Turbine D, how long does it take for the US Air Force to make the individual weapon systems operational for the aircraft?
The RAF has had the Eurofighter now for around 10 years I believe, I saw it on its first display year in 2005 and fell in love with it - hence my username. Anyway, it wasn't until around 2010-11 that it took over from the Tornado F3 to protect UK airspace and it deployed to Libya for its first active deployment.... and it's still not even close to being as good as the old Tornado GR4 for ground attack roles. The aircraft still isn't fully operational (no Brimstone, no Storm Shadow and I don't think it has the Paveway IV yet) so if the USAF is anything like the RAF, how do they expect to have the F-35 operational by 2016, whether they have aircraft techies to hand or not?