Re: Pedant alert
.its quite likely that the second ship will actually be the first to become actively operational on the front line, using all the developments worked out from the first
What, like a flight deck that won't melt under the F35's exhaust?
The whole F35 saga has the makings of the world's most expensive mess. Can you imagine the discussion:
"Let's build a new strike aircraft"
"Yep - better make it strong so it will be a stable weapons platform and robust at low altitude"
"Great idea! But lets make it capable of Mach2 as well, so it can get in and out fast"
"Great thinking! Since it's Mach 2, we'll make it capable of air defence and interception"
"Bingo. So double the avionics, and high altitude dog fighting to please the top brass"
"Genius, man, genius. Don't forget stealth, you're nobody if you don't do stealth"
"We're onto a winner here! Lets make is carrier compatible, so the Navy will buy it too"
"Don't forget then, different wings, different undercarriage"
"You are The Man! And I say we do a S/VTOL variant for the marines and idiot foreigners like the Brits"
"So cool! Make sure we've got fly by wire, and incredibly advanced software to manage EVERYTHING"
And so began the sorry tale, wherein the Yanks have committed themselves to a vastly complex programme with a current expectation of a whole life cost of $1.5 TRILLION. And meanwhile, their security services maintain the biggest threat to the US is a bunch of bearded arse wipes straight out of the middle ages. In many ways, of course, the F35 programme is like the original Harrier programme - driven by the cutting edge of what you could do with technology, rather than a practical, realistic need by the military.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
