Interesting interview, thnx.
I do believe we need to get Berke immediate medical attention for his tongue. It has to be bitten clear through. Amazing level of patience, which we probably should expect from a Marine.
What he could do ... with his 22 plus years of actual real world experience in subjects, Sprey can't even comprehend, ... he did very well. I'm just going to address the thing he couldn't do. He couldn't say he "had fifty years" watching military procurement. He is simply too young .... so let's attack that question here and now.
Some .... many of us here
have FIFTY plus years and WERE there when Boyd/fighter mafia etc. etc. was happening. (some one nudge Gums and wake him up).
So Berke addressed the reality of 25 years of history, up to the present and visions of the future, better than anyone. I'm going to speak of the time between 50 and 25 years ago.
Sprey is a freaking liar, idiot, and his very credentials are distorted from what actually happened in the fighter mafia days. His greatest contribution, (which was minimal to non existent technically, and marginal in theory) was for a cheap day fighter vision of the F-16A, and the total trashing of what the F-15 would be.
Well. He was wrong! The F-15 was, and probably is one of the greatest air superiority fighters in history
IN WAR The F-16 was quickly changed into a multi-role F-16C and beyond fighter, with lots of expensive gadget avionics, radars, and pods. If it hadn't, the "day fighter" would have been way outclassed by the threats Israel and others faced (see F-4s in Yom Kipur war). Israel would not exist if Sprey was even close to knowing anything right. Sprey was totally wrong fifty years ago! He is full of sh@t. That's what Berke kept wanting to say, but was being polite to the old man.
Well we were there, old man !!!! when the first F-15A went operational, and when the F-16A was matured into the top fighter it has become. We were there, when the Air Force tried to plan what the A-10 contribution to stopping the Russian tank invasion wave might or could not be, cringing at the reality.
Sprey basically in this video slandered airmen, officers, and professionals with impunity. His entire argument is the generals are liars, the pilots are liars, the workers in the industry are liars. Well I will gladly trash him and I'll be telling the truth.
So you will hear on this board some blunt statements. Here's one. Sprey couldn't design a paper air plane that would go past his own feet. AND he never did design anything. His credentials are a fraud, stealing from the work of others. He's a washed up technocrat, a bureaucracy facilitator, trying to sound relevant. It's a shame he has gotten the ear of AvWeek and others in this debate, with a label he never earned. Berke should have just called him what he was... but he is a gentleman and an officer. I'm not sure I would have bit my tongue as hard.
Just MHO,
BP
PS We'll have to go offline for me to tell you what I really think ...
