Comment of the Week. April 16, 2011.

I get tons of great comments during the weeks and I've decided to start doing a comment of the week post.  This week SMSgtMac wins the prize.  Here he's commenting on my post "JSF making progress"...

I'm not worried about the B at all. Among other things, I've been reviewing the history (not just the popular myths) about the LWF competition and subsequent acquisition of the F-16 and F-18, including what was called 'The Great Engine War'. Fascinatiing how history repeats itself with only minor differences. The Marines NEED the B model first and want it only because they need it. Their aviation track record for the last decade makes them look pretty smart, and like the other programs, everything with the B seems to be playing out as they have forseen. The B model is only the fourth Marine Air program in a row that I can think of that the 'nattering nabobs of negativity' have dumped on. So far the nabobs are proven to be 0 for 2 (V-22 and UH-1Y) about to go 0 for 3 (AH-1Z), and they can't point to anything concrete to hang a claim on they'll win the next one. The F-35 program overall can accrue development costs up to $1 under the equivalent of three separate development programs that would have occurred by developing these planes separately and the program is a bargain. The question was executability: could it be done? Guess what? the really 'hard' stuff IS done and now the SDD program is on the downhill slope. Are there challenges ahead? Sure- that's why you don't have every 'dotcom' shop or second/turd-world design house building latest-gen military aircraft. The second thing you'll never hear out of the weak sisters on the sidelines, is that even at 'Block 1' maturity, the F-35 is MORE effective and deadly than the LATEST F-16. BTW: The APA's biggest contribution is in the entertainment value derived from observing a spark chaser and a mechanical engineer trying to sound cogent on Computational Electromagnetics.