A hijack use to mean taking a plane to Cuba.

Once again too, I agree with RadarNav. Just because the current war is against asymmetrical opponents, that doesn’t mean a near-peer (China, Russia, India, etc.) won’t challenge our forces in the future for resources. Once that happens, it’s far too late to start building the next gen fighters.

The bottom line is if you choose stealth…and more titanium instead of the aluminum in the F-16 for instance…then you must live with fewer fighters and bombers. Otherwise air services require a disproportionate share of the DoD budget.

The good news is that stealth would cost our enemies just as much. No nation on earth will be able to produce sufficient numbers of stealth aircraft to match the U.S F-22/F-35 fleet, even assuming that they figure out similar technology. Add the exponential increase in the future price of fuel, and maintenance of stealth that deters pilot training, and we can easily handle any threat air force when you add all our services fighters, our own highly capable air defenses, and allied fighter fleets.

But when you see pictures in Georgia, you don’t focus on Russian jets. You see Russian tanks and BMPs because those are the systems that establish a ground presence. True our fighters/bombers could put a hurt on those tanks/BMPs…but not so easily if they hide or intermingle with the Georgian population. In the end, you need both airpower and ground power to deter Russia, and fight them conventionally if required should their aggression spread to other former Eastern Bloc countries.

So be happy with your last generation of manned aircraft, because with fuel and stealth materiel costs as they are, the next time around we will have many more unmanned fighters/bombers up there resembling Reapers rather than F-22s.

Iceball: I would reconsider your comments given this week’s international events with Russia. Just because we are in the GWOT does not mean our serious conventential competitors have given up their aims. Any aggressive land action against any nation state requires the establishment of air dominance first so the ground troops have some chance of success. Without air dominance, the ground forces can be easily decimated and cut off by an adversary’s air power.

For the missions we’re running now and in the forseable future A-10s would be the most effective and most cost-effective platform you could come up with.

Stating the obvious. The bean counter writing that report should be required to “ride along” on the first available “hot” combat mission to see how his attitude changes about money and tech vs. the life of the aircrew.