I went into those points on another reply in a different section of this thread, but I agree with all of your points. The Canadian air force currently uses a couple of converted C-130 Hercules cargo planes, designated CC-130H(t) as well as a pair of Airbus A-310-300 converted to CC-150s (MRTT). All are currently…

Honestly, I believe that the RN would have been far better served with the F-35C than the B. Its a more capable combat craft in every way. Any dreams that they have of using the B from the Ocean are purely from large doses of narcotics as it would need a LOT of work to be able to use them more than once. I believe…

I see your point, but the QE wasn’t intended to have more than the dual fore located Cats. The angled cats that the US carriers have (though admittedly rarely use) just aren’t in the plans. For a light carrier, that’s perhaps enough, but given the scale of the QE (compare the size to the Nimitz), the US would expect…

Oh, to me its immensely F-ed up. I don’t advocate for taking High School kids directly into the pros at all. I was proposing a possible mechanism for doing it that at least offered them some protection, but I think that its a massively bad idea for ANYONE to leave college for the pros without even the most basic of…

Largely because there is LOTS of incentive to NFL teams to lure kids out of High School to the pros with big $, then churn though them like ground meat and have them never earn enough to cover their educations. Once pro, the NCAA will never let them have a college scholarship again, which for most of them was the only…

The RN likes the flexibility of the F-35B, its ability to operate off the HMS Ocean in a pinch, and the lack of upkeep expenses on the CATOBAR gear needed for the F-35C.

Remember, your team has to REALLY suck to get one of those coveted early draft slots to get that highly touted quarterback. Or, they have to trade away their future for the next few years to get that slot. Either way, you have a recipe for disaster no mater how you do it. If you had a solid offensive line, then an…

Honestly, this would only work for quarterbacks, as almost any other player worth drafting comes out of college early to enter the league lest they get injured. This would only work if the NFL established a college scholarship fund for these prospects that garunteed them a college education it the pro game didn’t work…

But they already have a develomental league and a pair of second-tier pro leagues. The NCAA Division I and the CFL and Arena League respectively. Oh, they aren’t “officially” such, but its such a thinly veiled difference as to not exist.

Long story short, the USN doesn’t like Ski Jumps.

While they do have the conversion in mind, if you take a look at the flight deck as it stands, the “angled flight deck” isn’t actually angled, its just painted at an angle on the current deck. One of the US requirements is to be able to launch from that angled deck, and that’s not in the specs for the QE. Also, the…

There are a couple of reasons that the Queen Elizabeth class doesn’t make much sense for the US Navy. The first of which is that they are very close in size to the existing Nimitz Class. They are also, as they are currently fitted out, about 50% more expensive per unit than the America Class LHAs. Due to their size,…

Yes, the ones designed for the Ford that haven’t had all their bugs ironed out yet. The concept is sound, the execution is right up there with the rest of military procurement levels of quality.

The REALLY sad part of all of this is that the answer is literally right in front of us. The America class carrier’s that the navy is building for the Marines can easily be modified to have an angled flight deck to accommodate fixed wing CATOBAR operations. The interior has already been optimized for the F-35, so…

The number one key to the success of any luxury brand is establishing brand awareness, desirability and cachet. While there exists a smal group of luxury buyers that can wade through car reviews, technical specs, pricing and value to find the best bang for their buck, the absolute most important thing for a luxury…

Wow, is there ever a lot of hemming, hawing, and mis-information in the comments today. Lets see if I can clear some of this up...

They are a relic of the Marines’ “one force” philosophy. They want to be able to do it all themselves.

Understood. The reason that they are larger is at least partially attributable to two factors, one is the excess mass that the airframe is carrying due to the SVTOL capabilities. The other is a holdover from when the navy wanted their version of the plane to have two engines.

The idea to force a s/vtol fighter to share major component commonality with a high performance fixed wing traditional fighter is lunacy. The neccessary compromises between both platforms are drastic and mission degrading.

Largely, its replacing the F-16, F-15e, A-10, harrier, f-18AB, and a few others.