Now all they have to do is invent the speeder bike...

Why not just make the ATV autonomous? What is compelling about having a human-shaped "robot" sit on the seat. Unless the thing is going to get off and start shooting, I don't see the point.

Although not my primary job, I do contract work teaching in military academia. I noticed the logo on the "Collection Priorities to Meet Objectives" slide right away. It is from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. They do a lot of federally funded military work, but most of the data they produce is publicly available. Much of…

I concur that modern fighters like the F-35 and F-22 are not expendable, but that was kind of my point. The A-10 was less than $10 million over 30 years ago. They have pretty much been capitalized. There are hundreds of low hour airframes sitting in the desert that could be modernized and brought into service,…

Yeah. The Scorpion might be a good compromise. Unfortunately, it's not made by Lockheed / Northrop / Boeing, so it would have an uphill battle since Textron couldn't spend as much to bribe Congress and the DoD like the establishment. Although Textron is no lightweight with it's Bell, Cessna, Beechcraft, and Hawker…

I agree in both aspects. However, as you noted, most of the successful multi-service aircraft become so through a process of adoption rather than an outright collaboration. TFX created two successful aircraft (F-111 and F-14) but only because the USAF played the dominate role and the Navy bailed, eventually creating…

Five bucks says his yoke wasn't connected to anything.

LOL. I talk to a lot of Lockheed engineers and rarely do I ever hear one defending the F-35. Not a single one I've ever spoken with would ever design a plane like the F-35, although most of the people I talk to are systems engineers not directly involved with the overall design. None of them like a design by…

Interesting concept. I'm in military academia and I frequently talk with those people on the front lines (in all service branches) and the one consistent problem I hear about drones is that the sensors are good if you know what you're looking for, but terrible when total situational awareness is called for, like in…

Oh. I agree that a multirole stealth aircraft is doable. The F-16 and F-18 show that multirole is here to stay. What I was saying is that F-35 demonstrates that the Air Force puts no emphasis on CAS. Right now the F-35 lacks some of the capabilities of the F-16 in the CAS role and is not nearly as capable as a…

They did. They even got a couple of Syrian pilots to join them. However, they have no support infrastructure to support them, so good luck maintaining those ancient MiGs. Even an established nation such as Iran has trouble keeping its Air Force in the sky. Sure, they can manage a few sorties in an F-4 every now and…

Yes. It is a collaboration, but the Air Force went into this collaboration specifically planning to replace the A-10 and F-16. The A-10 has always been a bastard child to the Air Force and they've been trying to get rid of it from the day it entered service. They finally thought that the F-35 would put the final nail…

Let's face it, the Air Force will always have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the CAS mission. Opposition to the role is in their DNA. All the way back in 1943 when the USAAF declared itself a co-equal to ground forces (see FM 100-20), it has formally put ground support a distant third behind air superiority…

I wonder if they could make a tethered balloon version to give a future (more powerful) version a greater stand-off range? The ship could provide the power and the balloon could provide the altitude.

ZIL has also released a pic of their futuristic Urban Assault Vehicle.

It's an up-armored Pontiac Aztec.

I agree that Russia is getting its just deserts for its actions, but we can't forget that there was a time that Germany was broke and isolated too. And Germany didn't have nukes.

Could be. I think it would be more effective by using Apaches with loud speakers blaring out Ride Of The Valkyries, but to each his own.

Is that B-1 actually flying over the battlefield with its strobe lights on? I realize that the USAF has air supremacy, but it still strikes me as bizarre.

I'd say that Flanker is going to have a hard time in a dogfight with its landing gear down.