Oh yes, way more broken than it has ever been. The F-35 design won in 2001 and it may get into actual operational service, nobody exactly knows when. When that when comes all those F-15s and F-16s are going to be rather old, as in two decades or more old. The tanker replacement saga seems to be never ending and we still don't have any new ones. The first contract was let and rescinded going on 10 years ago. The Army has tried and tried to get a new scout helo into service and they can't get it done. No, it is beyond busted when we can't even manage to replace the helos used to squire the President around from Andrews to the White House and back.Originally Posted by Ken White
An awful lot of those X-planes were research aircraft that were never intended go into production. Those were solely tools to learn. Some of the other X-planes were so designated because they were prototypes for aircraft that did go into production. Some didn't. Whether those X-planes were a waste of money is a matter of opinion. Way back when they didn't cost much in any event. You just bent some metal, installed an engine and went. Things really got expensive when the 'trons started to trump aerodynamics. It seems like after the teen fighters it became extremely hard to get things into the air and after the F-22, it is almost impossible. We may or may not have wasted money on X-planes back then but we got things into the air.
The rest of your post was wonderful. It was like a briefing by an insider on the whys and wherefores of the defense machine.
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