[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

The long range Phoenix has a terrible combat record...

And why is that? Because most recent conflicts have required fighters to get within visual range in order to make sure they are downing a bandit (can't just lob missiles at a bogey 50 miles away, because it might just be a civilian airliner).

ROE will be different for every conflict, and the question is which fighter solution will allow it to be used under the most varied conditions. The F22 will rule the skies in a close turn-and-burn engagement (the most likely in a limited war engagement) and will be untouchable from BVR (due to its stealth). The only advatages your mythical (yes, they are mythical becuase there's not a single one even on the drawing board) military space-plane has are speed and altitutde... what happens when the ROE say to eyeball a bogey before you can splash it?

[Southack]

"The F22 will rule the skies in a close turn-and-burn engagement (the most likely in a limited war engagement) and will be untouchable from BVR (due to its stealth).

There is no question that the F-22 is the best fighter ever deployed, but being the best buggy whip in an age of automobiles is pretty worthless.

And even the F-22 is vulnerable to HARM variant air to air and surface to air missiles, as well as to optical-processing missiles (i.e. camera+computer image processing). It's stealthy to active radar, not to either passive radar detection or visual (even by computer imaging) detection.

Moreover, the F-22 is so expensive that we can't buy enough of them to even provide CAP over F-22 airfields. By its own structural limitations (e.g. cost), it has to depend upon our older fighters for its own protection.

Why pay for that sort of nonsense?!

[Southack]

"The only advatages your mythical (yes, they are mythical becuase there's not a single one even on the drawing board) military space-plane has are speed and altitutde."

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?!

Speed and altitude equate to distance...the number one defense against being hit. As long as you have distance between you and the attacking missile, it has missed.

And that's what you want enemy missiles to do, miss.

Moreover, sub-orbital space planes are *already* flying (e.g. Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne). It is already possible for a kamikaze to pull another 9/11 in a sub-orbital aircraft...an aircraft that can fly over our current air defenses, by the way.

That's hardly a myth, as you claim above.