In a new diatribe on Pentagon foibles, the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson hammers the decision to stop producing C-17 airlifters. He calls it the “dumbest weapons decision of the decade.” (He may be right.) In describing how the Pentagon could be so wrong about airlift, Thompson asserts that Pentagon officials simply made up assumptions to produce desired results for last year’s so-called Mobility Capabilities Study. He then says, “And, just to be on the safe side, you keep almost everybody from the Air Force’s mobility community out of the room.” Ouch.
The F-47 fighter will be run differently than previous fighter programs and share the same mission systems architecture as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin told the Senate Armed Services Committee. That means advances in one will fuel advances in the other.