It is a great fighter, but probably far and away overkill compared to whatever might be it’s closest competitor any other country has to offer. Additionally, it seems that unmanned aircraft is the future.
Nothing is ‘overkill’ when it comes to defending our country.
Given its life expectancy is going to be 20-25 years, there is on such thing as overengineering up front. Lets not forget the B52 has been in service since 1955.
Since we’re building less than 300 of them, we need all the overkill we can get.
May have to pair it with F-15Cs to get more missiles out there.
“It is a great fighter, but probably far and away overkill compared to whatever might be it’s closest competitor any other country has to offer.”
Not really - the F-15 which it’s replacing was becoming increasingly vulnerable to the MIG-31 and similar aircraft. The F-22 should give us at least another 20 years of air superiority. One has to plan for the future, programs like this take many years to produce a product.
“Additionally, it seems that unmanned aircraft is the future.”
Indeed, but there will need to be humans at the scene from a judgement perspective. I could see every F-22 being accompanied by several high performance autonomous ‘shooters’, which could tasked in real time during a mission.
The F-22 is absolutely a necessary program, and one that’s paying off handsomely. F-22s might be some of the first aircraft entering Iranian airspace in the not-so-distant future.