Yeager says F-22 and the F-35 are a waste of money

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11 years 3 months

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IMO is there is someone that should know what makes a good war plane, it would be Yeager. In the last few days he has come out and stated both the F-22, and the F-35 are a big waste of money since they both fall short of the job at hand.

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13 years 10 months

Posts: 242

IMO is there is someone that should know what makes a good war plane, it would be Yeager. In the last few days he has come out and stated both the F-22, and the F-35 are a big waste of money since they both fall short of the job at hand.

References ? quotes ? analysis ? otherwise who cares ! No relevance at all, waste of a post and waste of a thread

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12 years 3 months

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IMO is there is someone that should know what makes a good war plane, it would be Yeager. In the last few days he has come out and stated both the F-22, and the F-35 are a big waste of money since they both fall short of the job at hand.

Yeager is 93. Great test pilot and man of strong ( not always correct) opinions. Btw, all he said on Twitter was "waste of money" the rest you ad libbed.

He also advocated for the F-20 over the F-16, that also would have been a mistake.

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15 years 9 months

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Yeager is 93. Great test pilot and man of strong ( not always correct) opinions. Btw, all he said on Twitter was "waste of money" the rest you ad libbed.

Well, he may be onto something...

How many missions have the F-22 done so far? How does that compare to the costs? Could a somewhat cheaper a/c have succeeded in completing said missions?

The F-22 was overkill at the time of launch; it seems F-35 may also be overkill, at least in some aspects. Nothing wrong with overkill of course, apart from the higher costs of developing something that is overkill, or if you want to put it bluntly "waste of money".

If you look at some of the statements made by officials in recent times, they have been along the lines of:

- no more "joint" projects
- no more enormous, 15-20 year development projects that may or may not deliver what is needed 30 years down the line (requirements may change)

So in the future I guess the name of the game will be more iterative, quicker developments with shorter timelines.

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Well, he may be onto something...

How many missions have the F-22 done so far? How does that compare to the costs?...................

Missions flown can be a false logic. The F-22 was designed for air supremacy against a peer adversary- luckily we have not seen a war where that capability has been required. True in the wars since the F-22 has been operational a much less capable aircraft would have sufficed. But what if the ballon went up? Then you want the best capability and overkill. Superior, cutting edge capability will always require time and money.

In the US arsenal the F-106, B-47 B-36, B-58, SSBN's, ICBM's etc never fired a shot in anger (fortunately)- were they a waste of money? The B-52 was designed as a nuclear bomber, was it a waste of money?.....

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Without any details analysis to explain why , this kind of thread is a waste of bandwidth

Member for

13 years 10 months

Posts: 242

Without any details analysis to explain why , this kind of thread is a waste of bandwidth

where is the like button ?

Member for

13 years 10 months

Posts: 242

Well, he may be onto something...

How many missions have the F-22 done so far? How does that compare to the costs? Could a somewhat cheaper a/c have succeeded in completing said missions?

The F-22 was overkill at the time of launch; it seems F-35 may also be overkill, at least in some aspects. Nothing wrong with overkill of course, apart from the higher costs of developing something that is overkill, or if you want to put it bluntly "waste of money".

If you look at some of the statements made by officials in recent times, they have been along the lines of:

- no more "joint" projects
- no more enormous, 15-20 year development projects that may or may not deliver what is needed 30 years down the line (requirements may change)

So in the future I guess the name of the game will be more iterative, quicker developments with shorter timelines.

Who maybe onto something ? you have gone from 2 tweets by a 93 yo man saying "waste of money" to this ?

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15 years 3 months

Posts: 1,912

IMO is there is someone that should know what makes a good war plane, it would be Yeager. In the last few days he has come out and stated both the F-22, and the F-35 are a big waste of money since they both fall short of the job at hand.

Where is your source?

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15 years 5 months

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https://twitter.com/genchuckyeager/status/327844732443181057

I was asked my opinion about the F-35. It's a waste of money. Far too expensive. Give me an F-15 E - less expensive, will do the job.

for sure just producing some more F-15E would have cost less, leaving some money to pay back debt before it spiral out of ability,
the question is: will there ever be a US president with the resolve to pay back and balance budget ?
what is more, will consecutive presidents adhere to balanced budgets ?

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15 years 2 months

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It happened and the source was a couple of tweets.
http://www.businessinsider.com/general-chuck-yeager-f-22-f-35-2016-8

With all due respect to Gen Yeager, the last time he had anything to do with combat, he was flying with big spiny thing in front, had to get the enemy within 1 mile & EXACTLY in front of him, and only had his Mk1 Eyeballs for Situational Awareness... Someone call the the Home, one got loose.

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11 years 3 months

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I guess I would rather believe a stick jockey than computer key board jockeys that post here.

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15 years 5 months

Posts: 6,983

It happened and the source was a couple of tweets.
http://www.businessinsider.com/general-chuck-yeager-f-22-f-35-2016-8

With all due respect to Gen Yeager, the last time he had anything to do with combat, he was flying with big spiny thing in front, had to get the enemy within 1 mile & EXACTLY in front of him, and only had his Mk1 Eyeballs for Situational Awareness... Someone call the the Home, one got loose.

he was apparently a general before he retired so i'm guessing he commanded F-15 operations in his career

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15 years 2 months

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My bad on his combat record.. he flew a few hundred hours in Vietnam too.

On the issue of the F-15, his last command of US forces ended in '71, before the F-15 went IOC.

My point still stands, he has no experience with modern air-warfare and his calling the F-22 a waste of money just proves my point.

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nah...F-22 hasnt done squat for USAF beside costing money so that definitely disproves your point

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12 years 3 months

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I guess I would rather believe a stick jockey than computer key board jockeys that post here.

so, let's get this straight. YOU prefer the opinion of a 93 year old man (who has been getting into trouble on twitter lately with disparaging remarks of all kinds, some aimed at the U.K.), who's last TAC command was F-4's? He did fly F-15's and F-20's after retirement, mostly as PR.

Current pilot's opinions who've all praised both aircraft are null and void over Yeager's tweet, is this about the long and short of your position? Perhaps it's time to change your name to "illogical1" because that is about hight of illogical thinking.

(My Grandfather was a superb fisherman, I stopped taking his advice on where to fish when he got into his 80's. Not because he was any less knowledgeable about trout or techniques. His knowledge was outdated, his favorite streams no longer held trout. Things change and the world advances.)

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8 years 3 months

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I guess I would rather believe a stick jockey than computer key board jockeys that post here.

The more correct sentence would be " you would rather believe whatever support your pre judgements". It has nothing to do with the fact that he is a pilot but rather that his opinion fit your agenda. There are many current pilots that prefer F-35 and F-22 over their 4 gen fighter, and their opinions is as valid as Yeager opinion (if not more valid)

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15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

nah...F-22 hasnt done squat for USAF beside costing money so that definitely disproves your point

I guess every Los Angeles class sub and ICBM were a waste of money too since they never fired a nuke.

The F-22 has already proven in countless exercises that nothing can stand up to it.

Some day it will do the same in combat.

For something that Yeager says is a waste, it's funny that Russia & China are clamoring to copy it's capabilities and the ROW wishes that it had one.

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16 years 7 months

Posts: 3,765

I guess I would rather believe a stick jockey than computer key board jockeys that post here.

Warn the USAF, the RAF, the IDF/AF and all those other western air forces who have bought the dam thing...
You can have a discussion about costs related to the JSF program (we have debated that ad nauseum, and god knows that i´ve "sticked" the cost argument into the JSF program an huge number of times) but dont do that based on a tweet of a 93 year old (very, very, very respectable) chap, at least not without hard data.

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16 years 7 months

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nah...F-22 hasnt done squat for USAF beside costing money so that definitely disproves your point

Its called deterrence, and the problem with the Raptor is that they didnt build enough of the ******s.

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15 years 3 months

Posts: 1,912

nah...F-22 hasnt done squat for USAF beside costing money so that definitely disproves your point

Maybe so, but something like F-22 can also be considered a deterrent. The plane gives such overwhelming air-dominance that potential adversaries would think many times before going up against it.

Similar but extreme example would be nuclear-weapons. None have been used since 1945. All LGM-30, UGM-133, etc have been lying there for decades.