>>I would like to see some numbers on when the F/A-18 has suffered the
kind of losses suggested here...
Right now, the F18 is multipurpose, cheap, and the reason that we can
get away with it is because there does not exist a single Air Force or
Navy anywhere in the world that plays anywhere in the same league. The
only other nations with any sort of actual blue water navy are on our
side. Even the Russians only have a brown water navy - and that brown
color comes from the rust on the hulls. When everyone else has bows and
arrows, a Thompson submachine gun makes you a champion!
It also performs well within it's designed parameters. No airplane can
be king at all altitudes, missions, and speeds.
Logic means nothing to military planners. Money and glitz mean
everything! For example, the Air Force has always utterly hated the
A-10. Pilots love it. The Army adores it. The brass hates it beause
it's cheap, slow, and is designed just to support the army and it's
mission. It's not an airplane killer! Who cares that it's tougher than
tough and can hang around longer than an obnoxious mother-in-law, and
kill anything that moves absolutely positively DEAD. It can - and has -
carried more than one pilot home on a single wing. IT AIN'T FAST and it
ISN'T GLAMOUROUS. The Air Force brass has tried to kill this plane more
times than Charlie has tried to get in a can of tuna. It will be
replaced by the F-16, that can be shot down with a BB, that needs speed,
that can't hang around, and can't fly that low or slow. The Army of
course will get slagged by "longs" or "shorts", but hey - who cares -
it's just the army.
What makes the Navy effective with anything you give it is that the
pilots are trained better. You can give a superior pilot a SPAD 13 and
he will find a way to win with it. Won't be easy, or as often, but he
will find a way.
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