Quicksand Fans

Ace put me on this; as well as the article here at Business Insider; there is a reason, boys and girls, some things smacking of evil politics MUST be discussed -- because if you dont, you get this fucking shit. Shocking eh? That the Pure O2 sky-blue types in the five-sided fucking wind tunnel would want to suppress this eh? Dont fit the narrative that the F-35 is so much a better replacement, does it?? And it's a damn good video besides. Only a blithering imbecile would try to tell you with a straight face a 35 is better at CAS than a Hog. Plus the enemy are shit-running down legs screaming in terror frightened of the Hog. It's not neat, clinical, or Iceman; it's a fucking KILLER. It slaughters the enemy, and in very un PC fashion, body parts, hair, teeth and eyeballs spread like jam on the dirt.

Like the young FAC said, when the grunts are in a jam, THIS is the airplane they want on call

Hawg

The slightly related article also in BI here has some stunning shots of a detachment of A-10s in Estonia under the Northern Lights

F35 program = military version of "Too Big To Fail". Exploding engines, wing drop, vulnerable fuel tank (yea that's GREAT problem to have on a close air support aircraft), fancy helmets that don't work......final development my ass. That thing will be in "testing" for another decade lol.

What gets you into a mind-numbing fury , is that senior officers, charged with the defence of the Republic, ignore their Oaths and Jobs to promote a line of bullshit to make corporate fixers and incompetent political assholes happy. And yeah, I'm looking at Boingo and all his fucking useless minions

Nobody wants to admit their baby is ugly. If the money keeps flowing they'll keep piling fix on top of fix just to avoid the embarrassment of failing. Meanwhile the stuff that works will keep right on working. Eventually they're going to figure out the "Jack of All Trades" approach to designing aircraft is bad.
Or hell maybe it's one big damn conspiracy.......design shitty fighter jet, get all your NATO friends to buy it, then if necessary release the Raptors which go through them like lawn mower through a nest of baby rabbits.

And thats how they cant get past KILLING the LCS, the DDG1000. And remember the A-12 back in the day - which they eventually did kill. And then there's the SSTO aka X-33 that was bought and paid for so ALGORE bloatpig extraordinaire could own California, which flushed I dont know how many billions down the drain trying to develop composite fuel tanks that could withstand cryogenic temperatures, which is still impossible today.

Holy shit! A-10 Thunderbolt, Badass. My favorite fighter jet. That thing has a 30mm caliber rotary cannon that fires over 4000 RPM.

The daughter of a local radio personality was flying a Warthog during the 2nd Gulf War. Brought her ship home on one engine, one vertical stabilizer (the other one was blown off) and generally shot to hell. Good for her it has dual hydraulic systems. Only aircraft I have ever seen get shot up like that and bring the crew safely home is the B-17.