Boeing announced on Tuesday that the T-7A Red Hawk military training jet has successfully completed taxi testing. While the model flew for the first time in 2016 as the T-X, further flight testing is expected to take place at Boeing’s facility in St. Louis later this summer then at Edwards Air Force Base this fall. Boeing noted that it has flown two production-representative jets on “up to six sorties a day recording more than 7,000 data and test points” since it was awarded the $9.2 billion contract for 351 T-7A's by the U.S. Air Force in 2018.
More than 20 nations operate F-16s. “U.S. officials insist they won’t be sending any F-16s to Ukraine anytime soon.” Maybe the question to ask is - Who will?
We should have pushed Poland to sell their SU27s to Ukraine. Giving them our F16s which is going to happen is just escalating this war which is swiftly becoming a proxy war between us and Russia, soon to be China. It’s going to escalate into something more and out people are going to end up dying.
Our foreign defense posture has been, we fight them there or we fight them here. I believe that’s what I heard on my way to Vietnam. I believe Mr. Chamberlain shared appeasement sentiment dealing with Hitler and you may recall how that worked out.
President Zelenskyy of Ukraine is Jewish and members of his family were executed by Nazis in WWII.
To say tha he or his administration has any Nazi sympathies is totally insane.
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy was born to Jewish parents on 25 January 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, then in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. His father, Oleksandr Zelenskyy, is a professor and computer scientist and the head of the Department of Cybernetics and Computing Hardware at the Kryvyi Rih State University of Economics and Technology; his mother, Rymma Zelenska, used to work as an engineer. His grandfather, Semyon (Simon) Ivanovych Zelenskyy, served as an infantryman, reaching the rank of colonel in the Red Army (in the 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division) during World War II. Semyon’s father and three brothers were killed in the Holocaust. In March 2022, Zelenskyy said that his great-grandparents had been killed after German troops burned their home to the ground during a massacre.
Some stories are inherently political in nature and this is one of them. Just be factual and truthful and your comments will be fine. It’s when commenters go off track with political diatribes that have nothing to do with the topic that I hit the button.
Maybe AvWeb should investigate sources for such articles and comments before printing since there is so much “fake news” and comments these days. Now not only do we have to be wary of troll propaganda but now it is coming from computer generated software not just folks trying to influence national and international politics and policies. Beware of everything you see and hear now days.
From what we have seen so far, the aerial theater in and around Ukraine is highly dangerous to essentially anything flying due to the plethora of manpads and S 300, S 400, and maybe S 500 AA missiles being used, some on both sides. What makes anyone think that F 16s would be much less vulnerable. Nearly the same vulnerability argument against A 10s would be in effect for F 16s. Unmanned cruise missiles, lots of cruise missiles are what are needed. Shoot some down - so what as compared with a fighter jet and pilot.
Was that the position Yours compatriots and even the then government share in WWII, even before the attack to Pearl Harbor? Poor generation, the actual one!
Does that mean the only time air assets will be used are over areas that are normally defended by folks riding camels or Toyota pickups mounted with a .50 Cal ?
As for waste of money, I agree, the human race simply hasn’t figured out in this day and age how to get along. However, I suspect the WW2 effort was worth the money since it ended up the good guys winning and the rest of us learning English as our second language.
While Russia has lots of S 300s and more, I doubt they’re more skilled at these weapons’ employment than they’ve shown with other weapons so far (see for example, tanks). In any case, aircraft can be and are equipped with jamming pods and flares, and the US has already sent a shipment of High Speed Anti-Radar Missiles (HARM) to Ukraine. There are no sanctuaries, and nothing in war is low-risk. But these aircraft would make a difference.
Perhaps they haven’t joined because of requirements set forth by NATO for membership. I should hope after this brave and solid defense of their country, they would be invited. Frankly, you’d have to go back to WW2 to see an example of a country’s will to survive under some trying conditions. At nearly 76 I’d learn the F-16 and help out. Manpads be damned, I’ve been there before on a mission far less existential than this one.
I understand! Even at 80 years old, I have the urge to volunteer ?as a ground pounder. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty requires all NATO members to assist if one is attacked. With that in mind, my hope is that Ukraine becomes a member of NATO as soon as possible to force Russia to stop the fighting and withdraw its forces. In the meantime, …pass the ammunition.