The Donald Goes After LockMart and the F-35

A family friend was on the F-35 for a while. He's a Lt. Col and was leading up stuff with it. He produced videos like that talking it up how it was the best thing ever.

As soon as he left the program "that thing is a colossal waste of money and a hunk of junk."

Remember, we're talking military kool-aid here. MY AIRCRAFT THAT I AM ON RIGHT NOW IS THE GREATEST MACHINE TO EVER BE BUILT.
 
PeanuckleCRJ said:
A family friend was on the F-35 for a while. He's a Lt. Col and was leading up stuff with it. He produced videos like that talking it up how it was the best thing ever.

As soon as he left the program "that thing is a colossal waste of money and a hunk of junk."

Remember, we're talking military kool-aid here. MY AIRCRAFT THAT I AM ON RIGHT NOW IS THE GREATEST MACHINE TO EVER BE BUILT.
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It does appear there's been a lot to tweak on it, software wise and the like. But it appears to be maturing well, from a pretty rough start.

Now, whether it's worth the money or not being spent on it, is indeed another story.
 
PeanuckleCRJ said:
A family friend was on the F-35 for a while. He's a Lt. Col and was leading up stuff with it. He produced videos like that talking it up how it was the best thing ever.

As soon as he left the program "that thing is a colossal waste of money and a hunk of junk."

Remember, we're talking military kool-aid here. MY AIRCRAFT THAT I AM ON RIGHT NOW IS THE GREATEST MACHINE TO EVER BE BUILT.
Click to expand...

If that's how he really felt than in my humble opinion he is a coward, and if it turns out as bad as he says it is then he will have blood on his hands.
 
PeanuckleCRJ said:
A family friend was on the F-35 for a while. He's a Lt. Col and was leading up stuff with it. He produced videos like that talking it up how it was the best thing ever.

As soon as he left the program "that thing is a colossal waste of money and a hunk of junk."

Remember, we're talking military kool-aid here. MY AIRCRAFT THAT I AM ON RIGHT NOW IS THE GREATEST MACHINE TO EVER BE BUILT.
Click to expand...

The 22 year old design of the 64D model Apache is undoubtedly the finest helicopter gunship on the planet. The E model was in many ways as a warfighter a step backward because it was rushed out as early as possible with the same kind of "We will fix it later!" attitude due to the Commanche literally strangling its self in development. Ive flown both and given the option today right now of which one I take to war against ISIS or on the planes of Europe Id take a D model every day.

That being said, the E model has the potential to be better than the D could ever even hope to be and will probably surpass most of its flaws in the next 2 years with the lot 4 upgrade over the current lots. F-35 is in many ways the at the same position. No not every weapon is cleared for use, no the software is being corrected for flaws found in daily usage, and no it cannot do everything and anything yet. That being said if anybody thinks there will be any 4/4.5 gen jet in our or anybody elses inventories that can do what it will be able to do or survive where it can survive 10 years from now they are solely mistaken.
 
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NovemberEcho said:
If that's how he really felt than in my humble opinion he is a coward, and if it turns out as bad as he says it is then he will have blood on his hands.
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Edit: perhaps in hindsight this is worded a bit strongly. I was just sick of yes men in the military. People willing to stick their necks out for the truth were too few and far between.
 
Avgirl said:
Then you should know better than most that his friend couldn't question things. At least publicly. He wasn't a coward. Just following orders.
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And in my opinion, if you are given an order to support a weapons system publicly that in your opinion isn't up to snuff than it is your duty to not do it.
 
Avgirl said:
Well, you are welcome to your opinion. It wasn't life or death.
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It can be. Ask the guys whose M16A1's jammed in Vietnam.

If your job is a weapons tester or evaluater, and you're sitting there thinking "man this thing really sucks! It can't do it's job! What garbage!" And then you go out and giving it glowing assessments publicly, you have lost all integrity, honesty, and hold direct responsibility to the consequences.
 
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Bob Ridpath said:
Kinda' like the war criminals of the Third Reich and Tojo's Japan?

Really?
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This isn't the same thing...gross overspending (which is far too commonplace in the defense department) and war crimes are not the same. He wasn't being asked to kill anyone. A flawed project isn't murder.
 
Avgirl said:
This isn't the same thing...gross overspending (which is far too commonplace in the defense department) and war crimes are not the same. He wasn't being asked to kill anyone. A flawed project isn't murder.
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His complain wasn't the overspending. His complaint was that the F-35 sucked but he towed the company line anyway saying it was great when he did not believe that. This is the military. Poor equipment gets people killed.
 
Lawman said:
The 22 year old design of the 64D model Apache is undoubtedly the finest helicopter gunship on the planet. The E model was in many ways as a warfighter a step backward because it was rushed out as early as possible with the same kind of "We will fix it later!" attitude due to the Commanche literally strangling its self in development. Ive flown both and given the option today right now of which one I take to war against ISIS or on the planes of Europe Id take a D model every day.

That being said, the E model has the potential to be better than the D could ever even hope to be and will probably surpass most of its flaws in the next 2 years with the lot 4 upgrade over the current lots. F-35 is in many ways the at the same position. No not every weapon is cleared for use, no the software is being corrected for flaws found in daily usage, and no it cannot do everything and anything yet. That being said if anybody thinks there will be any 4/4.5 gen jet in our or anybody elses inventories that can do what it will be able to do or survive where it can survive 10 years from now they are solely mistaken.
Click to expand...
It's like you know how this works. The F35 of 2015/2016 is a bad apple if you look at it as being in an end state. The F35 of 2022 (not that long from now) does stuff you haven't even dreamed of. It's arguably the most complex machine ever assembled and it has a lot of people it's trying to make happy. The first 20-30 off the assembly are probably going to suck at life. Give it a minute. I have a non-zero, non-negative level of respect for our President-elect but he needs to be looking just a little further ahead in time.
 
Avgirl said:
This isn't the same thing...gross overspending (which is far too commonplace in the defense department) and war crimes are not the same. He wasn't being asked to kill anyone. A flawed project isn't murder.
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Integrity is ... well ... integrity.

Whether the matter is big, or less so.
 
NovemberEcho said:
It's also one of the Air Forces core values. Or at least is supposed to be.
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The problem is once you are at that level it is political. You want to keep your job? Good, keep talking the good talk.

Talk to any officer or SNCO and they will tell you that politics plays a larger role in their day to day life than it should.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 
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