Trump suggests he would ditch F-35 in favor of cheaper plane

[Mayhem]

Hmm i wouldn´t want to have a president that sends company stocks down or up with every other tweet.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

He just his bae Putin to have a leg up over the US.

Maybe he'll give the contract to the Russian Aircraft Corporation. Then the USAF would be flying MiGs (and hell would have frozen over?) :P

[Xanjori]

Oh, I could not agree more that MMO-C is a Liberal echo chamber. That much we can agree on.

Maybe you should link a video on "liberul echo chambers ruined mah forumz 2016!!1" to help your feels? I mean, wouldn't want to intrude on your safe space =)

[Aggrophobic]

Well, the idea is to ditch the F35 and build a new plane...

Some of you sound like you think it's the end of planes.

... With the help of another company that Trump just made a deal with?
Does not sound shady at all.

[Alvito]

The contractors will say, "errrr, we can do it for cheaper." Like he did with Boeing and Airforce One.

He didn't do anything with Boeing though. He got them to publicly say they would make a plane for less then twice as much as it was projected to cost. That is just some half assed world play to make both look like they are doing a good thing while confusing people that won't actually dig deeper then a links title.

[Tijuana]

Hmm i wouldn´t want to have a president that sends company stocks down or up with every other tweet.

I wouldn't want a president that rubber stamps the entire defense industry. /shrug

Let's get real though, these are all just PR stunts. In a week, they will agree to lower the costs, by an unspecified amount, and then launch dual tweets making them both look good.

[Alvito]

Don't we already have super hornets?

Sure do, they are outdated and while great for what they were intended to do have their limits. There is a reason we were moving away from them. Trump is just stuck in making things as much like the 80s as he can.

[Tijuana]

Maybe you should link a video on "liberul echo chambers ruined mah forumz 2016!!1" to help your feels? I mean, wouldn't want to intrude on your safe space =)

Get serious. I take them all on daily. Their views are easy to crush as a wounded fly.

[Xanjori]

Get serious. I take them all on daily. Their views are easy to crush as a wounded fly.

Oh, is this the same view where "A post from a pilot" also equals "snowflake news which is really reddit lulz"? Because I've got some bad news for you...

[Jastall]

On that, it's hard not to agree with him to be honest. The ridiculous price inflation of the F35 were also a topic here in Canada. And while they can praise its capabilities to the high heavens, no airplane is worth such ridiculous amounts of money when, realistically, no one's going to wage a serious air-to-air war anytime soon.

[Tijuana]

On that, it's hard not to agree with him to be honest. The ridiculous price inflation of the F35 were also a topic here in Canada. And while they can praise its capabilities to the high heavens, no airplane is worth such ridiculous amounts of money when, realistically, no one's going to wage a serious air-to-air war anytime soon.

That doesn't mean one should not be prepared for the worst. I can't speak to the value of the program. But, I can assure you that, aside from treaties such as NATO, the one thing keeping major powers from attacking each other is the difficulty of winning, due to tech and hardware. If a nation determines they no longer need air superiority aircraft, that is when they will need them.

Also, you DO KNOW that air superiority is what enables all the bombing and such, right?

[Xanjori]

On that, it's hard not to agree with him to be honest. The ridiculous price inflation of the F35 were also a topic here in Canada. And while they can praise its capabilities to the high heavens, no airplane is worth such ridiculous amounts of money when, realistically, no one's going to wage a serious air-to-air war anytime soon.

At the same time, this project could be viewed as a test dummy, perhaps it's too expensive to buy in, but they can produce it, run a few, and make sure everything works. If it is needed you can then either produce more or at least some on hand, and for future projects then things can be learnt from what went wrong with this one. A lot of the latest generation fighters have run into teething problems, especially concerning price, it seems to be a rather constant side-effect when pushing the envelope.

[Katchii]

I'll give Trump credit for asking questions about things to try and make sure we're not getting screwed on prices. But as Thompson said, this program has been in place a while and there's a LOT of information Trump doesn't know. Don't try to fix something until you know how it's broken and exactly what that fix will cost in terms of money, time, and opportunity cost (ie may lose out on X because you were fixing Y).

He's not doing anything THAT remarkable....I expect this from every new employee that works anywhere, to ask questions about things they don't understand and challenge why it's being done that way and see if there's a better way. I just hope he understands and/ or realizes that he doesn't have all the answers and will work with the people that do rather than steamroll them as he seems likely to do based on his past interactions.

[Jastall]

That doesn't mean one should not be prepared for the worst. I can't speak to the value of the program. But, I can assure you that, aside from treaties such as NATO, the one thing keeping major powers from attacking each other is the difficulty of winning, due to tech and hardware. If a nation determines they no longer need air superiority aircraft, that is when they will need them.

Also, you DO KNOW that air superiority is what enables all the bombing and such, right?

What sort of bombings are those? Dropping payloads on civilians? Don't need a top of the line toy to do that.

If you mean nukes, there are always nuclear subs and various ICBM launching platforms available.

Also, I'd say the economic interdependance of almost every single nation on Earth that has a military more developped than ''here's a bunch of dudes with AKMs and third-hand Cold War gear'' is working to prevent wasteful large-scale war just fine, along with of course them nukes. The US having access to F-18s, F-22s or F-35s isn't going to change much I'd wager, and preparing for the future is all fine and dandy so long as it doesn't make your costs explode into the stratosphere right now and possibly impedes further development by lowering confidence in such projects.

I can't possibly believe I'm actually defending one of Trump's tweets, and I have no illusion that this is anything more than PR posturing designed to make him look good, but controlling costs on superfluous military hardware is something I can get behind to be honest.

[Tijuana]

What sort of bombings are those? Dropping payloads on civilians? Don't need a top of the line toy to do that.

If you mean nukes, there are always nuclear subs and various ICBM launching platforms available.

Also, I'd say the economic interdependance of almost every single nation on Earth that has a military more developped than ''here's a bunch of dudes with AKMs and third-hand Cold War gear'' is working to prevent wasteful large-scale war just fine, along with of course them nukes. The US having access to F-18s, F-22s or F-35s isn't going to change much I'd wager, and preparing for the future is all fine and dandy so long as it doesn't make your costs explode into the stratosphere right now and possibly impedes further development by lowering confidence in such projects.

I can't possibly believe I'm actually defending one of Trump's tweets, and I have no illusion that this is anything more than PR posturing designed to make him look good, but controlling costs on superfluous military hardware is something I can get behind to be honest.

Bombs are dropped in all wars, guy. Bombers are slow moving, and easy to take out with AA batteries. Are you legit of the opinion that nations are collectively spending trillions of dollars on aircraft that serve no purpose? Are you....but...wait...I don't even..are you fucking serious??

Also, are you suggesting that the US should abandon bombers for ICBMs? Do you not understand what happens when you use nuclear weapons??

[Jastall]

Bombs are dropped in all wars, guy. Bombers are slow moving, and easy to take out with AA batteries. Are you legit of the opinion that nations are collectively spending trillions of dollars on aircraft that serve no purpose? Are you....but...wait...I don't even..are you fucking serious??

Also, are you suggesting that the US should abandon bombers for ICBMs? Do you not understand what happens when you use nuclear weapons??

Did you read my post? I'm not saying get rid of all planes. I'm saying that when the only thing you do with the damn things is bomb civilians and dudes with rifles, with no serious war against a competing air power to be seen on the horizon anytime soon because of multiple factors, investing billions in a buggy top of the line aircraft is wasteful, that's all. Make do with already existing F-18s or even F-22s. It's not like the US is in any danger, if memory serves they already have more aircrafts than almost all other developped militaries combined, and it's not like the usual adversaries all roll around in top-tier hardware either.

[Tijuana]

Did you read my post? I'm not saying get rid of all planes. I'm saying that when the only thing you do with the damn things is bomb civilians and dudes with rifles, with no serious war against a competing air power to be seen on the horizon anytime soon because of multiple factors, investing billions in a buggy top of the line aircraft is wasteful, that's all. Make do with already existing F-18s or even F-22s. It's not like the US is in any danger, if memory serves they already have more aircrafts than almost all other developped militaries combined, and it's not like the usual adversaries all roll around in top-tier hardware either.

So, in your mind, we should create the military we need right now, disregarding threats from superior equipped enemies? What???

[zEmini]

I see it this way. Do we really REALLY need the very top of the line overpriced tech? I mean if you buy one that is a little older you save a lot more right? It would be like having to buy that super computer when it will be cheaper and outdated in a year.

[Deleted]

haha he said from the start hes going to reduce money for the military he scammed them by saying we will spend less we will get better stuff

[Deleted]

The F35 is a piece of shit, badly designed for a mostly pointless purpose.
That being said, they have sunk so much money into it, its past the point of no return.