The F-35 appears to work at this point in time. Is anybody saying anything about saving gigantic sums of money by not needing large carriers any more or about the force multiplier effect you could get by basing F-35s and ucavs on much smaller ships??
In this corner, we have Grandpa on steroids
In this corner, we have Grandson with 23 year old muscles and reflexes.
Any bets on who wins?
Our air supremacy is so lopsided that if we were to build nothing but F-16s and F-15s and F-18s...instead of the F-35...for the next 10 years, we'd still have OVERWHELMING air supremacy.
Avionics and weapons and tactics mean so much more than airframes and engines it's not even funny.
Oh, and numbers.
We have numbers.
I’ve felt for a long time that the F-16 could be a good candidate for an upgrade to vectored thrust. So much of the engine nozzle extends past the airframe that you could build the vectoring servos into the engine package, so no airframe modifications would be necessary, and all you’d need is the extra wiring for linking to the flight computers.
Drones are much cheaper and MORE EFFECTIVE in fighting against people causing the most trouble now a days. Cold war is long over (thank you president Reagan) and no country is interested in nuking US into oblivion, least of which is China since they depend on us as their most important export market. UK, France, India are democracies. Pakistan is a concern but our $10 Billion bribe every year will keep them from launching nuclear attack.