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Yes by all means combine the air power under one service (Let's say the Air Force). Then the USAF will have a sea going wings, sea to shore wings, close attack wings, strategic attack wings. This will all be very confusing, and of course to integrate nicely, these wings will have to be subordinate to the on scene commander. So the sea going wings will be permanently attached to the Navy and be called something like USAF Naval Force. And so on, and so on. Different aircraft will still be required for the specialized missions, but there will be a cost savings on items such as motivational posters.

The units would be permanently attached, but not the pilots. They should be able to change out at will. Being carrier qualified would be just another qualification, kind of like being airborne qualified for an infantryman. God forbid, though, that'd force the USAF and Navy to come up with the same airplane to do the job (like the F-4 was) and we'd never do that.

Ground forces could *really* benefit from consolidation. Consolidate doctrine, military education, procurement, supply chains, all that stuff. The long term savings could be tremendous, and the tactical and operational efficiency of our soldiers could be much, much higher.

The F-4 was developed for the Navy. Being the first Navy jet ever to out perform its ground based peers, it was quickly jumped on by the USAF, despited the fact that it was much heavier than it needed to be for their purposes, and therefore less effective than a purpose built aircraft would have been.

The JSF is designed to be the one size fits all aircraft, and it might well be, but there is a much longer list of failures in this category.

Are you serious about rotating pilots? If so, then why stop there? We can get rid of separate training for helicopters, fighters, patrol, bombers, etc. After all a B-52 and a Harrier are both airplanes, and pilots fly airplanes.

And ground forces! Yes!!! Nail on the head!!!! If we could just get the Marines and the Army to use the same weapons, ammunition, helmets, etc. we wouldn't have those pesky supply chain problems where the Marine M-16s won't chamber the Army's M-16 ammo. Wait, something is amiss?

God forbid, though, that'd force the USAF and Navy to come up with the same airplane to do the job (like the F-4 was) and we'd never do that.

The F-35 JSF is exactly that airplane.

Previous attempts at this were all McNamara 'd up when the USAF and US Navy learned that their aircraft have specified missions that dictated different configurations. The F-4 was a naval interceptor that met USAF needs but is was a lousy gun platform (it didn't have one), it had poor weaponry (AIM-7 that went ballistic off the rails), it had lousy rudder effectiveness (the Navy wanted an interceptor, not a dogfighter) and it had a huge drag ratio (chop the throttles and its skidded to a stop in six feet...30,000 feet up).

Different missions mean great mission oriented aircraft or mediocre "one size fits all" compromises. Compromises lose air superiority and get you POWs and KIAs. Mission oriented aircraft get performance like the F-15. Not one air-to-air loss...ever.