Navy Test Pilot Sez Is ‘easy to fly’ And I Say Not So Easy To Pay For....

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ (DoD? Gannett?) has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.
To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

Read all about Fair Use here. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: And the fabulously expensive F-35 continues to make waves. At $243 grand a pop it may be easy to fly but it damn sure is hard to pay for.

I wonder are if they using the $250,000 flight helmet (yup, a quarter of a million dollars for fucking brain bucket) from Vision Systems International.





Lt. Cmdr. Eric "Magic" Buus was the first naval aviator to fly the Navy's version of the Joint Strike Fighter.


Navy test pilot says JSF is ‘easy to fly’
By Joshua Stewart - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Feb 20, 2011 8:07:37 EST

Cmdr. Eric “Magic” Buus was the first Navy test pilot to fly the F-35B and C. But hearing his take on it, you have to wonder how much the Lightning II variants really need a warm body in the cockpit.

[catabryna]

1. I hate that we citizens are forced to pay for these things...

and I hate that our government looks for reasons to use these things, but...

that is one beautiful plane.

And, as long as I'm responding, I do appreciate your posts. Thanks!

[petronius]

4. It really is good-looking - and judging by the sticker behind the cockpit, it's also recyclable!

:)

[catabryna]

6. It was 5 am...

eta:

:sarcasm:

You didn't get it!

[Dappleganger]

2. How many people could be fed and housed with one plane..

or sent to college for that matter?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. The good news is that it looks like a solid product, not like other military programs I could name

Affordability will be an issue...it was for the last two new major aircraft programs, so it is not like it is a surprise

[TheMightyFavog]

5. Like the VSTOL version?

THAT was a turkey. It was a good thing that the Royal Navy made plans to have their new carrier be either Catapult-launch/aresster hook landing (Like ours) or VSTOL (Like the light carriers in current British service) Perhaps the Brits saw the writing on the wall?

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I am sure there is more to that brain bucket

as a sci fi writer... I can definitely see how far we have come in making some of the things we barely imagined 25 years ago a reality.

Oh ad that is scary by the way.

[FLPanhandle]

8. Well, considering it's been over 30 years since we've replaced the F15, it's time

I hope we get a similar production run out of this aircraft.

[Cruzan]

9. Helmet

[barbtries]

10. 243 grand actually seems not so expensive -

isn't it 243 million?

on the other hand, how many poor families could live well for a year on that?

but we're not so much about giving us your tired and poor yearning masses these days.