The fact that we currently have know enemy that would require such a advanced weapon, is in fact irrelevant. In the future we will have an adversary with the capability to test us. We need to make sure there test's are failures.
The argument has been made that we may not need very many currently, that is a good argument, and one that has been taken to heart, with a reduced purchase plan of only 182.
That seems reasonable for an aircraft that is so superior to anything in the skies that it will achieve air dominace just by taking off. I've seen reports that it is so superior that it has never lost in a combat exercise in a 10 on 1 situation. The enemy will simply not take off for fear of getting shot down, like the Iraqi's during the first gulf war, where they ran for Iran.
Fighter aircraft are destined to get much cheaper in the future, because the technology has already out stripted the human stress threshold. The F-22 is fly by wire, partly because the computer in-between the pilot and the control surfaces will not let the pilot make extreame changes in direction because the pilot could literaly die from the capabilites of the aircraft used to it's fullist.
Future fighters will not have a pilot inside the aircraft but may still be flown by remote and computer control.
This alone will reduce the cost of the aircraft because a large percentage of the cost of manufacture and design is the human pilots safety.
To have an aircraft that is superior and puts no pilot at risk it seem to me is the holy grail of air combat.
Our children who play flight sym's may very well be our next aces.
Kind of like Ender's Game? It may not be an exact fit, but when I read your statement, that's the first thing that came to mind. I think it's been nearly 20 years since I read that book, so my memory on it is a little fuzzy...
"I've seen reports that it is so superior that it has never lost in a combat exercise in a 10 on 1 situation."
No shiite!? That's incredible.