Not exactly apples to apples but shitcanning the MBT-70(cluster****) gave us the M1 Abrams. It’s possible that if we killed the project that the tech development could be applied to multiple new airframes.

I doubt you could sustain an in depth conversation about the A-10 or its real world uses with myself or sweeper.

A-10 did about 15% of cas in the sand wars, post 2006 85% of its strikes were from 10,000 feet or above. It only used the gun in 10% of attacks.

The A-10 needs to be kept around for low-intensity conflicts like the war against ISIS (where it is a deadly asset for low-level strikes against poorly-armed insurgents), but the idea of using it as a counter to enemy armour formations has long been discarded in any realistic context due to the proliferation of…

If I had the answer, I’d probably be a well-paid lobbyist or one of those media experts or consultants.

Software coding needs to be done. That’s why development takes so long for these new fighters. 30,000,000 lines of code has to be hand written for these things. People love to piss and shit all over the F-35 by just what the media tells everyone. To bad they were not around for all our other fighters we’ve built. The…

That’s... not exactly an uncontroversial statement to say we do not, in any way, need the F-35.

::Steps into the flight path of a hypersonic plane::

Paging Jerry

“demonstrator flying by 2018.” Dude, the damn thing is already flying. Or at least something that looks like it.

This is the correct answer.

Someone else said it earlier, but I’ll say it again for effect. A Mach 5+ platform is a better investment than a satellite—especially considering the move towards rapid global strike and the intrinsic value a hypersonic can add to that particular type of mission.

“Just don’t let the people who like to pocket/spend/waste trillions in tax payer money build it”

Do we need it right now? No... Should we invest in the technology? Yes.

How so please be specifc? If anything it’s Bernie Sanders who would bring destruction upon the US economy not to mention there would be a serious gridlock in D.C worse than there is now since Congress would never pass any of his proposals.

That’s your design? Looks a lot like the SR-72, at least the side profile...you were ahead of your time, my friend.

O-O-O-O-O-klahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plane!

Ok, first, I’ve got literally thousands of hours in this model of jet. How many? I’m going to say well north of 4,000. So, over 5000 total pilot time.

Not exactly. It’s an ExpressJet aircraft and crew operating a United codeshare flight under United Express branding.

This just in, aircraft does perfectly normal thing. People freak out because of camera angle and the fact that they have no idea how planes work.