Exactly. Right now, the Navy is getting a single engine carrier based fighter. It's been done before, but it's hardly ideal. And the Air Force is getting a jet whose entire base design has been diluted to accommodate the need for a freaking duct in the middle of the fuselage so the Marines can land vertically on ships. The Marines are getting a jet with all the latest stealth features the Air Force wants (which btw will be obsolete in 10 years), but they won't be flying these VSTOL jets in areas where stealth is critical.
There have been examples of frontline aircraft used across services. The F-4 is the best example. It was basically a 4th generation carrier fighter/interceptor in a 3rd generation world. It was that good and so far ahead of its time the Air Force used them. Aside from helicopters and the C-130 there are very few other examples. @ShAArk92, what say you?
I tutor MBA students part-time. One of my students is a 50 something year old career Foreign Service Officer who's getting an executive MBA because his family wants him to help run their construction business. He was specially an economic officer in the Foreign Service. He's a PhD with absolutely no business sense whatsoever. He's very self-aware about this too and jokes about it. He tells me that his State Department colleagues viewed "private sector" thinking as like the Force from Star Wars. Something very innovative, mysterious, and actually highly-valued. When he got there, he was tasked to build relationships for USAID grants in Tajikistan and put together a conference. No one in the embassy had any contacts with any real business people in the capital and had no idea how to build those relationships. They had no idea what actually motivated business people. He told me they said, "You're the private sector guy...you should be able to talk to people and figure out where they are and get them on board to partner."
I can see someone in the basement of the Pentagon in the F-35 procurement office sh!ting his pants over Trump's tweet because, "doesn't he know the program director must first send a memo to request permission from the Service Chiefs to create a new RFP for distribution for the subcommittee's approval?"
Last edited: Jan 14, 2017