Obama's State of the Union

hawk, What makes you believe the US has the responsibility to spend more than seven times all the other countries spend on defense, while we underfund our schools, infrastructure, and our citizens must sacrifice a larger tax burden?

The F-35 has little cameras all over the plane that feed into the central computer, which then projects an image of the outside world to the pilot's helmet depending on which direction he (or she) is looking.
From the perspective of the pilot's eyes, it will appear that the pilot is just flying through the air in a chair, without any plane at all.

If the F-35 succeeds in making maneuverability obsolete, then no amount of thrust vectoring will do the F-22 any good.

It is unlikely in the extreme that our closest allies will become our enemies within the lifetime of these fighters.

And having strong friends and allies makes us stronger as well.

That China poses an imminent grave threat to a number of our close allies is not a fantasy, and certainly not an illogical one.

If we want to avoid a war, then we must be strong enough to fight that war. Otherwise the war will come to us whether we like it or not.

oralloy wrote:

The F-35 has little cameras all over the plane that feed into the central computer, which then projects an image of the outside world to the pilot's helmet depending on which direction he (or she) is looking.
From the perspective of the pilot's eyes, it will appear that the pilot is just flying through the air in a chair, without any plane at all.

Irrelevant.

Without F22 to provide support and maintain air superiority for the F35, then a well maintained air force of another nation with F35's are on par with our F35 to knock it down.

It won't matter if the F-35 can see the F-22 coming. F-22 tactically employs at nearly twice the altitude and at 50% greater airspeed than the F-35

oralloy wrote:

If the F-35 succeeds in making maneuverability obsolete, then no amount of thrust vectoring will do the F-22 any good.

F-35 has nothing on F-22.

Regarding maneuverability, F-22 can reach higher mach and higher altitude than an F-35 and use such altitudes to declare dominance.

Added to that F-22 can turn twice as fast than F-35.

The politicians did not provide support for the F-22 program because, the U.S. has always been into having large numbers of relatively cheap "multi-role" fighters that can do both air-to-air combat and air-ground strikes, rather than have a smaller number of much more expensive dedicated "air superiority" fighters whose major function is taking down enemy jets with ease.

oralloy wrote:

It is unlikely in the extreme that our closest allies will become our enemies within the lifetime of these fighters.

And having strong friends and allies makes us stronger as well.

Maybe unlikely, but is it impossible?

Putting such level of trust is a danger to our nation. If you can't see that, then you are clearly misguided. it's better to be safe than sorry.

oralloy wrote:

That China poses an imminent grave threat to a number of our close allies is not a fantasy, and certainly not an illogical one.

If we want to avoid a war, then we must be strong enough to fight that war. Otherwise the war will come to us whether we like it or not.

The rise of Chinese over time doesn't mean a war.

They maybe an economic threat, but numbers wise, it doesn't add up to conclude that their military posses any threat to us.

They don't even have a legitimate navy.

And our allies are also increasing their military funding in recent times. China wouldn't dare start anything for fear of being decimated before they could even put one foot forward.

See and say what you want to. F-22 is undeniably is unbeatable by the F-35 models in air to air battles. F-35 is just a sitting duck that can shoot from all sides.

I hope there aren't many individuals with your ideology sitting in Washington, otherwise WW3 initiated by us is just around the corner.

You've been talking about China invading our allies. In the recent years, tell me which allied nation that China has invaded.