re: #159 Targetpractice

Any external pod will necessarily affect its stealth characteristics, and they’re already attaching external hardpoints, which further degrade its stealth.

The whole point of the purchase was to: 1) provide stealth aircraft to USN, USMC, and USAF so as to 2) permit the retirement of F-15, F-16, F-18 aircraft as they end useful life cycles. Instead, we’re finding that in order to do the job of the aircraft it is supposed to replace, it’s losing stealth characteristics, and it still can’t do the jobs of those aircraft, up to and including firing its gun or dropping the kinds of munitions that current conflicts are requiring (SDBs).

OH, and I almost forgot the biggest problem - it costs far more than the models it replaces. That’s both as a per unit cost and for actually flying the aircraft. That’s huge over the life of the aircraft since it means that limited funds will be strained even further because of the high operational costs.