Anyway you cut it, we’re screwed. The F-35 is a boondoggle which won’t begin to see meaningful numbers for years and as the article indicates, is already handicapped by range. The Hornet platform is just getting too damned old. We should have had the F35 operational by now and dedicated to a single role, like attack. We killed off the A12 program for budget savings. We never learn, the Chicoms are going to love our Navy in the future as it degrades under the continued budgetary restraints. How fricking long does it take us to field a new plane? Decades now. Hell we’d be better off going back to A4s and A7s with some F4s to ride herd. I grew up in a Navy town, it is just so sad to see the diminution of the once proud fleet. Thank God our pilots remain the best on Earth...
The Navy is already dealing with the adverse impact that the reduced range of the Super Hornet has had on the CVWs spehere of influence. I find it interesting that you make no mention of Dick Cheney's idiotic and malicious decision to kill the F-14 and the far reaching implications that that has had on Naval aviation.