place for secondary cargo deployment. That would be a great tanker, but we can't do that either without rewarding Boeing for behaving like a firm that deserves to be cut off from further contracts pending a major shakeup and maybe even spinning off assets to reform McDonnell-Douglas since that merger was a lethal mistake. -- "Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, USN. |
#213
|
|||
|
|||
GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As
If McDonnell-Douglas were still a separate company, we could do a conversion of the C-17 airframe to a tanker as plan B.
Personal opinion: If MD had not merged with Boeing, it would likely be bankrupt today, or teetering on the edge, or seeking the sale of its more profitable units (which would NOT include production of "heavies"), or seeking a different merger partner. Today's global economics of "heavies" manufacture boil down to only three players: Boeing, EADS, and the output of Russian industry. (China may be a future player.) MD's "heavies" business would have made it the fourth horse in a three-horse race. -- Mike Kanze "Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain." - Anonymous "Michael Shirley" wrote in message newsp.uc28ilh2ra3qj7@schooner-blue... On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:14:40 -0700, Jack Linthicum wrote: CoS USAF, Gates differ I saw that. Still, I hope that the contract isn't rebid. Boeing has been behaving rather badly lately, doing everything from bribes to transferring sensitive technologies to the Chinese. They really don't deserve that Tanker contract. We wouldn't be having these problems if the merger between Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas had been denied as it should have been. Boeing's the only domestic maker of large airframes. Absent inviting EADS in, there's no quick way to get some competetion in that area of manufacture. And that's serving us badly. If McDonnell-Douglas were still a separate company, we could do a conversion of the C-17 airframe to a tanker as plan B. Replace the rear door with an afterbody carrying a boom and a station for the boomer and a hose reel for supporting planes that use the Flight Refueling Probe & Drogue method. Leave the front cargo door in place for secondary cargo deployment. That would be a great tanker, but we can't do that either without rewarding Boeing for behaving like a firm that deserves to be cut off from further contracts pending a major shakeup and maybe even spinning off assets to reform McDonnell-Douglas since that merger was a lethal mistake. -- "Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, USN. |
#214
|
|||
|
|||
GIVEN CURRENT WARS, F-35s ARE BETTER CHOICE THAN MORE F-22As
On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:49:23 -0700, Mike Kanze
wrote: If McDonnell-Douglas were still a separate company, we could do a conversion of the C-17 airframe to a tanker as plan B. Personal opinion: If MD had not merged with Boeing, it would likely be bankrupt today, or teetering on the edge, or seeking the sale of its more profitable units (which would NOT include production of "heavies"), or seeking a different merger partner. Maybe, but that merge & RIF trend that started in 47 is one that has left us without a lot of alternatives and it leaves us with no technical defense in depth when a designer or design team hit's it's slump. When Donovan Berlin, (P-40) started turning out turkeys, guys like Kelly Johnson and Lee Atwood were there to take up the load. There's nothing like that now, especially since instead of experienced designers, you have twenty plus year product development cycles which means that the guy who designs an airplane maybe gets to complete one in his career. That whole trend is suicidal for us. Today's global economics of "heavies" manufacture boil down to only three players: Boeing, EADS, and the output of Russian industry. (China may be a future player.) MD's "heavies" business would have made it the fourth horse in a three-horse race. True, but a fourth horse would have made us a lot better off. As it is, I really hate to reward Boeing. They didn't respect their customer because they figured that the Air Force had no real choice in the matter. They've been outsourcing a lot of prime technology to China, and that's gonna come back, and nail us right where it hurts. At the rate things are going, we might be smarter to just buy surplus 747s that are in storage at Mojave and put fuel cells and a boom on those and declare it a supplemental interim system while we encourage somebody else to get into the large airframe business. The whole thing makes me wish that I had a time machine so that I could go back and strangle Stewart Symington, because he's the one that started this disaster. We should have stuck to the open market system we had in the 20's & 30's rather than letting Symington and the Air Force pretty much apply Mussolini's economic theories to the defense sector and especially to aircraft production. Either way though, rewarding Boeing and it's pack of crooked politicians, leaves an extremely bad taste, and it encourages a system where we've got no viable options if one of the designated hitters screws up. It's no accident that most of the real innovation you see in aviation right now is being done by the guys who do pilotless aircraft. The big companies really didn't fight to monopolize that market and the Air Force wasn't paying enough attention to rationalize them by merge & RIF as a result of the Air Force being the sole buyer and sales agent for what they produce. We're lucky that the Air Force lost it's bid to become the sole executive agency for unmanned aircraft because that merge & RIF policy would have been imposed on them next. If we want to really fix things, we need to step away from the current suicidal policy and go back to an open market in military systems. Symington's creation is gonna leave us with an Aviation Industry every bit as extinct as Britain's. And why we chose to copy the Brits industrial policies as far as military systems go, eludes me. They merged & RIFed until they got down to one major company, Hawker Siddley and one specialist helicopter producer, Agusta-Westland, and now, as nearly as I can tell, it's all EADS and their ability to produce the kind of innovation that leads to a viable military capability is suspect. When their prime design team hit's it's slump, they've got,............Nothing! And I hate looking down the muzzles of a resurgent and revanchist China with as thin of an industrial base as we've got and that's especially when you consider aircraft. -- "Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, USN. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Logger Choice | Jamie Denton | Soaring | 10 | July 6th 07 03:13 PM |
Headset Choice | jad | Piloting | 14 | August 9th 06 07:59 AM |
Which DC Headphone is best choice? | [email protected] | Piloting | 65 | June 27th 06 11:50 PM |
!! HELP GAMERS CHOICE | Dave | Military Aviation | 2 | September 3rd 04 04:48 PM |
!!HELP GAMERS CHOICE | Dave | Soaring | 0 | September 3rd 04 12:01 AM |