http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/dod-aims-to-scrap-a-10-to-keep-f-35-alive-in-new-budget/ So they are scrapping their best ground attack plane in order to field a piece of shite with multiple faults and has yet to be fielded after being grounded time and time again... Poxy ******s... A-10 might be ugly, but it is a much loved, respected and feared ugly SOB.
Budget cuts have got to be made somewhere, and if its between the older aircraft and the future aircraft, its a fairly obvious choice.
A hellishly expensive future aircraft that is still to see a fully working model, against a proven, cost-effective plane that would have been cheaper in the short run, let alone the long run to upgrade its systems. How about having saved money from stupid **** like: their $300 million LEMV Blimp that was scrapped the $400mil on C-27J's the Air Force didn't want for the waste they were, but the DOD/Goverment said **** you and ordered more (What was already there was already being mothballed, these brand new ones are also getting mothballed as they are received) $30mil on a HQ in Afghanistan that was asked to be scrapped years ago, but was still completed and has remained untouched, to be torn down or given to Afghan goverment since it will be outside of the new security perimeter of its base since that was downsized State Department paying for Facebook likes A few ridiculous studies (NASA studying if there is intelligent life in COngress, studying duck penises , or a study that concludes that wives should calm the **** down ... those 3 alone costing over $6mil There are plenty of examples you've seen over the last year of stupid waste of taxpayers money (Obamacare, anyone? Or how about the IRS staff that owe BILLIONS from the last year alone in taxes)
Obamacare? You mean, a free health service for poor people? I can't think of a better way to spend money?
The MoD are no better... Lets buy 2 aircraft carriers... then scrap one as soon as they've finished it... While they're at it they scrapped all the harriers, meaning the finished carrier won;t have any planes on it... Then there's the harriers 'replacement' the ridiculed-above F35... They've flip flopped over which version they want several times... And what ever they end up with they'll have paid way too much for it... Whilst imo 'Obamacare' is a good thing, it has been a bit of a cluster****... look at the abortion that is/was the healthcare.gov website....
Isn't the A10 the one where they built the plane around the gun? EDIT: Oh yesss http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger
Right so I need to win the lottery, buy a rather large gaff with enough hard-standing to park one of these up on it when they hit the army surplus stores
From everything I've read about the F35, between the two I'd rather keep the existing A-10. On the other hand, I've always thought it was odd to argue about building one warplane vs another. I think building neither is a legitimate choice, and you touched on that a bit when you mentioned the military hardware demanded by Congress, which the military has insisted it neither needs nor wants. Now you're just ranting for the sake of it. I'd like to see some citations for the items in your list, along with some understanding of what the researchers in question actually purport to study, because at this point you're just arguing from incredulity. Furthermore, whether or not NASA decides to spend its allocated funding on a search for intelligent life in Congress has little effect on whether the DoD decides to scrap one plane for another. I'm not touching the Affordable Care Act argument; you might as well have started talking about the Windows 8 Start Menu.
Yeah, the website and backend they spent around $300million on that didn't function when launched (and is still broken) and they, after having touted Open Source coding as being a huge security risk, go and use Open Source code for the website and get called on their ********. Read Sen. Coburn's Wastebook, It is where I got that list. Considering Congress called for the budget cuts in the first place, they are also to blame, hence scrutiny on them aswell.
Given that it dates back to 1972 there has to be an end of life point sometiem soon. I suspect that realisitcally low level attack duties are more likely to be down to UAVs in the future. However the F35 is almost certainly a politically well-supported moneypit
Although it makes many valid comments about wastage, I got a bit suspicious about the objectivity of that document when it mentioned NASA's "pillownaut" study. Paying people to lie on a bed all day? Ludicrous! Except that it provides really important information about the adverse health effects of being bed-bound for prolonged periods, which is relevant for recovery and rehabilitation from severe illness or injury where being bed-bound for long periods is a feature. Psychological studies cost money. That includes studies on marital dynamics, and those that might draw unpopular conclusions. So if a study happens to find that marital harmony is associated with how quickly the wife calms down after an argument, that's just how it is (of course there is room for speculation on the mechanism of the observed effect; I suspect that marital harmony is in fact associated with husbands not chronically pissing their wives off, which allows them to calm down quickly). Much technological progress is based on results of academic research --that which was performed out of pure curiosity, with no particular application in mind. It is just good to find out things. You never know how it may come in useful later.
The pillownaut thing sounds like something i watched about NASA testing the long term effect of zero G on the body, something they would need to do for the long trip to mars.
I remember seeing this in the news a few years ago. The beds were set at an angle such that blood flow was similar to that experienced in low gravity environments. Seems reasonable to me.
Absolutely. This stuff is important to know for spaceflight. It may seem rather hypothetical now, but one say we will have commercial space stations and interplanetary flight and then this knowledge will turn out to be rather handy. And as I said, it already produces important data for health care.
That study was designed to ascertain the effects on organ function and muscles of being weightless for extremely long periods of time. Its cheaper than sending people to the ISS with all the monitoring equipment etc. The success of planned trip to Mars hinges on the people being able to actually walk around and survive when they arrive, so its a very important study. EDIT: Oh I see someone else beat me to it.
Setting aside any ideological angles, I'd offer a few rules that it would be nice for our various legislatures to bear in mind. 1. "Would you really do this with your own money?" OK, most Politicians can't afford to buy a new stealth fighter or hospital out of their pocket, but don't justify spending money on something just because you're raised tax on someone/thing unpopular (banks, the rich, foreigners, etc). Assume what every your spending is being funded by dipping into your dear granny's meagre savings. It it doesn't seem a good use of her money, then it's not a good use of general taxation. 2. "Spending has to be justified on the stated purpose, not supposed side-benefits". If you're buying a fancy new gun/plane/train/whatever, it has justify it's cost in terms of it's own use, not on the basis of "the jobs it will create" (even if they are in your own state/ a marginal seat/etc). A new plane or ship has to be worth the $X Bn cost based on how effective it is at killing people that might need killing, or better still persuading people to not do things that might end up with you having to try and kill them. Assume the entire kit is being bought from Mars (or France, even). If it doesn't look like good value then, it isn't good enough value whatever. 3. "Are you impressed by the boldness/bravery/vision of the proposal?" If so then be very suspicious that there might be a far duller solution that has been overlooked. Vanity is a terrible sin in public policy but it is in human nature and there is always a general, civil servant, academic with a pet project he's been hawking for years. Perhaps the reason it hasn't been tried before is because of a great likelihood of it going very very wrong.
Seems logical to me. The A-10 is old, expensive, and not useful for the type of warfare the US is preparing itself for. The F-35 is new, very useful, and precisely suited to the type of warfare the US is preparing itself for.
I agree that the A-10 should be retired. As magnificent a machine as it is, the pace of warfare keeps moving. It's an old design, with no measure of stealth, supercruise and other technologies that are coming in multiple generations of fighter soon. That's before you consider that the airframe lives of the A-10's will be lengthening to majorly expensive overhauls soon, requiring increased maintenance frequency which reduces their effectiveness. That said, retiring them now is just as stupid as ditching aircraft/carriers before the new ones are built. The F-35 in various guises is lining up for some serious delays, and realistically isn't close to being finished yet (estimates for weapon system integration years of various stages are starting with 202x for example). For now let's just bask in the extreme awesome of the A-10.
