Conversation

@transgrammaractivist @DEERBLOOD @deprecated_ii @john_rando @Hoss I'm unimpressed by the new aircraft because they're so damn needy though, and we haven't invested in our airlift capacity. Just like we did with fighters, we've been racking up flight hours and timing out airframes because they built so freakin deep in the cold war. Sure, they'll do the same shit with the C-17s that they did with the F-15s, where they perform computer magic and add another 10,000 hours to the airframe limitation....but they still aren't making new ones.

What happens when we can no longer shuffle things around at our leisure, when the C-130s are all stretched beyond capacity landing across the pacific, and the C17's can't make an overnight trip ferrying fresh FDCs to forward deployed F35 units in less than a day anymore?

Even the "new" versions of old shit aren't going to hold up the way the legacy aircraft are. Recall that hornet study? The "new" E and F models were as unreliable as 20 year old C models when they were only 10 years old. All because little fiddly bits inside were changed into lighter, less corrosion resistant materials. https://poa.st/objects/018ccf39-090e-4636-b61d-414c6043f5c3