• SSTFOPM
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    1410 months ago

    Yes that’s right. The company does adversary training, or in other words they play the role of the enemy in air-to-air combat training.

    They were buying the aged F-16s that are obsolete in Dutch service, having been replaced by F-35s.

    The company was trying to buy used hand me downs. It wouldn’t have been USAF pilots inside learning to pilot old F-16s.

    • @EdibleFriend
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      510 months ago

      It’s still a tad odd that the military needs help from a private company with US hardware at all isn’t it? They cant do war games with each other with their own shit?

      • @[email protected]
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        810 months ago

        Fighter pilots tend to be on 10 year contracts, and when they get out typically fly commercial.

        The business opportunity here is actually valuable.

        Offer those retired pilots a chance back in a fighter jet where they can live a non-military life while teaching younger pilots what 10 years of experience looks like.

      • @halcyoncmdr
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        310 months ago

        They could… But that doesn’t help get more money from the military budget to private company profits.

      • @[email protected]
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        310 months ago

        It’s your classic privatisation bullshit. It’s sold as a money saving exercise, but you just end up shoveling more tax money to a private enterprise. Instead of the military paying for pilots + maintenance + planes, the tax payer is paying for pilots + maintenance + planes + a healthy profit margin for some private company.

      • SSTFOPM
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        10 months ago

        deleted by creator