This past long weekend I was in Palmdale, California which is the home of the F-35 development project, Virgin Galactic, and etc.
We were there to meet family but an added bonus was that on Saturday night I got to meet an Aussie who was drinking hard and we had a great conversation. He was in town working at BAE Systems and at Boeing but he didn't say what he was working on.
The most important thing I discovered was that I don't get a hangover from
Scoresby Scotch.
The fun bits from our alcohol fueled conversation:
1. Both Australia and Canada are talking about a joint purchase of the next generation US fast attack nuclear boat. Yes: Nuclear. The discussion is for the US to share information on maintenance with Oz and Canada but that the primary maintenance will take place in Hawaii, Guam, Bremerton, and New London.
2. The F-35 is not a very good fighter and it doesn't have to be. The weapons systems on it can 'see' and engage targets at an absurd distance of over 500Km so it was never really intended to be a dogfighter. Now here's the fun part is Lockheed-Martin/Boeing is working up a new generation of the F-22 but loaded with the avionics and weapons kit for the F-35. Be cool if this bit of chatter bears fruit.
3. The USAF at Davis-Monthan AFB is remounting engines on their serviceable B-52 fleet and they're raising the readiness of the serviceable F-18 fleet to where they can be returned to service in less than four days.
I've no idea if any of this is true but I'm passing it along anyway.