US manufacturers have a better plane — it’s called the Boeing 787. Boeing has already sold 800+ of them and it hasn’t even flown yet. The problem is that there is no freighter version of the 787 yet that could be used as a tanker...
I am not sure we can. Not when we spend gajillions of dollars on fielding a handful of sexy stealthy fighters when we could have still fielded a top-line fighter without a canopy that alone cost half a million dollars. Instead, we let our front-line fighters break apart in flight while pouring billions into a fighter that will never be bought in enough numbers to fill the void.
You tell me: can America really step up to the challenge with this kind of mentality?