Clark Griswold

Yup, well said. The test pilot (Kurt Schroeder) said pretty much the same thing. Good technology but not needed. Presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOmvrk3LPGc FSW research accomplished its goal, proved it was viable / gathered data, but FSW deployment became unnecessary due to advances in other areas / change in the operational environment. Still an interesting concept and with its low speed capability, surprised it was never proposed for carrier aircraft. But ask and Google sometimes provides interesting vaporware...

Yup Watched a presentation on FSW / X-29 from one of the retired test pilots - he addressed that a little and thought / said LO and FSW probably didn't work together Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Heaven has a new pledge... RIP Flounder.

FSW F-35 vaporware

How Trump Can Fix The F-35 Fighter Program Without Hurting American Warfighters, Workers Or Allies https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2016/12/20/how-trump-can-fix-the-f-35-fighter-program-without-hurting-american-warfighters-workers-or-allies/#35690e5a59d8 Take with a grain of salt but some decent suggestions for cost savings

Inevitable that some part of operations / combat become fully autonomous (once released for the mission). On the topic of concept RPAs / UAVs...vaporware but a reasonable extrapolation of the MQ-1/9/X series...

That is entirely possible... Probably won't affect the overall acquisition plan but it does provide a Plan B of sorts for other unforeseen problems, delays, financial difficulties, etc... Just my two cents but that is a Plan B- (delaying F-35A acquisition for SLEP'ed F-16s) - we've bet the farm on the F-35A, go all in and get this as right as it can be, we're over 110+ aircraft purchased with more on the way and paid for, barring some huge new flaw(s) discovered we are well past V1.

Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft (RPA) https://warisboring.com/the-u-s-air-forces-next-killer-drone-is-disposable/

Because it is much easier to accomplish in the near term and success begets success. About half the distance with a much more favorable intercept geometry, about 90% the same G, way less radiation from pseudo magnetic field, 4 times as much solar power available, etc... Crawl, Walk, Run. Crawl was the Moon Walk could be Venus Run is definitely Mars You could retrieve surface samples with an unmanned solution and retrieve from the HAVOC vehicle in atmosphere also, landing on any place Mars or the Moon adds so much cost, requirements and risk that it stifles just getting into deep space. First manned Mars missions, IMO, would be only Mars orbit and maybe Martian moon landings, like Apollo 8 (lunar only orbit) to keep practicing before we play.

Chinese moon landing strategy: How China's Planned Moon Landing Will Differ From America's Moon Landing Not planned till 2036 but this should kick us in the pants for the next big thing... which IMO should not be getting our asses to Mars but to Venus... HAVOC is the better option than shooting for Mars right now, we probably could pull this off in 10 years or so with focus, a shit load of money and a functioning political system to keep the government working towards this...

Precursor to modern AR... FICON Project and "Tom Tom" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FICON_project Pre-contact and contact are at about 4:30.

Concept Spaceplane https://bristolspaceplanes.com/projects/ascender/

Yup Article on the 'bat: https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/too-hot-to-handle-mcdonnell-xp-67-moonbat-67265978/

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/06/09/subway-employee-loses-it-during-a-store-robbery-it-doesnt-end-well-for-the-robber/

Yup - definitely inspired by the Moonbat Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Advanced turboprop

That level of clueless is stunning but it really matters as he has a soap box from which to make mischief Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The illegitimate love child of a Hornet and Freedom Fighter Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lease with an option to purchase. 30 years of easy installment loans / favors... Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery or Form follows function... ultimately the physics / properties of the RAM will drive similar designs... They had another set of designs just a tad inspired by the F-35 but as they are buying that, I guess they wanted one more geared towards A2A than multi role strike...

Turkish stealth fighter concept... https://www.janes.com/article/67322/turkey-and-uk-agree-to-develop-new-fighter-aircraft

Oh c'mon... TOLD and the Form F would be simple... not...

The view from the other side, uniformed arguments against a LAAR: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2017/03/06/air-force-light-fighter-concept-seems-a-bit-light-on-logic/2/#2ccc4a4d478b Posted only to show the if the AF is serious about this, making persuasive arguments that inform and dispel ideas like a LAAR is completely helpless against MANPADs / AAA and that it makes a whole lotta sense for fights in semi-governed shitholes, is going to be necessary.

F-16ski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-33

Ditto on both points. When I saw it, I had to do super thorough research and Google it one more time to see if it was for reals. What struck me was the width of the contraption, 111' center of fuselage to center of fuselage, probably 140' from one outer truck to the other. Doubt it could even turn on the ground when loaded with the STS, whole kit or just the orbiter, but they probably imagined it being loaded on whatever runway the shuttle landed then flying either direct as it probably would hold shit load of gas, probably could be AR'd to keep heading back direct to Florida with no fuel stops. Lots of possibilities but lots of stuff to go wrong, KISS is usually the best COA.