Word: aircraft
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...What about the sleek B-2? Ironically, while the B-2 performed well, the success of older aircraft may make it harder for the services to bring costly new planes on line. In the coming decades, the Pentagon plans to spend $300 billion on three new classes of warplanes, including $62.2 billion for a fleet of 339 F-22 fighters. But if U.S. air forces are so good, the thinking goes, why upgrade...
...plane approached through a break in the clouds and that the runway was largely visible at all times. But if the plane was facing winds of over 50 m.p.h., it was in danger, says Flight Safety Foundation president Stuart Matthews. "That's a helluva lot of wind, and most aircraft can't handle it." Even American Airlines vice president Cecil Ewell told reporters, "If somebody told me there were 50-knot [57.5-m.p.h.] gusts at the airport, I would be leaving town...
...much explosive power as what the U.S. stuffs into one Trident submarine. China's ballistic-missile sub (singular, not plural) hasn't been to sea for a year and would be sunk in minutes in a battle with a U.S. attack sub. The People's Republic has no aircraft carriers (the U.S. maintains 11 carrier battle groups), no long-range strategic bombers (the U.S. has 174) and funds this stumbling juggernaut with a budget of 14 cents for every dollar the U.S. spends on defense. The P.L.A., says the Pentagon, is "still decades away from possessing a comprehensive capability...
...debate, a deeply reluctant Pentagon and White House agreed to deploy the Army's premier tank killers--but not to use them in battle. More than two weeks later, to great fanfare, the first of 24 began arriving in Albania along with their 5,350 attendant soldiers, where two aircraft crashed, killing two pilots in practice exercises. Top Pentagon officials oppose putting the gunships into the skies over Kosovo. "We're not going to trade two Apaches for six Serb tanks," a U.S. military officer said, explaining the fear of losses if the Apaches go into battle. Now it appears...
...battlefield carrying small arms and shoulder-fired weapons," says ex-Apache commander Colonel Mike Hackerson, now at the Pentagon. "It could turn into a bit of a knife fight, but that's part of the business." The grunts who fly the choppers say they're confident in their aircraft and their mission plan. "Some people have a perception that we are daunted by the threat posed by heat-seeking missiles, small-arms fire, radar systems and things like that," says Captain Mark Arden, with Task Force Hawk in Albania. "But enormous resources are put into this aircraft to defeat just...