Test pilots are amazing people. They know better than anybody... They’re saying it doesn’t perform as well as our existing equipment, which is much less expensive.

I’d go for the Swedish warship Vasa, which sank on it’s maiden voyage having barely made it away from the dock it was moored to.

I love the glazed nose of the Tu-142. Best looking Bear variant IMO.

This is probably the cheapest way to win an AACA award/get into a classic car magazine. I’d haggle the price down to $5k if possible, but I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it if I wanted something seriously different.

I don’t always agree with Tavarish, but when I do, it’s about Alcantara. Suede in car interiors needs to die.

What brand are those? (so we all know to avoid them!)

I’d rather have the Bonneville GXP, even if maintaining it is likely impossible.

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party Central Committee is currently happening right now. Basically, everyone who matters in the Chinese government is gathered together to hash out the next Five-Year Plan.

They just strap bombs to the women they don’t want anymore :-/

Bad move. Girls don’t have resale value.

I’m not sure how many Stormtroopers are actually killed by Ewoks. The only Imperials dead for sure are the guys in the AT-STs, the speeder bike pilots, and the stormtroopers the our heroes and the Rebel commandos shoot. The only guys likely killed by bows and arrows were unarmored officers and Imperial Navy troopers…

Because you can achieve your goal with one bomb the first time, rather than one aircraft’s entire payload? This would allow multiple, accurate strikes with one aircraft in one sortie, minimizing risk and airframe hours. I’m not sure if that balances out to cost parity, but it’s a hell of a lot more efficient.

Too late to edit - the Scopion cost vs. capability balance is in the same ballpark as the A-10, but I’m not sure if A-29s limited capabilities and much lower cost make the comparison useful for anything beyond Afghanistan-level of intensity. Something like Syria would probably be a no-go for A-29s, but a Scopion might…

The only advantage an F-16 has over an A-10 in CAS missions is the extra speed of the F-16, allowing you get on station faster and have added glide range for unpowered munitions. Otherwise, the A-10 is a superior platform.

I think the 200 or so pilots were lost in aging MiG-21s and -27s, rather than modern Sukhois (wiki says 170 for the MiG-21, plus 40 civilians). The Indians have been complaining about the reliability of engines in their Su-30MKIs though.

It would be an issue if you didn’t have a dozen F-35s to send to Turkey, which retiring lots of legacy aircraft to buy a few more F-35s might result in.

Your argument falls apart when you look at the number of aircraft in question:

I could say the same about an election between Trump and Clinton.

A better example would be a coal rolling Brodozer. It sells itself as a practical, powerful, utilitarian vehicle, but it’s really a grandstand for a massive ego that pisses off everyone who gets to close to it.

If this was a Cobolt, it would be COTD, every day, forever.