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To: sonofstrangelove
It is appalling how much we have vested in the F-35. The problem is really not about the money or its failure to meet performance goals; it's about numbers.

Not counting the F-22, what is the average age of our fighter fleet, 20 something years old? We have barely a handful of F-22s, far less than what the Air Force believes is required now and will be required well into the future. We have a teeny, tiny number of B-2s and B-1s. And the B-52? Why yes, it is your grandfather's B-52.

Should we ever have to fight someone with an actual air force and missile defenses and the fight lasts more than a weekend, we are done. The Russians, Indians and Chinese are building fighters and fighter/bombers. The Russians (with help from the Indians) just flew their 5th generation answer to our F-22, the T-50, and it will certainly numerically surpass our F-22s and possibly match and exceed it's performance as well. It was hardly an act of genius to stop building the F-22, but maybe the Russians will sell us some of their T-50 in addition to carrying us into space.

Should we lose a few of our satellites in a fight, how smart will our smart bombs be? How well will our drones/UAVs perform? How will we replace our handful of highly trained pilots and our handful of state of the art fighters and bombers lost in battle?

The bottom line is we are willingly surrendering our air superiority. When the next war breaks out, perhaps we should ask the French how to surrender on the battlefield.

12 posted on 02/01/2010 5:47:37 PM PST by GBA
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To: GBA
You left out the fact that our country is bankrupt and will probably not be able to correct the situation when we ditch the libs b/c we will have no money to do so. Gates is probably trying to go back to the F-22. Hope this is correct and that he succeeds.
14 posted on 02/01/2010 6:13:35 PM PST by Nuc1 (NUC1 Sub pusher SSN 668 (Liberals Aren't Patriots))
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