@Grenade123 it's _still_ not a true sunk cost

well i mean you can buy from russia or china

They don't need this class of aircraft

they never did

which "class"

They can get 100% of the desired capabilities with retrofits

They posted it on WH gov website

it comes in 3 flavors

"multi-role design"

I’m a bit busy bye

master of none: military airplane edition

ciao @R9b1t

well thats the point, retrofitting old airframes which are outdated. and the cost per unit has been coming down on the f35 where that is starting to not make as much sense as it used to

It's like they got neapolitan

and added more vanilla to all three

now you have "chocolate vanilla, WAAAY TOO VANILLA, and strawberry vanilla"

The big issue with the F35 is outstanding orders

and the corresponding agreements to purchase the parts from all sorts of NATO folks

has there been any military design contract that hasn't been an utter trainwreck?

yes

outside of legit full on war

thousands

many of them have gone off reasonably well

I mean, sure, almost anything in procurement can go wrong

but this is a new kind of clusterfuck

really?seems like they always turn into a clusterfuck

the problem here is the structure

or maybe i'm confusing that with the government buying more stuff than it uses just to keep the factories open

there have been some very good programmes which are basically an initial grant competition

and then a contract offer for a limited purchase price

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II << this actually went pretty well

think they did that with the Abrams or something at one point

we're still using these things

good old A-10

a literal gun with wings

we are still retrofitting them

and they are still really very good

its not a good CAS airframe unless it can stall itself by firing it main gun

:- D

Anyway, less than $2bn dollars to do the wing replacement program

Jesus okay so I’m still typing. I’m 10 minutes in and that reading off of laughing at trump seems to be from the representation that in the media he’s doing like shit.