Yet Another F-22 Mission

This article revels yet another use for the F-22, which really does seem to have capabilities far beyond any predecessor. What I find inexplicable however, is that the Air Force expects the F-22 to fill all of its roles. (this is starting to remind me of the Navy and the Superhornet) It if works, great. But The Air Force is only expecting to get 183 airframes, and several of these are allocated to training and tactics development. So, to begin with the F-22 has to replace over 500 F-15Cs in the Air-to-Air role, then it has to support the F-15E and F-16 in the attack role. In addition, the USAF then decided it could take over the role of the F-117 (although, it now appears that the Nightwawk retirement will be pushed back a few years), and now it sees the Raptor assuming the EW role that was left vacant by the EF-111 ten years ago. I fail to see that the Raptor is THAT good, where it will be able to replace over 700 aircraft with these small numbers. My confidence in the DoD to deal with the forthcoming "train wreck" continues to erode.

The 148th Bulldogs

Here's an article I wrote for wikipedia about my "homestate" F-16 unit. After I originally posted it, someone tried to modify it, resulting in complete destruction of the article, but I've now restored it and hope that it stays intact.

Area 51?

Here's an interesting new article by Bill Sweetman about Area 51. Its good to see that Bill's still on the hunt for the elusive Aurora. Its obvious that there has been a fair amount of activity there in the 90s and 2000s, besides Tacit Blue,the Polecat and the Bird of Prey. We still don't know anything about the elusive YF-24 and YF-113G, and there are rumors of a FB-23 prototype, and/or a "Switchblade" fighter. Its interesting that Sweetman thinks that development could be continuing on the A-12, abandonded in 1991 with the $4 Billion prototypes never seen.

Tomcat Sunset

Now that the F-14 is officially and finally retired we move into a new era of aviation, probably the last era of manned fighters. I've been wondering why so many Tomcats were scrapped onsite at Oceana, and why so fast. Beside that apparent fact that many airframes are no longer airworthy, it seems th government is shredding the planes as soon as possible to prevent parts from being smuggled out to Iran. This does not inspire confidence that the F-14 legacy will live on in the form of Flyable airframes that can live on at airshows.