Comments on: C-17 Survives McCain’s Best Shot

By: CGCG

CGCG — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:42:15 +0000

I love our free nation, we can say and comment on whatever we want to. Bottom line is? It’s going to happen and all will not be happy. Just wait another 20 years when the kids growing up not get to run the country:)

By: K. Smith

K. Smith — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:30:21 +0000

If we could see the truth, many of the amendmanets to the appropriations have nothing to do with defense spending. It is time to stop this practice.

By: irtusk

irtusk — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:08:40 +0000

> They rely on a weekly 47 year old contracted DC-8 and a once a week contracted L-100.
>
> They do manage to fly generals up here in thier goverment G5’s, and “Tops in Blue” on a KC-10

ALL of which are cheaper to operate than the C-17

A GV especially is FAR FAR cheaper to fly than a C-17.

I know some generals get a little pudgy, but i’m pretty sure none of them need the load-bearing capabilities of the C-17

By: macman1138

macman1138 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:02:40 +0000

I respect McCain for his military service to this country and that is all.

By: Jack Mehoff

Jack Mehoff — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:23:36 +0000

to “the old man”… freedom carp?

Are they tasty with hush puppies?

By: Jack Mehoff

Jack Mehoff — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:19:44 +0000

If we have so many C-17’s, then why can’t the Air Force manage to fly them to Thule Air Base?

They rely on a weekly 47 year old contracted DC-8 and a once a week contracted L-100.

They do manage to fly generals up here in thier goverment G5’s, and “Tops in Blue” on a KC-10, now THAT is a waste of taxpayers dollars!

By: Dfens

Dfens — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:06:59 +0000

Oh, and I almost forgot a key element, hire plenty of subcontractors. The worse the subcontractors perform and the more they slide work to the right the more money both they and the prime contracor makes. Plus you don’t get any direct blame for subcontractor incompetence. Although, if the subcontractors don’t do a bad enough job on their own, you can always hire some idiot procurement people to dick them over and cause them to run up more costs that way.

By: Dfens

Dfens — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:57:46 +0000

What the defense contractors want is development money. They like C-130 AMP programs where their capital expenditures and risk are minimized. These are practically free money programs. They don’t mind building a few airplanes if they have to, but they definitely prefer to design the airplanes over building them. That’s why Boeing and Lockheed have bought people like John McCain, to kill production programs and fund development. They can set up a cube farm for engineers with practically no capital investment. Lease a building and some computers and put a bunch of people to work. Award fee profits on this kind of work are usually in the 9%-10% range and with luck you never have to build anything. It’s a cash making machine. The worse the people you hire, the more they screw up, the more money you make. The more you run up costs, the more money you make. The longer it takes, the more money you make.

I’d feel bad for the taxpayers, but if they’re stupid enough to pay these defense contractors more money to screw them, then they deserve to be screwed.

By: irtusk

irtusk — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:17:45 +0000

> C-5’s and most C-130’s are 25–40 years old. To maintain military airlift capability, and capacity, something needs to be done.

C-5s still have most of their airframe life remaining

what needs to be done is the C-5M program

By: Dave Bulicek

Dave Bulicek — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:53:09 +0000

C-5’s and most C-130’s are 25–40 years old. To maintain military airlift capability, and capacity, something needs to be done. maintaining the hot C-17 line is the best alternative now.
Any modern war is a “come as you are” event. We can not let this capability wain.
There may be more cost effective alternatives, but none are visible (Mass recapitalization of older C-130s for example).
I agree with McCain on the earmarks in general (they are PORK), but not this time.

By: Radarnav

Radarnav — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:43:45 +0000

Retired AF LTC: He was quoting Union General Sherman.

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:34:11 +0000

McCain should use his own experiences in the Military and campaign for either crash proof planes or for our enemies to have better military prisons.

By: Tennisman

Tennisman — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:46:10 +0000

You are so right RETIRED AF LTC, if we don’t choose to fight them we might as well throw up our hands and surrender. There are those of us that choose to fight. As a father of an active duty Marine it sickens me to watch politicians delay and play there games while those who protect us have to wait for anthing, and that includes air support of any kind! If they don’t protect us and take it to the enemy they will be in our backyard, like NYC. Go US Military!!

By: stephen

stephen — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:46:35 +0000

“Ukrainine and Russian companies for added airlift” . I was surprised to see Antonovs working out of Charleston AFB. Found them to be taking MRAPS towards battle zones. I couldn’t help thinking how much the world had changed.

By: killer suntan

killer suntan — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:43:28 +0000

“If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.“
–T.R.

By: stephen

stephen — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:42:17 +0000

in addition to the ‘little Chinese Muslim’ guys, we must also guard against the angry elves of Ireland. No telling how many ways they have to taint a box of Keebler cookies or crackers.

By: Maine Vet

Maine Vet — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:29:44 +0000

Very well put, enough said!

By: Wasamottau

Wasamottau — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:20:52 +0000

Why are you SCREAMING!

By: Louie

Louie — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:38:22 +0000

As a retired C-5 aviator and now owner of a sheet metal company that supplies parts for the C-17, I always find myself torn apart between the love for the bird that I flew and the needs of my company and our nation, however, being honest our C-5 fleet is as many put it is “long on the tooth”, we broke almost in every mission that we flew. I disagree with McCain because yes we need to have the Oversize cargo capability that the C-5 brings with it and converting the B and C models would be a good thing but certainly not the A models. The C-17 is very much needed and as someone else suggested for a long multi-year contract, due to many reasons, but the main one is that the C-141 fleet was retired and its numbers were much larger than those of the C-17 and we do need the airlift. This is a national resource that will fly for decades and right now we are pay billions to Ukrainine and Russian companies for added airlift, to be exact over 1.5 B, that would buy about half a dozen C-17 and employ about 60,000 Americans, I would rather see our tax dollars be spent here than overseas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Concerned Dad

Concerned Dad — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:53:00 +0000

I don’t know much about airplanes, but the military as a whole has been lax on repairing/replacing their equipment. My son is on a Nuclear sub and almost every time they go out for an exercise, it breaks down. They either don’t get to leave port or have to return to port early. Heaven forbid if we ever actually need them. And yes, he is on an attack sub!

With the Trillions of dollars Obama is investing in the banking and auto industry, why can’t we update our military equipment or at least keep it in good repair? This too would create American jobs and help our our economy.