Sunday, November 17, 2013

F-18 production end looms....


"But it's such a solid airframe. The capabilities are understated, and I think the capabilities of our competition are hugely overstated."
via Reuters...
Boeing is scrambling to drum up additional orders for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the EA-18G Growler electronic attack plane before its production line is slated to end in 2016.
Ricardo Traven, a former Canadian Air Force pilot who has worked on the Super Hornet program since 1997, said he is convinced that the plane's capabilities will attract additional orders to keep the line running.
"These are the dark days right now," Traven told Reuters in a pre-flight briefing before a 40-minute flight at altitudes of up to 18,000 feet. "But it's such a solid airframe. The capabilities are understated, and I think the capabilities of our competition are hugely overstated."
Traven said Boeing had updated the technology on the F/A-18E/F fighter over the past decade, which meant it was more advanced and even stealthier - or able to evade enemy radar - than critics generally understood.
High above the Dubai Airshow, Traven demonstrated 7G turns - delivering seven times the force of gravity on the pilot and reporter in the backseat - and the jet's ability to continue delivering missiles or bombs even at high angles of attack that he said would stall out the Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 fighter or the Eurofighter Typhoon built by a European consortium.
To demonstrate the capability of even the relatively old radar installed on the jet used for the demonstration, Traven pinged a car on a desert highway and identified the unwitting driver's exact speed - 59 miles per hour.
Ok.

This helps explain at least part of the Navy solicitation for 36 of these jets.

They're trying to protect the production line from shutdown.  It'll happen too.  If Lockheed Martin can play the jobs card then so can every other defense manufacturer...including Boeing.  Additionally with Lockheed laying off 4000 employees to keep the stock up (not to lower the price of the F-35), I fully expect BAE and others to jump on the jobs bandwagon to get stuck projects moving again.  One more Sealy, Texas type situation and the Army will be fighting to get a new vehicle with Congressional support this time.

But back to the F-18.

Are we really going to hand a corporation a monopoly on our defense production?

Its too insane to even consider, but here we are.