So once again we see unrealistic specs and inability to work through issues with railcar manufacturing industry. Hope this is not exactly true but the last order was an embarassment I think for the country. RFP to Delivery should be a lot shorter timeframe than over a decade.
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I just look at some of the defense procurement system screwups and go yeah we need to do way better than this. The entirety of the F35 program is one started under Clinton’s 2nd term first prototype flight under 06 under W Bush 2nd term entered service 2015 with the Marines as the harriers it replaced literally had been deadlined 3 years earlier. 2016 with the USAF and finally in 19 with the navy. 24 years and over a trillion dollars in development for 3 different platforms. Or we have the independence class littoral ships that literally shake themselves apart at full power. The federal government literally has wasted more money on crap than it’s even thpught about given Amtrak. We wasted 90 billion dollars on ships that we’re already scrapping due to their tearing themselves apart under full power and the fact they had no weapons or armor.
I read or heard somewhere - more money was expended on the creation, development and purchases of the B-29 than was expended on the Manhattan Project.
There were some Harriers still in service recently, if they aren’t still.
Those remaining in service aren’t mission capable meaning they can’t be deployed overseas. The few remaining harriers from a few sons of classmates in the Marines are saying they’re 2 seat training variety. These are the ones used to teach nuggets how to take off and land safely in a VTOL environment before climbing into the F35. Basically it’s now being used as a glorified AV8T trainer so the pilots do break the 150 million a copy jet.
Not to go too far off on a tangent here but F-35 is star wars compared to any other flying fighter aircraft. It is a new platform and has not been fully deployed with all the planned capabilities yet. Secondly, the new Army chopper will replace the Osprey. So VTOL Is not going away and in fact if you Google Joby Aviation or Archer Aviation, VTOL is going electric now (making a small fortune on those two stocks). Anyhoo, understood how Pentagon spending is wasteful, Pentagon overestimating opposing force military buildups are expensive as well. Though I might say I do not see the relevance between the Pentagon budget and the Amtrak budget. Usually, Amtrak and Pentagon are considered seperately when placed before the Congress.
Still much different from your assertion that they were retired in 2012.
Their retired from all combat squadrons and are not certified for deployment outside the continental USA. So basically in the Marines eyes they’re retired. For parts they’re stripping the ones in the boneyard for what they need except engine parts and unsure how much longer those are going to still be in the pipeline as Rolls Royce has stopped producing the Pegasus engine entirely. So a plane with no spares no chance of getting new parts made and it’s useless in combat as it’s systems have been pulled out and all hard points blanked. It’s basically been demilitaritized except they need it to train.